Customer Reviews

The Mysterious Stranger (Literary Classics)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a side of Twain unread by those who think Huckleberry Finn and Mark Sawyer are children's books. The satire is far from humorous; the condemnation of Man is damning and totally accurate. The picture of ignorant, brutal, and short lives captures the religiosity of the Middle Ages (and of much of the present). If only for its treatment of the "moral sense," this story is worth re-reading. Obviously, the human idiocy Twain describes still exists.
Obviously, we still operate in the darkness Twain portrays. Obviously, if angels existed, they would be more like the character in this story than in our common picture of them.
Should be required reading for every student of religion or good writing, especially for those who ponder the question of why bad things happen to good people.
Note that in my version, there are two other short stories that follow this one. They are somewhat inconsequential and neither add or detract from the value of this edition.

I'm not a huge fan of Mark Twain and his works, but I do love this story. The religious overtones and distant settings blend to make a very good, witch trial/McCarthy feel that hits close to home. It is really a "can't put it down" read.

This is what Mark Twain is all about great story telling, yet the subject matter is unique for him. It is a fairly quick read and worth 2 shots at it. It is entertaining as the pacing is fast and interesting and it is also mysterious which keeps you turning pages. It deals with the struggles of man and his existence which are still very relevant today and it all seems fitting as this as I understand his last piece of work.

Provocative and subversive, if you've ever had issues with Christian theology, you will certainly be drawn to this novella. At the end of the story, the character Satan manages to sum up, in one paragraph, with biting eloquence, some of the most serious theological problems with Christianity. It is the sort of passage that you read and then immediately bang your head against the wall because it's exactly what you always wanted to say and you wish YOU had been the one to write it down:

"Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane -- like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell -- mouths mercy and invented hell -- mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!..."

The brilliance and simplicity of Mark Twain is unsurpassed in this Taoist like story. I came to find out after reading it that this was his last work and it hadn't been completed. He had three uncompleted versions of this same story at the time of his death. Albert Bigelow Paine, who had sole custody of Twain's unfinished works, searched through the manuscripts and chose the proper ending. Thank you Mr. Paine.

I, having read Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, picked up "No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger" expecting yet another light-hearted romp.

I got a masterpiece instead.

As other reviewers have noted, Twain's later works really depart from the earlier ones. By the end of his life, Twain had buried three of his four children and his wife and gone through a bankruptcy and subsequent financial recovery. The works are correspondingly dark and bitter, but in my opinion, no less brilliant than some of his earlier works.

Technically a short story, its still some 70 pages long, but very captivating and extremely thought provoking. I read this story about a month ago and I'm still thinking of it regularly. In his inimitable way, Twain challenges so much of the orthodoxy surrounding religion, faith, morality, that you cannot help but reflect upon your own views on those issues. From the meaning of life to self determination, and free will, a story like this can't help but get you thinking.

Besides all that its a great story and pulls you in, highly recommended.

In 1590 three Austrian boys - Nikolaus, Seppi, and Theodor (the narrator) - meet a mysterious stranger in the countryside near their small village. This stranger possesses strange powers, and delights the boys not only with his magic tricks (such as lighting their pipe with a breath or creating a miniature civilization from dust), but with his stories and observations regarding the human race. Though he identifies himself as an angel by the name of Satan he assures the boy that he is merely the nephew of the more famous figure, and gains their trust and their friendship. The boys continue a strange and often taxing relationship with the supernatural individual, and though they are unnaturally sedated by his physical presence his influence on their thoughts and morality creates a kind of lasting damage to their individual psyches.

Mark Twain's narrative views on religion, faith, and humanity can be found in any number of his works, though I myself am only familiar with those presented in The Diaries of Adam and Eve, Helpful Hints for Good Living, and Letters from Earth. However, his critical presentation in The Mysterious Stranger is much darker than any I have read by him before. Although the story is told by Theodor, the narrative itself revolves around Satan and Satan's view of humanity. Much of the narrative itself is occupied with the sermons he delivers to the boys, which are aggressive and critical towards humanity, and often towards the morality the boys themselves are taught to respect. The kinds of ideas presented can leave readers wondering whether the character of Satan is really the nephew or the dominant figure, and allows them to question the motives of the foremost character in the novel. Is he truly a benevolent spiritual figure? Is he an evil entity set on wreaking havoc in the small community? And why, in light of their own doubts and misgivings about him, do the boys continue to associate with - indeed, seek out if possible - Satan?

The Mysterious Stranger is not the Mark Twain of Huck Finn, or even the Mark Twain of Helpful Hints; here is a much darker Twain intent not on amusing his audiences, but on expressing feelings of aggression and anger towards a mass that so often seems to perpetuate its own misery. While I found Satan's frequent aggrandizing sermons to be incredibly tedious I appreciated the glimpse of Twain that I had not seen before.

To me, I think problems can only begin to be solved once they're recognized as such; this could work on a societal level too. And so it genuinely saddens me that one-hundred years after Mark Twain's railing against human nature and its major institutions (government and religion), practically nothing has changed, because the things he speaks of truly are a part of human nature, as it seems. The most damning one of all is Satan's speaking of the nature of war, a conversation which could've taken place yesterday, or any time in the past hundred years, which Twain hits the nail on the head with in a way that takes great will power to not quote the whole passage here. But I truly think that if someone, especially in America (or any country that has fought like 20 wars in the past 100 years) read this passage on war, they'd either have an enlightening, epiphanic moment and/or feel something akin to oppressive shame. Chapter's 7, 9, and 11 contain Satan's most potent critiques of humanity; an absolutely scathing, misanthropic mostly-one-sided dialogue, where Twain's Satan speaks truths that anyone will, should, realize the moment it's read. Twain is very clever and does an excellent job articulating all his misanthropic feelings. Another thing that's really great about this book is Twain's idea of Satan. Satan is an omniscient being where everything he does seems bad on surface level (killing and causing insanity), but he actually does what's best for each person (though the closing dialogue may alter our perception on this a bit). I haven't gotten to reading the Adventures of Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, but I'm assuming The Mysterious Stranger doesn't get nearly as much attention because those two aren't even on the same plateau of philosophical significance that the latter holds, although I hope I'm wrong. To me, this novella is a masterpiece and may as well be a treatise on human nature... or a basis for a manifesto to fix ourselves.

Briefly: a surprisingly good read, reasonably well formatted for Kindle.

Without actually getting into 'content', The Mysterious Stranger is a great sample of the other Mark Twain, beyond the Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn's required school readings. It's a relatively short fable/essay discussing... well... the nature and meaning of it all and, since it happens to be free, it begs to be read. Mark Twain is such a literary genius, he makes us feel smarter than we probably are when reading him.

And, talking about 'free', I was quite impressed by the quality of this download. Yes, there is no 'active' table of contents but, like I said, it's a short text and you can still search for 'chapter 9' if you have to. On the positive side, the paragraphs are well formatted and I couldn't detect too many typos.