2007-05-25 An ordinary man - plus genius

At last! A rational, reasonable, but above all readable account of the man who gave the United States its most realistic voice. Biographies of Mark Twain are ranked along the shelves. From Paine through De Voto to Lystra's scurrilous depiction, Twain has been the subject of idolisation and iconoclasm. The Kaplans severed him and sutured him, but Twain has survived them all. Powers does more than simply restore Twain's reputation. He provides a picture of Clemens the man. More importantly, Powers gives us Clemens the observer, recorder and writer. The result is a robust work that will outlast its predecessors.

The past generation, tainted with "deconstruction", Freudian, feminist and anti-racist analyses of who Samuel Langhorne Clemens was, leaves many wondering why he should be venerated. Accusations of "crude" and "unlettered" still drift though writings about him. Powers lays these to rest with gentle, if firm, dismissals. Like any man, Clemens had his faults and foibles. His failures at business are the stuff of legend, but it was an era of freebooting capitalism. No vaccine had been developed to inoculate the innocent, and innocence was considered a virtue in Clemens' time. Powers carefully relates how "Sammy" who wanted to live forever on the Mississippi River, was snatched away from a life of absolute power - no-one dared challenge a steamboat pilot - to partake of an era for which he had no briefing.

From the childhood on the River, dominated by his austere father and religious mother, Sam Clemens moved across America to avoid the conflict he had no taste for. The escape to Nevada and the Comstock opened many opportunities for discovery. His own Mother Lode turned out to be people. Powers follows Clemens on his prospecting for personalities. The mining ventures, the reporter's role and world travel each produced their own literary nuggets. In a time without jets or SUVs, Clemens' voyages seem almost astonishing. Yet every trip and their stops provided fresh nuggets he would refine and reproduce for our delight. Powers shows that the portrayals are far more than just "reporting" on the Western way of life. They are harbingers of what was making the United States

Powers' view of his subject avoids the popular form of "deep" analysis. Instead, he demonstrates how far-reaching Twain's views proved. He found his nation's imperialist ventures abhorrent, and Powers' presentation of it is subtly topical. He uses Clemens' voice for his own - "he made a book of a Paige" referring to the aftermath of the bankruptcy would be a perfect Twain aphorism. Powers carefully analyses Clemens' writing prowess, noting both strengths and weaknesses with professional candor. "Huckleberry Finn", considered by many to be the greatest of the novels, takes a sharp turn in Powers view. The "break", he says, follows the "Wagnerian aria" of Huck's damning himself for protecting Jim's identity. Following that event, the biographer condemns Tom Sawyer's "evasion" scheme as anticlimatic to the vitality of this outstanding work.

Having produced a "life" that reads with an easy familiarity, Powers should be applauded for restoring Clemens as a human being, a literary icon and as the voice of the United States of his day. Clemens successfully broke the patterns of both Boston Brahmin intellectualism and the frequently disdainful view of Victorian commentators. Powers manages this without speculation or judgement, simply offering Twain's expressive words in their context. Having produced other works about Clemens' youth and environment, he's capped the "set" with an outstanding biography. Anyone wishing to learn about Clemens should start here. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]