“I was sorry to have my name mentioned as one of the great authors, because they have a sad habit of dying off. Chaucer is dead, Spencer is dead, so is Milton, so is Shakespeare, and I’m not feeling so well myself.”
– Mark Twain, in a “Speech to the Savage Club,” 9 June 1899 (about ten years before his death)
I should give a disclaimer that I’ve never read a single book that Mark Twain wrote. I watched a movie or two based on “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” and have often heard of his masterpiece “Huckleberry Finn.” But since I didn’t take Honors English in high school, I was never required to read any of his works (although I have heard bits and pieces of them). But I have often been amused by some of his quips, and have admired the quality of his language despite this. Nonetheless, I don’t claim to be an expert on Mark Twain, and can give only a layperson’s view of this documentary. I shall leave the literary criticism to reviewers more qualified to engage in it.
This documentary is a biography, which shows both his uproariously funny humor …
To begin with, this documentary is first and foremost a biography. It is not a dramatization of any of his books, although quotations from some of his works do appear here. It uses actual photographs from the time to tell the story of this great author, and has the voice acting of Kevin Conway to bring his words to life. It also has the brilliant narration of Keith David, who may be one of the best narrators in the business. It even makes use of about two or three minutes of silent footage of Mark Twain. Mark Twain is one of the funniest people in American history, and his quips often have the power to tickle one’s funny bone, even when they are not really in the mood to be tickled. But Mark Twain also had a darkly depressive streak, which was seldom visible to others. I think that Mark Twain suffered from bipolar disorder, which used to be known as manic-depression. I think that he suffered from it throughout his life, and that it would make his life difficult at times. On the “manic” side of things, he had a great sense of humor that would make him one of America’s funniest comedians, doing an early version of stand-up comedy for paying audiences. But on the more dysfunctional side, he had trouble controlling his massive spending, and was known for the kind of spending sprees that are characteristic of mania and manic phases. In some ways, manic phases may be even worse than the depression itself, and can have terrible financial consequences for those who go through them.
Library of Twain House, with hand-stenciled paneling, fireplaces from India, embossed wallpaper, and hand-carved mantel from Scotland
… and his darkly depressive streak
On the “depressive” side, Mark Twain had a capacity to blame himself for virtually everything that had ever gone wrong in his life. He had the ability to be very bitter about life and God, and could withdraw from life when he was feeling blue. At one point, he attempted suicide by pointing a gun to his head. He later said that he had “never been sorry” for making the attempt, but that he had “often been sorry” that he did not succeed (a paraphrase that I should acknowledge here). His worst struggles with depression were in his younger days, where he struggled with alcoholism and other frowned-upon vices. Some of this seems to have gotten better when he married Olivia Langdon, but some amount of depression would haunt him intermittently throughout his life. This documentary covers much of his depressive streak, and shows that his peaks were often followed by troughs, where he could sink into deep depressions and even self-loathing. Mark Twain once said that sadness is the key ingredient in humor, and opined that there is “no laughter in heaven.” One remembers the humor in this film, but one also remembers the sadness, and how he struggled so mightily with depression (and the aforementioned “manic” phases).
Picture of Samuel Clemens (later “Mark Twain”) at age 15
I think that Mark Twain was a manic-depressive, who would have benefited from modern medication
Mark Twain probably would have benefited from modern medication, but he instead sought refuge in the kinds of self-medication that were available in his day – few (if any) of which were actually adaptive or helpful. For example, he smoked like a chimney throughout his life, and was something of an alcoholic in his youth (as mentioned earlier). His friends opined that he “got drunk oftener than was necessary,” and that he was lecherous, lazy, of no account, and that they could not recommend him to marry any girl of high character. These character references did not make a positive impression on his future father-in-law and mother-in-law, but they did eventually give their blessing to this marriage despite this. His wife insisted that he give up his heavy drinking, which he soon did. Eventually, he gave up even the social drinking that his wife had reluctantly agreed to permit him. But he could suck her into his depressions at times, and eventually pulled her away from religion as well.
Mark Twain
His masterpiece “Huckleberry Finn” showed a character unlearning the racism of his youth …
But despite his mood disorders – or perhaps because of them – he was able to write beautiful literature that moved people deeply, and sometimes changed their view of the world. He had the power to make them laugh, but he also had the power to make them cry. His masterpiece “Huckleberry Finn” has often been decried as “racist,” but it was about as far removed from actual “racism” as it was possible to be. The book included depictions of racist treatment (and even racist language), but they did not portray these things in a positive light. Quite the contrary, they portrayed them as “ugly” and “degrading,” both of which were quite accurate depictions. In many parts of the book, Huck is unlearning the racist views that he had been taught in his youth, and beginning to see his runaway-slave friend Jim as a “human being.” He had been taught that it was his duty to catch runaway slaves, and thus actually considered helping the authorities to bring his friend Jim back to his master. He believed in the most literal sense of the phrase that if he helped Jim to escape, he would “go to hell” eternally as punishment. But at the last moment, he hesitated, and decided that he was willing to go to hell eternally to save his friend. “All right, then,” he said, “I’ll go to hell”– and promptly tore up the note with the information about Jim’s whereabouts. Thus, he is willing to sacrifice a happy eternal life to save his close friend – and this, in a nutshell, is what this work is about. Again, I have not actually read the work for myself, but I know from the quotations here that it is not a “racist” book, as it is so often claimed to be today.
Mark Twain
… to eventually see former slaves as “human beings” (the correct view)
One of the commentators here says that “a Northerner could not have written Huck Finn,” for the reason that it would take a Southerner whose perspective had changed. Mark Twain (then Samuel Clemens) was actually born a slaveholder’s son in Missouri, and grew up with a view of slavery as the “peculiar institution” – the South’s euphemism of choice for slavery, and specifically for slaveholding. He noted how the local pulpit had taught that God approved it, and had quoted from the Bible to bolster their dubious case – or, at least, appear to do so. “If the slaves themselves had any aversion to slavery,” he later said, “they were wise, and said nothing.” Had the slaves dared to complain about their situation in life, they would surely have been punished by their masters for doing so. Thus, their true feelings about slavery were largely unknown to white people like Mark Twain. Thus, it may have been quite natural for him (ignorantly) to assume that they were “satisfied” with their unfortunate situation in life. Only after the Civil War, and after he had moved to the North, would he come to a more enlightened view about slavery and racism, and come to see them both as the terrible moral evils that they were.
Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut
A response to the allegations that “Huck Finn” is a “racist” book …
His conversations with former slaves after the war would motivate him to write “Huckleberry Finn,” and to give a far more negative portrayal of the institution that he had grown up with. “Huckleberry Finn” is thus one of the most anti-racism books ever written, and the attacks against it today from its uses of “racist language” are all too often taken as “approval” of that language. It might seem strange to say this; but to educate people about what to avoid in life, it is sometimes necessary to give them an example of the “wrong” kind of behavior, and to portray its harmful consequences in the process. Only then will people know why these rules actually “make sense,” and why they are indeed “worth adopting.” If we shelter people from the realities of the world, they will not be tough enough to face it when they see it. Thus, we should expose people from an early age to (at least some of) the darker sides of life. This will help them to appreciate how far our society has come in this regard, and how much progress it has really made on this issue. I apologize for a rant that may seem somewhat off-topic, but it is characteristic of our world to forget the truth about the past; and we must not pretend that all in history is rosy when we talk about complex issues like slavery and racism. These things have a long (and complicated) history, which should not be ignored by the up-and-coming generation.
Huckleberry Finn, as depicted by E. W. Kemble in the original 1884 edition of the book
Conclusion: Ken Burns really gets to the soul of the man in this biography
Ken Burns once said that race is one of his “professional interests,” and I’m sure that this motivated him to examine Mark Twain and his much-misunderstood, much-maligned book. I am thus glad that Ken Burns didn’t “drink the Kool-Aid” on this issue (like so many people do), but was willing to give a more nuanced approach here, which is able to get far closer to the truth. His biography is not always sympathetic, but tends to criticize him for more appropriate reasons, and give him the praise that he deserves for his under-appreciated accomplishments in this area. Few of Twain’s critics have ever actually read his work (and I admit freely that I haven’t myself), and their criticisms thus tend to be based upon the most fundamental misunderstandings possible. By contrast, Ken Burns was able to take a deeper look at this great American icon, and come far closer to the soul of the man in the process.
“I happened to look around and see that paper. It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: ‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’—and tore it up.”
– Mark Twain's “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's comrade),” Chapter XXXI
DVD at Amazon
If you liked this post, you might also like:
A review of Ken Burns’ “Thomas Jefferson”
A review of Ken Burns’ “Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery”
A review of Ken Burns’ “Jackie Robinson”
A review of PBS's “Walt Disney” (American Experience)
A review of Ken Burns’ “Jazz”
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment