No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (Twain, Mark//Mark Twain Library)

Author - Mark Twain ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from University of California Press was reviewed on 26-Oct-2008.

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1) Paperback Book No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (Twain, Mark//Mark Twain Library) by University of California Press. Imagine a situation where you and twelve other people are hiding in a cave from terrorists. However, there is a child crying and revealing the location of the group. If you choose to kill the baby by suffocating him, the group will be saved, but if you choose to not kill him, the group will be discovered and everyone will be killed. What do you do?

This kind of morality question comes to play within the Mark Twain´s "Mysterious Stranger". Moral sense, an overall issue within the tale, is debated throughout the novel, with Twain criticizing it as a major human flaw.

Set in the small Austrian village of Eseldorf, the story begins with Theodore, the protagonist of the story and Twain´s depiction of mankind, and his friends encountering an angel named Satan. Satan, the representation of Mark Twain´s cynical views, performs an array of miracles to entice the kids, while shocks them with his sadistic murder of unruly clay figures that he had brought to life. Later, to display the widespread and universal problem of humanity, Satan takes young Theodore over a course of three trips ranging from France to China to India. As a result, the naïve Theodore begins to doubt himself at the controversial conclusion of the story.

Additionally, all sorts of symbols are scattered throughout the novel. The clay figurines that Satan creates symbolize a microcosmic view of mankind. Time and money both are presented as superficial since neither serves any useful purpose. Furthermore, the stones that the town pellets at an innocent lady represent the natural tendency of humans to conform to the mob mentality. Listed only are a few of the many symbols that Twain assimilates into his story.

The story was incomplete at the point of Mark Twain´s untimely death, ultimately leaving a gaping hole to the story. But many scholars have contributed their endings to the novel, trying to seal the tear to the story.

In all, the story is truly an epic, integrating dark romantic and anti-transcendental elements with experiences from his life into the novella. It also presents a completely different fundamental approach to the world, regarding everything as nothing but a mere illusion and criticizing all of humankind for their innate moral flaws.¤

2) Paperback Book No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (Twain, Mark//Mark Twain Library) by University of California Press. Aside from Twain´s primary personae of affability and good-humored nature, a deeper and darker layer of him is exhibited in The Mysterious Stranger, a tale of Satan, masquerading as the angelic young man, Philip Traum (German for ´Dream´), who visits three young, impressionable German boys and instructs them on the meaning of Life and what it is to be Human.

While not really telling a story, rather, Twain is posing age-old questions by giving examples through behaviors, reactions and responses to scenarios that Satan or others propose and brings it about. The story focuses on one boy, Theodor, who is taken especially by Satan and given special attention. Through their verbal discussions, and direct interaction/influence of the townspeople in the small German town in which the boy lives, Satan begins to show, what he believes, is the tale of human frailty and woe. It is nothing but grim horror, cruelty and abject deprivation of happiness, as Theodor begins to realize, though, according to Satan, it is all meaningless and pointless. That it is not he, Satan, that brings destruction upon the people, but man´s own ignorance, haughty Moral Sense and the capricious whims, selfishness and the inner fear within human nature itself. That in the end, Life is but a Dream, and there is nothing but the vast emptiness of existence.

Indeed, many will cringe at the outright questioning of Christian moral values, it is brilliantly written and not tongue in cheek, but said boldly and vividly. Twain does not hold back. Before I read the short bio, I didn´t know the lifetime of toil and suffering that Twain had experienced and that, as a result, he lost faith in the meaning of life. Though not raised Christian, but obviously well versed in the tradition, his views in the book directly antagonize Christian pillars of belief. The last chapter will blow you away in its cogency and power, the whole point of the book.

Whatever you believe, this is a necessary book that everyone should read. Instead of hiding behind platitudes, Twain openly questions--and struggles with the answers. It is heartening, depressing, chilling and eye-opening with an ending that says it all. Go on, I dare you to read!¤

3) Paperback Book No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (Twain, Mark//Mark Twain Library) by University of California Press. 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!..."¤

4) Paperback Book No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (Twain, Mark//Mark Twain Library) by University of California Press. The Mysterious Stranger published soon after Twain´s death was an attempt at making a quick profit by rewriting some incomplete manuscript pages. On the other hand, THIS version -- No. 44 -- was painstakingly pieced together over the course of many years by Twain scholars. The result is a manuscript that is closer in tone and theme to Twain´s other later work. I also believe No. 44 to be more fully coherent than the previous version.¤

5) Paperback Book No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (Twain, Mark//Mark Twain Library) by University of California Press. I would only recommend this book, if you´re willing to a long, short story, but other than that it´s not too bad. After all, it does have some really intriguing themes. A few boys are living happy sheltered lives in a remote Austrian village named Eseldorf, and one day, a handsome young man named Satan appears, and does several magical feats. Satan begins to share his ability to foresee the future to inform the group of unfortunate events that will soon befall those they care about. Satan proceeds to inform them of each new tragedy that will befall their friends. The boys beg Satan to intercede, which he does but always from a cynical, technical definition of mercy.
The point of view might be slightly skewed, because it is narrated by one of the boys in a first-person narrative. The story isn´t too bad but, its extremely long.¤

6) Paperback Book No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger (Twain, Mark//Mark Twain Library) by University of California Press. Mark Twain´s fantastical last novel took him twelve years--and three long drafts--to complete. Based on boyhood memories of the Mississippi River Valley and of the print shops of Hannibal, the story is set in medieval Austria at the dawn of the printing craft. It is a psychic adventure, full of phantasmagoric effects, in which a penniless printer´s apprentice--a youthful, mysterious stranger with the curious name 44--gradually reveals his otherworldly powers and the hidden possibilities of the mind. Ending on a startling note, this surprisingly existential novel reveals a darker side to the author´s genius.
This long-overlooked work appears here as Mark Twain intended it and replaces the bogus 1916 edition published by Albert Bigelow Paine, which relied on the first, instead of the final, draft, deleted one-fourth of the words, added a character, and misrepresented the ending. In addition, for the first time in the Mark Twain Library edition, a glossary of printer´s terms is featured along with expert notes and commentary.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 23-Nov-2008, 05202420689780520242067, 460-540-230-680-960-331-341-491-1SB-DAB-8

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