Author Mark Munger (Cloquet River Press)

Autobiography of Mark Twain Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith (2010. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-26719-0).

Wow. This is a ginormous work. The introduction is 58 pages alone. The main text runs 469 pages of very small font in its present hard cover, textbook size format. The Explanatory Notes begin at page 469 and end at page 650; which are then followed by the Appendices. All in all, the book runs well over 700 pages. But here’s the thing: It is the 469 pages of Samuel L. Clemens’s fits and starts, his attempts to chronicle his life both in and out of letters, that make this work sing. In many ways, I wish the scholars who are charged with preserving Clemens’s life story, a story he forbid publication of until 100 years after his demise (he died in 1910 at the age of 74; hence the publication of the book in 2010) had chosen to honor one of America’s greatest humorists and storytellers by putting his words in a format we commoners would appreciate. This effort, as brilliant as it may be in terms of documentation and scholarship, is anything but reader friendly.

First off, have you ever tried to sit in bed, or in a chair, or on a sofa, or in a hammock (likely the place ol’ Mark himself would prefer on a sunny Missouri afternoon) with a book having the heft of a small pig and the girth of a fat woman? Can’t be done, at least not in comfort. For a life story about a man of the people, a guy whose humor was revered by the unwashed masses, this book leaves those folks in the dust: It’s a friggin dictionary, for Pete’s sake. It is cumbersome and unwieldy. It’s heavy and can cause the reader who deigns to pick the volume up without  proper precautions (think stretching exercises) a hernia. No, friends, this is not what Mr. Clemens envisioned when he left his life story behind for posterity.

Then there is the structure of the book itself. Broken up as it is into a faux doctoral thesis, the magic of Twain gets lost in the egg headed highbrowness of someone’s vision of what posterity demands of Clemens’s life story. Why not, good editors, create two versions of the book and release them simultaneously: The thick thighed monolith of prose that I am now staring at and trying to describe (perfect for Twain aficionados and scholars) and a slimmer, more robustly entertaining volume for dullards like me? You know, folks that actually want to read Clemens purely for entertainment and enjoyment? With digital technology, there’s no cost involved in creating two manuscripts from the same wealth of material. And guess what? You’d have a book, in the smaller, less ostentatious version, a guy like Munger could bring with him to the beach. Fancy that.

Enough complaining. So how is Clemens’s autobiography as story? Riveting. It takes a bit to get used to the fact that Clemens was trying to break ground here with the format he chose (dictated recollections which don’t necessarily proceed in chronological order). But once you’re able to forget your initial skepticism as to the book’s non-sequential arrangement, hold on to your hats! The stories are first rate. The humor, vintage Mark Twain. Here’s a sample which purports to recount the author’s first visit with Governor (later President) Grover Cleveland:

So Cable and I went to that majestic Capitol building and stated our errand. We were shown into the Governor’s private office, and I saw Mr. Cleveland for the first time. We three stood chatting together. I was born lazy, and I comforted myself by turning over the corner of a table into a sort of seat. Presently the Governor said:

“Mr. Clemens, I was a fellow citizen of yours in Buffalo a good many months, a good while ago, and during those months you burst suddenly into a mighty fame, out of a previous long continued and no doubt proper obscurity– but I was a nobody and you wouldn’t notice me nor have anything to do with me. But now that I have become somebody, you have changed your style, and you come here to shake hands with me and be sociable. How do you explain this kind of conduct?”

“Oh,”I said, “it is very simple…In Buffalo, you were nothing but a sheriff. I was in society. I couldn’t afford to associate with sheriffs. But you are a Governor, now, and you are on your way to the Presidency. It is a great difference, and it makes you worth while.”

Splendid writing, that.

Feast on this little snippet of a scene from a more serious topic: Twain’s recollection of his first meeting with Helen Keller who was born blind, deaf, and dumb:

I remember the first time I had the privilege of seeing her. She was fourteen years old then. She was to be at Laurence Hutton’s house on a Sunday afternoon, and twelve or fifteen men and women had been invited to come and see her…The company had all assembled and had been waiting a while. The wonderful child arrived now, with her equally wonderful teacher, Miss Sullivan…The guests were brought one after another and introduced to her. As she shook hands with each she took her hand away and laid her fingers lightly against Miss Sullivan’s lips, who spoke against them the person’s name. When a name was difficult, Miss Sullivan not only spoke it against Helen’s fingers, but spelled it in upon Helen’s hand…Then I told her a long story, which she interrupted all along and in the right places, with cackles, chuckles, and care-free bursts of laughter. Then Miss Sullivan put one of Helen’s hands against her lips and spoke against it the question: “What is Mr. Clemens distinguished for?” Helen answered, in her crippled speech, “For his humor”. I spoke up modestly and said, “And for his wisdom.” Helen said the same words instantly–“And for his wisdom.” I suppose it was a case of mental telegraphy, since there was no way for her to know what it was I had said.

For those readers, like myself, who’ve attended one or more of actor Hal Holbrook’s legendary performances, where, through magical metamorphosis, the actor becomes Mark Twain, the gems of observation in this book bring to mind Holbrook’s absolutely dead-on portrayal. This book could have been one of those raggedy epistles every writer carries around in his or her backpack when he or she wanders off to think big thoughts. Sadly, you’d need a truck to cart this book with you in its ill-conceived present configuration. But here’s hoping a more pedestrian, less high-brow version of this excellent work comes out soon.

5 stars out of 5 for Clemens’s original content; 3 and 1/2 stars out of 5 in its present format.

The Big Sky by A.B. Guthrie, Jr. (Mariner. 1947. ISBN 978-0-618-15463-0)

Dark. Foreboding. Tense. Intense. Unapologetic. Testosterone-driven fiction. These are the adjectives I’d use to describe Guthrie’s classic western novel depicting the travels and life of Boone Caudill, a Kentucky boy who, after getting the better of his abusive Pa, steals his father’s long gun and sets out for the American West. There is little light or redemption in this tale. Think Clint Eastwood with no remorse, no slight grin, and a whole lot of anger. That’s, in my mind’s eye, Boone Caudill.

The landscapes painted by Guthrie fairly sing under his pen. The long, disastrous raft trip up the Missouri from St. Louis to Fort Union, Montana, is so well done, you’re wiping your brow free of sweat as you pole along with the ill-fated crew of the Mandan as you read. Teal Eye, the Blackfoot girl Boone meets, falls in love with, and later (as she reaches adulthood) takes as his own, is the only female character other than Boone’s long-suffering Ma who appears in the book. This is a man’s journey, a man’s book. but one that readers of both genders will understand and appreciate.

I have to believe that Larry McMurtry read this book long before he sat down to pen Lonesome Dove, one of my favorite novels of all time. There’s an element of Boone in Captain Call (the character played by Tommy Lee Jones in the miniseries) a strong resemblance between the characters that can’t simply be chalked up to coincidence.

In the end,this book stands, like its protagonist, tall and brutal. It is a “must read” for anyone interested in Montana, the early days of the Mountain Men, and the American West.

5 stars out of 5.

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (1964 (Restored Edition, 2010). Scribner. ISBN 1-4391-8271-0)

So what’s not to like? Reading Hemingway’s memoir of the time he and his first wife Hadley spent in Paris in the 1920s in the company of Gertrude Stein, F.Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, and a host of other poets, writers, and artists is like descending into a time machine and turning back the clock. The writing, done at the end of Hemingway’s long career, is some of his best, if a bit abbreviated. We will never know exactly how the book should read in its final edit because Hemingway killed himself before the memoir was completed. Still, with this edition’s added excerpts and snippets, the book contains some of Papa’s best prose: succinct, declarative, bald, and honest. There is absolutely none of the blatant misogyny that mars Hemingway’s other works. In fact, his portrayal of his betrayal of Hadley (through his affair with her best friend, who became Hemingway’s second wife) is an apology that Hemingway likely never made in public before his death.

It’s also the kind of writing that begs for more:

Scott Fitzgerald

His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than a butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think. He was flying again and I was lucky to meet him just after a good time in his writing if not a good one in his life.

Though others have written that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s jealousy of his wife’s writing talent assisted in driving her mad, Hemingway doesn’t see it that way. Which is the correct view, I’ll leave to you and history. However, one does get the sense that Hemingway tends to overlook the faults of those he respects, and inflate the faults of those he considers inferior: Just a caution to the reader to look at other sources before deciding whether to accept Hemingway’s version of truth as true.

This, and the fact the book left me wanting more (which is what a good book should do) are my only criticisms of the restored version of this great look into the life of one of America’s greatest writers.

4 and 1/2 stars out of 5.

Red Moon over White Sea by Laila Hietamies (1992 (English Translation: 2000). Aspasia Books. ISBN 0-9685881-4-x)

My pal Gerry Henkel, editor of The New World Finn, handed me a copy of this novel a few months back when we were talking about Sukulaiset: The Kindred, my latest work in progress. Set in Karelia, the U.S., Estonia, and Finland, Sukalaiset is a massive undertaking; my attempt to chronicle the events in Finland-Karelia-Estonia from 1918 to the present through fiction. Because Red Moon takes place in Viena, a Finnish speaking enclave of Russian Karelia just before the fall of Czar Nicholas II, Gerry thought it would give me some insight into the region, its people, and its history. He was right. But more than that, Red Moon is a whale of a good yarn as well.

Well-written, with believable characters and dialogue, the real beauty of Ms. Hietamie’s prose is the landscape. It has been said by others that one of the hallmarks of my own writing is my ability to call upon various settings as if the forests, lakes, farms, and rivers are characters in my tales. As the writer being referenced, I don’t have sufficient distance from my own work to comment upon that observation. But I can heap similar praise upon Red Moon: I felt as if I was riding, walking, and rowing the paths, roads, and lakes of early 20th century Karelia as the story of Anna Lisa Huotari and her grandfather, Ilja, unfolds and as they negotiate the dangerous politics and intrigue of pre-Soviet Karelia. The plot has a predictability to it but, given the quality of the overall story and Hietamie’s prose, that is but a minor distraction in this very fine read.

4 stars out of 5.

Big Russ and Me by Tim Russert (Hyperion, 2004. ISBN 978-1-4013-5965-2)

As an unabashed Liberal (note the large “L”) from a long line of unabashed Liberals (see the “books” tab in the dashboard and read the excerpt from my latest book, Mr. Environment), I of course loved Tim Russert’s political commentary. Not because he revealed his love and passion for all things left when he hosted “Meet the Press” but because he was one of the few commentators who refused to cow-tow to the thugs running Washington during the run-up to the Iraq War and thereafter. In this book, really a memoir of Tim’s life constructed around his roots and upbringing in South Buffalo, New York in the shadow of “Big Russ”, his father, we learn why Russert was not one to back down from a fight when interviewing the most powerful men and women in the world.

As a Protestant, I sometimes loathe, and oftentimes lament, the ritual and structure of the Catholic Church. Russert’s life story, growing up in an Irish Catholic working class family (his father worked two jobs to support Tim and his siblings) puts Catholicism in perspective and gave me a new appreciation for the depth and power of traditional faith in the formation of morals, family values and ethics. The snippets of life lived in parochial schools, from elementary school to law school, are priceless treasures and give perspective to the story of two ordinary men; a father and his son, who strove for, and at least, in terms of the the son’s short life, achieved the American dream. Russert’s depiction of meeting the Pope in Rome when he was working on the “Today Show”, left me in tears.

We miss you Tim. I have to give the book 5 of 5 stars. Even though it may not be Germinal or Lonesome Dove in terms of literary merit, it’s a great read about two extraordinary ordinary Irish Catholic Americans.

Under the Banner of Heaven: A story of a Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer (Anchor, 2004. ISBN 978-1-4000-3280-8)

OK, I’ll admit to my prejudice. As an historian, I have a hard time buying Joseph Smith’s story regarding the discovery of the golden plates near the Hill Cumorah in the early 19th century. There are many arguments that I could advance here to illustrate why I am a skeptic when it comes to Smith’s claim that divinity led him to the Mormon faith and to the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) a few years later. This review isn’t the place for such a debate. And even in my fightingest mood as an Episcopalian, I must admit: the Mormons, as the fastest growing faith in the world, are on to something.

Jon Krakauer explores what that something is not by examining the brutal murder of a woman and her infant daughter at the hands of the woman’s brothers-in-law (the child’s paternal uncles). Krakauer’s work unravels the dedication and call to duty that permeates the LDS faith, and in the case of LDS Fundamentalism, rises to the level of murder.

There is no question that the issue of polygamy remains the central principle of the tens of thousands of Fundamentalist Mormons who cannot reconcile the teachings of Joseph Smith (and the leadership of Brigham Young) with the modern LDS stand against plural marriage. Krakauer explores these fissures in the only American-born religion in great detail, and paints a picture that the LDS hierarchy would rather went unnoticed.

Krakauer interviews one of the brothers involved in the murders which form the centerpiece of the book. And as Krakauer questions the faith, the motives, and the ideas contained in the seemingly innocent and benevolent mind of Dan Lafferty (the brother who wielded the knife that slashed the throats of his sister-in-law and niece) one gets the sense that religious zealotry is not only found in third-world countries. Just like Timothy McVie, who evinced no remorse for killing dozens of children as part of his attack on the federal building in Oklahoma City, Dan Lafferty seems content with what he has done. After all, God spoke to his brother Allen and Allen relayed the plan to Dan. Isn’t that how it was done in the Old Testament?

Krakauer never loses sight of the fact that, as cynical as outsiders might be regarding the historic accuracy of Joseph Smith’s discovery, no one within the mainstream LDS church, the church that raised the Laffery brothers, supports their theology or their crimes. But, even though the modern church has distanced itself from the fringes, the Laffertys’ brand of Mormonism shares a common history with the mainstream church.

The Lafferts’ brutality isn’t far removed from the legendary Mormon trek west; a journey which reached the height of paranoid depravity with the massacre of over one hundred men, women and children. Surrounded by Mormon militia and their Native American allies at a place called Mountain Meadows in August of 1857, members of an Arkansan wagon train were assured safe passage through Utah by the Mormon commander if they surrendered their weapons. The travelers did so, with nary a hint of fear, only to be slaughtered.

According to the author, the religious fervor that caused sane men to commit such an atrocity still lurks in the dark fringes of Mormonism. There has been no recognition by the LDS church of the church’s involvement in the massacre.  Even today, the official line remains: “It was the Indians.” And this failure, Krakauer convincingly asserts, is why folks like Allen and Dan Lafferty persist at the far edges of Joseph Smith’s religion nearly 200 years later.

A great non-fiction book on a misunderstood and under appreciated religion, Under the Banner of Heaven is also a solid “true crime” story. 4 stars out of 5.