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Review by Roger Miller
Mark Twain was an extraordinarily creative fellow, but not half so creative, Andrew Hoffman says, as Samuel Langhorne Clemens, his own creator.
Hoffman has written Inventing Mark Twain: The Lives of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a book that is, he maintains, a departure in Twain studies in that it is a biography not of Twain, but of Clemens. To the general reader, this may seem a distinction without a difference, but by the end of his book Hoffman demonstrates that the distinction makes all the difference in the world. If by then he has completed what is after all a fairly conventional biography, it is conventional only in its approach and not in its execution, which is excellent.
In a closely argued prologue that the reader definitely should not skip, Hoffman states that "the greatest of all Clemens' accomplishments is his invention of Mark Twain. . . . Rather than make of Mark Twain someone entirely different from Sam Clemens, Clemens made him a near match. . . . He became two people occupying the same body," and the two ever after "lived in an uneasy alliance."
The book that follows does an admirable job of supporting these and related assertions. In the early pages the author tends to belabor his central distinction -- "Mark Twain spoke to a full house and Sam netted some $1,600," for example. Later he eases up, while expanding his thesis to show that there were other personas as well.
Twain's reputation in literature is so firmly established that we may tend to forget that he was as much hailed for performing as for writing, especially during his early years. Hoffman says Clemens lived behind a "layering of invented selves," and performing, of course, is simply another way of inventing oneself, or of disguise.
This book is a full life of a very full life, so it is impossible in a column to list all its virtues. Three, however, should be pointed out.
The first is his explication of Clemens's essential nature. I have read three or four previous biographies of Clemens/Twain, but I don't think any of them made me so aware as this one of how dark, despondent, and even despairing he was throughout much of his life.
He had reason. To outlive three of your four children, as Clemens did, is enough to swamp anyone's spirits. But it went far beyond individual sorrows. His comment on the death of his older brother, Orion, probably best illustrates his bleak perception of the ultimate pointlessness of existence: "It was unjust that such a man, against whom no offense could be charged, should have been sentenced to live for 72 years."
The second is the author's depiction of Clemens's marriage to Olivia (Livy) Langdon. They had their rough spots, but all in all they were passionately devoted to each other for more than three decades. Her death added another arrow to Clemens's quiver of grief in his old age.
Elsewhere Livy's influence on her husband has been denounced with comments like, "She not only edited his books, she edited him." This is not true -- or if it is, the influencing was mutual. They came to share an outlook on many things. Religion is the best example: once a devout Christian, Livy gradually adopted Clemens's vague irreligion.
Third, there is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which has been both acclaimed as the greatest American novel and condemned as a racist tract that should be removed from our schools. In a few short pages of masterful analysis, Hoffman lends great credence to the first view and demolishes the second.
"What raises the novel to greatness is the presence of Mark Twain in the text," Hoffman writes. "He does not appear as a character, per se, but he dominates the perspective so thoroughly and so sympathetically that he appears to mediate the relationship between Huck Finn and the reader."
Twain "morally hovers" over every scene, shifting from character to character and subtly but didactically nudging readers in the way they should go. "Because Huck Finn tries to represent all the positions . . . as Huck makes his ascent toward Twain's position, careless reading has led to blaming Mark Twain for his characters' immoralities."
To sum up -- well, we can't sum up. As the author says, "We will never know the complete truth about Mark Twain, because he changes shape as we study him." But all the shapes are fascinating, and to study them is an intellectual delight.
N.B.: Twain enthusiasts may also be interested in another recently published book, Lighting Out for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American Culture, by Twain scholar Shelley Fisher Fishkin (Oxford University Press, $25, 0195105311).
Roger Miller is a freelance writer in Lopez, Pennsylvania. He can be reached at roger_miller@bookpage.com.
©1997, ProMotion, inc.