'Two
Fathoms Deep' Samuel Clemens
While readers are on waiting lists for the print edition I had the
good fortune to download the 'Autobiography of Mark Twain' onto my
Kindle and start reading. It cost me only $ 4.99. If and when the
printed edition comes to Sri Lanka, it would cost a few thousand rupees.
That is what I meant last week, that the e-book is the future. Anyway
for readers who have waited for one hundred years to read this book, a
few more weeks or even months would not be too long.
Samuel Langhorne Clemens has written his autobiography in the same
style he wrote his other creative work, and even those who knew him
then, or have studied his life and works may not be able to know if he
is telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, or if
Clemens is laughing himself to death in his grave. He called it the
autobiography of "Mark Twain", so we would be reading the character he
had created within himself. May be we should consider it a 'Biography of
Mark Twain' written by Samuel Clemens.
Mark Twain, as we know him, came to life in 1863, picking up the
Mississippi river term meaning 'Two fathoms deep', from his brief spell
working on the Mississippi as a steamboat pilot. According to Julie
Bosman in the New York Times, the $35, 500,000 word, 736 page, 2 kg book
has been turned out at the rate of 30,000 copies a week, and still
unable to meet the demand around the country, even though the publisher
had initially planned to print only 7,500 copies. Already 275,000 copies
had been sold. And this is only the first volume, with two more volumes
to come.
"My works are like water. The works of the great masters are like
wine. But everyone drinks water", was what he said then. In the
introduction he had written that his autobiography "would live a couple
of thousand years, without any effort, and would then take a fresh start
and live for the rest of the time".
Mark Twain had made many attempts to write an autobiography, but it
was only in 1906 that he had begun to dictate it to his stenographer. He
had laid down a condition that it should not be published till one
hundred years after his death, even though he himself had published
parts of the biography in the North American Review during his life
time.
As quoted in the introduction to the autobiography, in a 1889
interview, Twain had said "a man cannot tell the whole truth about
himself, even if convinced that what he wrote would never be seen by
others", and again "A book that is not to be published for a century
gives the writer a freedom which he could secure in no other way." In
1905 he had written, "We suppress an unpopular opinion because we cannot
afford the bitter job of putting it forth....None of us likes to be
hated, none of us likes to be shunned"
In 'The Guardian', Sarah Churchwell captioned her column about the
autobiography "Mark Twain: not an American but the American", quoting
from one of Twain's own notebooks. Then went on to remind us of what
Hemingway had said in 'Green Hills of Africa', "All American literature
comes from one book...called Huckleberry Finn". Churchwell says that
Mark Twain was so famous, that letters addressed to him "Mark Twain, God
knows where", and "Mark Twain. Somewhere (try Satan) found their way to
him and that the White House had forwarded one letter addressed to "Mark
Twain, c/o President Roosevelt". Twain himself had written once, "My
address is simply New York City - I have no other that is permanent and
not transient"
When 'Huckleberry Finn' was published in 1885 and was banned by the
library in Concord, Massachusetts, Mark twain had said that the banning
was worth the sale of 25,000 copies just by the free publicity alone,
and that "for a library to ban a book makes it necessary for many people
to buy the book because they could not borrow it for free".
Samuel Clemens died on April 21, 1910, but there were false rumors of
his death on several occasions. Once when he was in London, it had been
reported in America that he was dead.
When the 'Evening Sun' reporter had asked for comment, Mark Twain had
replied "Say the report is greatly exaggerated". There are many versions
of this story, but this is what the authorized biography has recorded.
100 years later, the question is how much of his life has been
exaggerated by him. Incidentally another death that was "greatly
exaggerated" was that of Steve Jobs in 2008, on August 27th, 4.27 p.m.,
by Bloomberg, and immediately retracted. (
http://gawker.com/5042795/steve-jobss-obituary-as-run-by-bloomberg )
Today, President William Howard Taft's words on hearing of Mark
Twain's death has been proven once again. "Mark Twain gave pleasure -
real intellectual enjoyment - to millions, and his works will continue
to give pleasure to millions yet to come..."
As reported by Russel Smith, Mark Twain had tried to shoot himself in
1866, and years later he had said, "Many time I have been sorry I did
not succeed, but I was never ashamed of having tried". Yet if he had
succeeded, then we would not have been able to read all his great works
and his biography. Perhaps destiny did not let him die because his wit
and creativity was badly needed by mankind.
If we collected all of Mark Twain quotes, it could fill another
volume like his autobiography. To end this note with one such quote,
"Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."
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