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The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg (The Art of the Novella)

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Some books have a way of coming back. They are not of their time necessarily. But at their core is the human comedy which never grows stale or loses its relevance. Shakespeare's MacBeth is such a work. After all, the hunger for power and the willingness to murder in order to obtain it are universal in the human experience. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg retains its luster for very similar reasons.

I've often believed there are two Mark Twains. I won't argue that one of them is Samuel Clemens. But the Twain who wrote Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was not the same man who had been hardened by financial troubles and the death of several family members later in life. That Twain was a bitter, cynical bloke who had a bone to pick with the world. And damn me if you will, but I love that Twain much better.

Maybe it's because my favorite works by Twain are not the perfectly rendered classics he penned at the height of his career. I read both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn as part of my school curriculum. I found them interesting and well written. I do consider them to be classics. But in some ways, I never quite connected with those novels. Much like The Adventures of Augie March or Anna Karenina, I respected the writer and the works, but neither sunk into my soul.

My connection with Twain started with Pudd'nhead Wilson. Twain's satirical take on racial problems in America possesses a great sense of wit, but also a razor-sharp dissection of what makes humans tick. It is not a beautiful portrait of America. Nor is The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg. Once again, this was not a content man, but one who had literally fled the country to escape his creditors. Twain actually scrawled out ...Hadleyburg on hotel stationary from his various stops in Europe.

The visceral anger that Twain felt towards his homeland and his hatred for human greed in general bleeds off the pages of ...Hadleyburg. That, however, is what makes it such a joy to read. Much like Pudd'nhead Wilson, this novella comes across more as a punk anthem, a short series of jabs at our guts, rather than an epic tale. And in spite of its imperfections (the lack of subtlety, the forgone conclusion that the citizens of Hadleyburg will get theirs), you enjoy every bit of the town's downward spiral. It is a wonderful adult fable that benefits from Twain's sense of humor, especially in the town hall scene once the supposed upstanding nineteen are revealed as charlatans.

In fact, if you've been paying attention to the massive global economic crisis, ...Hadleyburg is the perfect companion to our current state of the world. After all, rampant greed was the cause of our financial system's downfall. Twain's tale of a supposedly incorruptible town, whose reputation made them the envy of citizens far and wide, and their ultimate downfall due to the simple sin of greed, still plays exceptionally well. Having experienced the harsh reality of being in debt, Twain was given a first hand lesson in the effects of greed.

One could never argue that ...Hadleyburg is a classic work of American fiction. That is often reserved for Twain's earlier novels. But you can argue that it retains its own enduring allure, if for no other reason than its belief that, at our core, we are all capable of being tempted and corrupted.

Of course, I would be a bastard for not complementing Melville House Classics for publishing "The Art of the Novella" series which keeps works such as The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, Melville's Benito Cereno, and Dostoevsky's The Eternal Husband in print as stand-alone entities (rather than being lumped into anthologies). They are publishing the novellas in a style worthy of Blue Note Records, with similar cover treatments, and a sense of dedication that usually is only found at smaller presses. Cheers to them.

Though less well-known than some of his earlier works, "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" is one of Mark Twain's greatest works and one of the all-time best short stories/novellas. It is absolutely essential and a fine introduction to the later, darker Twain.

Like most great works, "The Man" is many things and works on many levels. Nearly everyone can enjoy it, not least because it has an excellent premise that pulls us in immediately and keeps us intensely focused until the last word. Few works have a more intriguing central mystery or are as supremely suspenseful.

More importantly, Twain is one of very few artists who can write this engagingly while having very meaningful - and even didactic - themes, and this is an exemplar. The story is a bitter human nature denunciation; Twain mercilessly tears into moral weakness, hypocrisy, greed, and other detestable qualities with a tent evangelist's fire. Few works are more thoroughly or persuasively misanthropic; anyone with a positive view of human nature going into the story can hardly have one afterward. The blow is so crushing that it is almost painful to read - but we keep reading because the writing is so interesting. The extreme heavy-handedness means this is far from Twain's greatest work in the purely artistic sense, but its eternally relevant message is undeniable and should not be ignored.

The story is well worth reading in itself, but the fact that it is in many collections - such as The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain - makes a standalone hard to justify. The important thing at any rate is to get it in some form.