Customer Reviews

Extract From Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (1909) (Oxford Mark Twain)

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Tired of tedious, if earnest, pseudo-philosophizers who will give you all the secrets of universal happiness in ten minutes a day? Tired of smug pulpit-pounders who somehow, while still human, seem to "know" as much as any divinity you can think of? Then it's time to spend an hour with Mark Twain. Come on: you haven't given the old guy a minute since you had to read "Huckleberry Finn" in high school or college, and it's about time you did. Captain Stormfield's "Extract" is just the tonic your overburdened soul needs. Stormfield's heaven seems to let everybody in, and to do its best to fulfill every one of their dreams, until-- you guessed it--their expectations conflict. How can Moses, for example, be expected to greet every faithful Jew, Christian and Muslim, with hugs and kisses without 1] getting soaked with slobber, and 2] getting disgusted with his lack of free time? "[The patriarchs] are kind and gentle old Jews, but they ain't any fonder of kissing the emotional highlights of Brooklyn than you be." Enough said.

"Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" is one of Mark Twain's many excellent satires and one that seems to have been particularly important to him in that he worked on it over decades. A novella or longish short story, it was begun in the 1860s and apparently finished in the 1890s but not published in book form until 1909, six months before Twain's death. This was his last major publication. It is easy to see why he held back; the work is highly irreverent, poking merciless fun at the Abrahamic religions, specifically Christianity. Many cherished beliefs are exposed as foolish and/or nonsensical, and the story goes a long way toward putting long-accepted, rarely-questioned dogmas in a new light. That said, it is very light-hearted satire compared to most of Twain's late works, especially the satires. The story is full of humor and goes on for quite a while in a light vein before reaching the satirical meat. Even when the latter arrives, the bitterness and anger we might expect are absent. As always, Twain makes sure that the story is entertaining, which keeps us reading despite the somewhat bitter pill, but this is not his strongest work artistically. The plot is very episodic to the extent that anything happens at all, and much of it is conveyed in somewhat contrived dialogue that can border on heavy-handed. Even so, anyone who appreciates Twain's satire and/or theological views will find much to like. In addition, like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, "Extract" is a notable example of proto-science fiction. It is a good introduction to the darker works and well worth reading in itself, though the fact that it is in many collections - The Complete Short Stories, The Bible According to Mark Twain, etc. - makes a standalone hard to justify.

"Report from Paradise" is Mark Twain's last published book and it took him over forty years to finish it. It has also been reported that it was the only story Twain aka Samuel Clemens actually enjoyed writing.

Twain's description of the afterlife as seen through the eyes of a sailor is quite original and there are many interesting aspects to Twain's at times taunting writing, with clear implications to social criticism tetectable.

"Report from Paradise" is a short and light read, and despite it's many inconsistancies it manages to relay a fun quality to it with the expence of blindly followed religious beliefs and ways of thinking.