Posted on 12/21/2010 11:05:02 PM PST by IsraelBeach
Scotch, Cigars, Family - Mark Twain Awakens After 100 Years
By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency
Hartford, Connecticut ---- December 21, 2010 ..... Before there was Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube - there was Mark Twain.
Quicker than the digital status updates that we have all become familiar with, Mark Twain's creative, aggressive and friendly wit jumped all over the globe touching millions. Making them smile, laugh and reflect.
This American legend, globe trotting journalist and renowned author born Samuel Langhorne Clemens in Florida, Mo. in 1835, who worked on a Mississippi river boat and at the age of 13 left school to become a printer's apprentice, became the most famous man in the world by 1900.
Traveling through Hartford, Connecticut, my friends there insisted that I visit the house that Twain lived. Where Twain wrote such epic stories such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Prince and the Pauper.
A very new, modern visitors center which was built in 2003 stands next to Sam's majestic three story, wooden home. A home which embraced the warm love of his wife Olivia and three children. Just glancing at this majestic house, once could start to feel the vibrancy, the life that was Mark Twain.
After all, respected for his highly clever wit, wisdom and playful nature, Mark Twain never really died. At least he planned it that way.
For before he died of a heart attack in his sleep on April 21, 1910, Twain penned an autobiography. Volume one of three books of approximately 500,000 words from the University of California's Mark Twain Project was just released. And in the next few years more nouns and verbs describing the real world according to Mark Twain will be read by many.
So it was a very special time to be entering into the intimate environment of Mark Twain. From the New England Oak trees towering above to the gas Victorian lamps and warm fireplaces within.
Hartford is no New York.
So quiet that one can hear the wind making bushes sing. And perhaps it was this tranquility and the love of his family that enabled, inspired Sam, (as he is affectionately referred to as in this home) to write as he did. For this talented, fun, cranky, observant humanitarian had seen much of the US, Europe and Israel. In fact, Twain spent much time staying as a quest in people's homes in England and in Germany. Always looking, taking it all in and then spitting it out in the most flamboyant manner.
One can write miles about the adventures of Mark Twain. From his poor, humble and romantic childhood to his criticism of the US government, opposition to the Philippine - American War which inspired Twain to found the Anti-Imperialist League and his creation and lost investment on the Paige newspaper Compositoron. But I will only articulate and limit my feelings about Sam from that house he lived in. One can tell much from what is on both the floor and the walls and in between.
As I sit writing just a few miles away under the harsh electric light and fingers dancing on a hard plastic laptop computer, Sam would sit not far from a warm, crackling fireplace, under the soft glow of gas lights and a green billiard table to remind Sam that life was one big game.
It was getting up to take the shots, the fine tuning as to how you hit those colorful balls, the comfort of over 40 cigars a day and sipping a warm Scotch. Integrate this with the love of his children, telling bedtime stories as they smiled and sat on his lap and his out there attitude that you could just sense from the white suits he donned.
Each room of this 19 room house would own its own presence. From the red Moroccan sitting room, the soft pink India dressing room, the children's second floor school room with dolls and cards, an indoor glass Victorian garden with green leaves sprouting in all jungle directions, the master bedroom with its Angel decorated bed to Sam's man cave.
In the back of the room is his desk. But Twain would not sit at this desk for his eyes would become too distracted by the pool table directly in front. So in a small corner at a small, wooden desk Twain would take his wet ink pen and and create magic on paper.
This room was off limits for all except for his close, black servant George who shared a bedroom next door. And male friends who would tell tales of shrewd businessman, women in skirts, corrupt politicians, soldiers fighting off swords and the bad reception of the telephone he had there. Twain was one of only three people who had a telephone in Hartford.
Twain, with a smile, had described his man cave as: "There ought to be a room in this house to swear in. It's dangerous to have to repress an emotion like that."
Twain would work both in his study and while in bed as his children played with their nine cats and three dogs. He even had a rope tied to the gas fed chandelier to bring the light closer to him as he donned his large round glasses and wrote notes to himself.
From all I gathered, that transcended the many solitude hours of writing of all that he saw and crystallized wisdom from it, was a man who had a deep conviction, understanding and passion for life. He worked hard, he played hard. It is said that he held dinner parties every night. Not only would he entertain his guests but also his children who would sit quietly outside the dining room on the stairway steps listening to each and every word.
Sam, his wife and the children created a secret game. The children, even when supposed to be in bed sleeping, would make up different colored cards. If Mark Twain was to swear and the children heard it, they would hold up a red card that only their mother could see through the open dining room door.
As Sam puffed away on one of his many cigars and entered a discussion of American politics or his contempt of Jane Austen, perhaps the word damn would come running out of his mouth and reach the innocent ears of his three young daughters. Out came the red card and his wife would ask Mark softly: "how is the red wine tonight?'
The adventurer, explorer, author, journalist - the man who would not bow down to any beast or foe - respected the sanctity of family life. Olivia made sure that the public would see a sane, American icon while privately enjoying the wild steamboat captain underneath.
“The recent release of Mark Twain’s unexpurgated autobiography has been an unexpected bestseller," Jacques Lamarre, Manager of Communications and Special Projects of the The Mark Twain House and Museum told the Israel News Agency.
"One hundred years after his death, he once again has captured the nation’s attention and gotten people talking, thinking and laughing. It has certainly thrown a lot of press attention and visitation our way. We hope that once people have had a chance to digest some of the first volume that they will want to come to his Hartford home to see where so many of the stories in the autobiography are set.”
Lamarre adds: “In the year-and-a-half since I have been working at The Mark Twain House and Museum, I’ve developed a much greater appreciation for how complex a man Samuel Clemens was. He was a loving family man, a world-famous author, an unflinching social credit, a failed business man, and one of the wittiest people to walk this Earth. I am constantly humbled when I enter his home and know how much history, joy and pain was created under that roof. The Mark Twain House is every bit as fantastic, jumbled and intriguing as the man who built it.”
As an American who has lived in Israel for over 20 years, I must give thanks to Mark Twain for his graphic description of what was then known as Palestine: "Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies. Where Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers, that solemn sea now floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing exists - over whose waveless surface the blistering air hangs motionless and dead - about whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and scattering tufts of cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises refreshment to parching lips, but turns to ashes at the touch."
For only with this news report from Sam in the 1860's, can one truly and completey appreciate how modern day Israel has turned this barren, desert land into a vibrant, blossoming and green nation filled with fine wine, sweet honey, religious tolerance, free speech, medical research and a hi tech industry which reflects the very best of the modern, democratic world.
(photo)
Sam inked his magic in the rear, far right corner when not drinking scotch with his buddies.
No news or feature article could do justice for Mark Twain. His life and imagination were just too overshadowing for 500 or a 1,000 words to fit.
Perhaps only a Mark Twain quote would be a fair way to conclude this small feature and endear you to read more of Twain, visit his home in Hartford and respect the greatness that has touched children then and now. A man who after 100 years would say "surprise, you ain't got rid of me yet and there is more to come."
"It has been reported that I was seriously ill," said Twain. "It was another man; dying - it was another man; dead - the other man again. As far as I can see, nothing remains to be reported, except that I have become a foreigner. When you hear it, don't you believe it. And don't take the trouble to deny it. Merely just raise the American flag on our house in Hartford and let it talk."
That the third volume of Mark Twain's autobiography is expected to pack several punches at both people and society, Twain is still very much with us.
Raise that flag tall and expect to keep it up and waving for another 100 years.
His house in Hartford has been fully restored and it is a real treat for Twain fans. The billiard room alone is worth the trip.
Surprised retailers haven't been able to keep the dictionary-size tome on their shelves or in warehouses, relegating many would-be purchasers to waiting lists -- or inflated prices reaching $750 on Amazon.com.
From the Amazon link you posted;
"You feel like you're sitting in the room with him," said Linda Morris, professor emeritus of English at the University of California, Davis. "You get a very, very strong sense of his voice and a strong sense of his thought association."
Versions of the information have been released over the years by editors who snipped and jiggered, carved and fuddled. This is the first time it has been left in the order Twain dictated and with the honesty requiring the century-long embargo.
"What he decided was an autobiography as a chronology is a nonstop lie," said Gregg Camfield, a Twain scholar and literature professor at the University of California, Merced. "A real life is all the digressions; it's all the side trips. What he wanted to do was show a mind at work."
BTW It's a good thing Joel Leyden the author wasn't trying to show off the incredible writing skills he picked up from Sam, "But I will only articulate and limit my feelings about Sam from that house he lived in. One can tell much from what is on both the floor and the walls and in between."
- floor molding???
Let's just say Mark Twain has certainly lived one of the most interesting lives of any person of the latter half of the 19th Century--probably at the end of his life he could remember the arrival of the telegraph, telephone, motion pictures and possibly even the earliest test broadcasts of a new technology called radio....
Nope
Cigar Smoke
He was smoking 40 cigars a day. Some of that smoke is still wafting around that old house between the floors, the walls and the ceiling.
Wanna bet that smoking of any kind is strictly prohibited, inside and out, at this place?
NOT the way Twain would want it...
Scotch and cigars - sounds like Sam may have been reincarnated as Ron White.
slow FR Twain ping
True
But knowing the damage the tobacco smoke does to fabrics, paper, glue and other things I completely agree with the curators of any museum in not permitting smoking.
And lest you think that I am anti-smoking I do smoke cigars myself. (no where near 40 a day however)
Life on the Mississippi infulenced me as I grew up on the Mississippi. I finished listening to Following the Equator, just a few months ago. Hal Holdbrook did his Mark Twain at my high school, next week there was no book of Mark’s in our library.
Wikipedia: "Faulkner has often been cited as one of the most important writers in the history of American literature."
I'm extremely well-read, and I've never read a word by Faulkner. His stuff never had any interest for me. Boring self-indulgent tripe, by the look of it.
Clemens, on the other hand - these are the ones I've read:
(1867) The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1869) The Innocents Abroad (non-fiction travel) (1872) Roughing It (non-fiction) (1873) The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (fiction, made into a play) (1876) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (fiction) (1877) A True Story and the Recent Carnival of Crime (stories) (1877) The Invalid's Story (fiction) (1878) Punch, Brothers, Punch! and other Sketches (fiction) (1880) A Tramp Abroad (travel) (1882) The Prince and the Pauper (fiction) (1883) Life on the Mississippi (non-fiction (mainly)) (1884) Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (fiction) (1889) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (fiction) (1892) The American Claimant (fiction) (1893) The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories (fictional stories) (1894) The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson (fiction) (1896) Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc (fiction) (1900) The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (fiction) (1901) The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Updated (satire) (1902) A Double Barrelled Detective Story (fiction) (1904) Extracts from Adam's Diary (fiction) (1905) The War Prayer (fiction) (1906) The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories (fiction) (1906) What Is Man? (essay) (1906) Eve's Diary (fiction) (1907) Christian Science (non-fiction) (1909) Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven (fiction) (1946) The Portable Mark Twain, Bernard DeVoto editor, Penguin Classics (2004) (1962) Letters from the Earth (posthumous, edited by Bernard DeVoto) (1969) No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (fiction, published posthumously)
My life has been immeasurably enriched by Samuel Clemens. :-)
BTTT for later reading.
He’s buried in Woodlawn Cemetary Elmira, NY. His octagonal study is in front of Elmira College. A sister of mine who still lives there has a chiropractor friend who has his billiards table in his basement.
How would you know Faulkner’s writing is boring or self-indulgent if you haven’t read it? On what are you basing your assessment?
I've seen it, handled it, read about it, seen it in cultural references. The kind of people who are enamored of it do the big thud with me.
His assessment of Clemens merely seals the deal on my lifelong pre-judgment of him.
I have read quite a few of Faulkner’s stories. Not one of them was tripe, and I saw no self indulgence at all. I am not a literary elitist, but I do write myself. As such, I admire the rare talent and skill Faulkner brought to the printed page. I would never critique any writer, however, without having read at least one and preferably two of their major works. It is just plain ignorant to judge what you know so little about.
PS: Let me mention just one of Faulkner’s short stories: Pantaloon in Black. It is a masterpiece. It could be studied by all aspiring authors to learn one of good writing’s most important lessons: Show don’t Tell.
You probably know what show don’t tell is all about. It means, for example, if your main character is brave, don’t tell your readers he is brave. Show them, via his actions, an act of bravery on his part, and let the readers draw their own conclusion.
Here are the things Faulkner *doesn’t* tell us in Pantaloon:
That the MC loves his wife.
That the death of his wife drove the MC over the edge, and proved more of a loss than he was capable of handling.
That many southern whites of his era didn’t understand blacks.
That racism doesn’t have to entail malice; it can be just as dangerous if all it involves is ignorance.
What he did show us was a man who stepped off the page and became more real than most actual people. He showed a tragedy so deep, so wide and so heartrending, only a piece of stone or a racist could read this story and not be torn personally by the shattering, unfathomable loss it describes. And he showed us how to tell an epic within the confines of a short story. If anyone else had attempted to tell such a sweeping, magnificent tale, I guarantee it would have turned into a novelette—and lost most of its timeless, towering, legendary yet subtle power.
Iow, if all Faulkner had ever written was Pantaloon in Black, he would still be a literary genius. But of course there was more—much, much more.
Nobody smokes 40 cigars a day. A good cigar takes about an hour to finish. Churchill smoked 10+ a day, and he had a cigar size named after him. That’s about the limit. Great post though, just added Twain’s home to my list of things to do next time I’m in the region.
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