Customer Reviews

Mark Twain (Lives & Legacies (Oxford))

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Larzer Ziff admirably demonstrates just how much can be accomplished within a limited space. Addressing the life and works of the US' leading writer and social commentator from a wide-ranging foundation, he provides an effective guidebook for the novice Mark Twain reader. Clearly tuned to Twain's roles as a writer, as a thinker and as a symbol of his times, Ziff imparts fresh insights into the mind of a lasting literary figure.

It is Twain's enduring image as an author and a celebrity that Ziff uses to open his brief account. This introduction gives the author the opportunity to explain the tenor of the times and Twain's place within it. Printing and publication began early and remained a basic element throughout Twain's life and career. That opening is followed by a trio of themes that explore the writer's character and works. As a "travel" writer, Ziff easily slips into an analysis of Twain as a "Tourist". He quickly demonstrates how Twain readily found an unexplored niche in writing a 19th Century travel accounts - he wrote almost nothing of the places visited or the "important" things to be viewed. Ziff explains that Twain viewed the "old masters" with disdain. His travelling companions and the personalities encountered made far better copy. Twain's exposure of the overly focussed "tourist" in "The Innocents Abroad" was a departure from what was "normal". It was a strategy he continued to utilise successfully.

In the section "Novelist", Ziff explains how Twain's new approach to writing made him such an endeared author. The great departure here was to convey stories as if they were being spoken. Not only did Twain capture many regional forms of speech in his fiction, but he was able to reproduce it in print in a manner readily accepted and understood by his readers. This was a revolutionary approach in literature. While the public was drawn to it readily, the "establishment" authors and critics of the East, particularly Boston, had some reservations. Twain was hardly "establishment". Not only his writings but his viewpoint differed from "mainstream" outlook. Some of his opinions, then considered outlandish, would be forwarded with great subtlety. It was easy to miss them if you were inattentive or thought it was merely a way of using a character to make them seem harmless. Twain was never "harmless".

It is his greatest work, of course, that brings all the elements together. "Huckleberry Finn", told from a boy's stance, was clearly a work for adults. It surveyed the antebellum South along the Mississippi River, which meant the "Tourist" factor could be worked in. That traverse, as Ziff explains, also allowed a wide range of characters to enter the tale. Some of them are hilarious in their antics. Huck's take on them through the eyes of an innocent proved a rebuke of 19th Century mores both prior to the War Between the States and after.

Ziff handles these seemingly disparate themes with skill and aplomb. Nothing is forced on the reader, and nothing essential is omitted. Any more detail would have qualified the book as a full-fledged biography. That's not the author's intention, however, and the brevity of this account is a tribute to the author. It's not much of a pill to swallow at 117 pages, and the dose is anything but bitter. The book is nearly as much a pleasure to read as taking up Twain himself. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

i cannot believe this is available at the price i paid... buy buy buy... it is a wonderful soaring book on mark twain and his times.