The Library Annex

People ought to start dead and then they would be honest so much earlier.

My Granddaddy gave me this edition and I’ve finally read it. Unfortunately, I cannot discuss it with him as he passed away last May. A college professor in west-central Illinois, he felt a kinship with Mark Twain and I now have a deeper understanding of why. My Granddady would make jokes like, “Even my friend Ed Dibble would like this food!” While standing at the kitchen counter next to him, ready to dry the dishes he would wash by hand (yes, he had a dishwasher), we would discuss the fascinating dramas of a middle-school boy. But each time I would say “Um” he would flick me with the reflexes of a panther. “We’re going to work those verbal ticks right out of your head!” I no longer say “Um”.

He wrote a memoir of his own and as I read Mark Twain’s autobiography I feel a certain kinship to it; much like I do with the Iowa farm boy enammored with evolving technical innovation sewn into the fabric of the American Spirit. My Granddaddy called his memoir “Ah, Sweet Misery of Life” as a humorous play on the song title “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life”. This was his Twain-esque humor, because all he found in life, amidst the challenges, was joy from service and the beauty of all God had gifted him. I do not claim that these two men are the same. Rather, I would argue that their attitude toward life and their adaption to it reflect a common immersion in the time and place of their upbringing.

Mark Twain, that beloved author of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, carried a cynicism for life and an aversion to the human race that he translated into humor. But more interestingly, he never blames people for their nature. He constantly supported “lazy” family members and friends who seemed cursed to fail in any venture. He willingly partnered with corrupt publishers and wasted cash on faulty investments. But in death, he makes his true feelings and observations known. One might find this choice cold, sinister, even cowardly, until they learn that he demanded delayed publishing of his autobiography until those of whom he spoke would also be dead so as not to impede on their lives and reputations. I cannot say for certain why he would so willingly entangle himself to these anchors. Surely, he must have felt filial duty or made honest mistakes. I suspect, however, that something else drove him. I cannot say with any authority but I like thinking about it!

At times, the book failed to hold my attention. But then he would speak about his ladies; his wife and his daughters – Susy, Jean and Clara. The extremity of the beauty and soul poured into these sections are only matched by the extremities of his cynicism and humor towards the human race.

If this had been a biography, rather than an autobiography, Mark Twain would be lost to us. The reader would struggle to imagine a multi-dimensional wholistic person and find themselves left only with an icon. When we consider his intent to speak from the grave, one feels, more than 100 years after his passing, that they know him better than those who lived alongside him, barring his family. Yet simultaneously, we know little from this book about the icon or how he was perceived by his counterparts. When we read his books, we imagine the icon, dress him in white clothes to match the hair we see in portraits. Understandably, we most likely want to feed that icon, fatten the image, worship at its shrine. If you want to affirm your imagination, this is not the book for you. If you want to humanize him in your mind – beyond generic tragedy and sensationalism – this will do the trick.