ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
Mark Twain, A Literary Life. Everett Emerson
Читать онлайн.Название Mark Twain, A Literary Life
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781512821550
Автор произведения Everett Emerson
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство Ingram
In June 1865, the Californian announced a new department, “Answers to Correspondents,” a parody of the columns featured in many periodicals then as now, though at that time literary advice was sometimes sought as well as more personal kinds of advice. Mark Twain wrote six columns and included parts of them in his 1867 Jumping Frog collection. One item is a poem, prefaced by a letter from the poet “Simon Wheeler” of Sonora, California. These demonstrate Mark Twain’s continuing interest in vernacular characters, especially narrators, and his increasing skill in rendering their language and their values. Soon Simon Wheeler would achieve wide and lasting fame.
Although some of the pieces written at this time indicate a lack of development, there are two important exceptions, a letter and a story. The letter is Clemens’s first real indication of a commitment to writing, to literature. On October 19, 1865, he shared with Orion what he called his life’s ambitions. He relates that in his early years he had been interested in becoming a pilot and a preacher; he had achieved the first goal but not the second because he had never had a call. “But I have had a ‘call’ to literature, of a low order—i.e., humorous. It is nothing to be proud of, but it is my strongest suit.” The tone of resignation in this letter presumably comes partly because he had now reconciled himself to the fact that the stocks he owned were never going to be worth much, as he had strongly believed, and partly from the fact that humorists did not enjoy a good reputation on the West Coast or elsewhere. If he accepted the role of humorist, he would have to produce a new and distinctive kind of humor—literary burlesque was commonplace—in order to obtain much-needed self-respect. He did recognize that he had talent. As he told Orion, God “did His part by me—for the talent is a mighty engine when supplied with the steam of education—which I have not got.”
About the time that he wrote this letter, Mark Twain produced the first solid evidence that he had been called, nearly a year after he had heard the frog story. Two surviving false starts show that he was being very deliberate in composing this piece; he must have known that he had good materials to care for. One of these early versions, less than one thousand words, is entitled “Angel’s Camp Constable.” It deals with one of the vernacular narrator Simon Wheeler’s pet heroes. The other, too, is only a fragment; it never gets around to its announced topic. Like the version that was at last completed and published, it is a letter addressed to Artemus Ward, who—it will be recalled—had written to Clemens in the fall of 1864 asking for a sketch for his Nevada book. This second fragment, first published in 1981, is entitled “The Only Reliable Account of the Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, together with some reference to the decaying city of Boomerang, and a few general remarks concerning Mr. Simon Wheeler, a resident of the said city in the day of its Grandeur.” The fact that the story was nine months in gestation suggests that the writer was just beginning to realize what he was to emphasize often in his later years in his comments about literature, notably in “How to Tell a Story,” that the “humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of telling.”
The version of Mark Twain’s story that was published in the New York Saturday Press of November 18, 1865, is entitled “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog.” (It had arrived too late for publication in Artemus Ward, His Travels.) Told with infinite care, the story is narrated by two tellers, Mark Twain, who introduces his account somewhat pompously, and Simon Wheeler, the garrulous vernacular storyteller, who sets forth his story for Mark Twain’s ears. Simon Wheeler, the erstwhile poet, was kin to Ben Coon of Angel’s Camp, who (according to Mark Twain’s 1897 account) had told him the story.14 The addition of a second narrator, carefully characterized, enriches the sketch greatly. There is irony in both tellings. The writer pretends that he has had to put up with a preposterous bore as the result of Artemus Ward’s request that he look up the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley; and Simon Wheeler, whom he meets on his search, pretends that there is nothing funny about the story he tells in response. Wheeler possessed “the first virtue of a comedian,” the term used in “‘Mark Twain’ in the Metropolis” (1864), “which is to do humorous things with grave decorum and without seeming to know that they are funny.” Moreover, Wheeler’s artfully told story seems endless and pointless. A double irony allows readers to feel superior to the narrator, although an alert one sees the writer is making sport of portraying himself as well.
The story focuses on the narrator as victim, since victimization is also a theme of the story. Jim Smiley, the optimistic and compulsive gambler, always looking for a little excitement, can be fooled by a stranger because he lacks the caution of the experienced Westerner. But before Simon Wheeler reveals Smiley’s gullibility in the climax of the yarn, he creates interest in the gambler, as well as in his animals, exaggerated to heroic proportions. The story moves from a catalog of Jim’s interests, including chicken fights and straddle-bug races, to a discussion of his horse’s surprising abilities and the distinct personality of his dog, the well-named Andrew Jackson. Now Wheeler is ready to tell about Smiley’s frog, Dan’l Webster. Wheeler comments, admiringly, “You never see a frog so modest and straightfor’ard as he was, for all he was so gifted.”
As the story moves to its climax, the narration moves to drama, and we hear conversations between Jim and the stranger, whose coolness more than matches Jim’s studied indifference. Jim thinks he has entrapped the stranger when the latter observes, “I don’t see no points about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.” Jim’s search for a frog for the stranger, to compete with Dan’l, provides the stranger with time to fill what was to become known as the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County “pretty near up to his chin” with quail-shot. Thus the stranger’s frog is permitted to win, whereupon the winner repeats, again coolly, “I don’t see no points about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog,” and leaves.
It is Mark Twain’s control of point of view that makes the story so rich. We see the narrator’s view of Simon Wheeler, and Wheeler’s view of Jim Smiley; each is consistent, and subtle. The story gave the writer a new sense of his capabilities. Even before it was published, the New York Round Table in an article on “American Humor and Humorists” had called him “foremost” of the “merry gentlemen of the California press.” Clemens saw the article, for it was quoted in at least two San Francisco publications. In January, he sent his mother a clipping from the New York correspondent of the San Francisco Alta California: “Mark Twain’s story in the Saturday Press of November 18, called ‘Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,’ has set all New York in a roar, and he may be said to have made his mark. I have been asked fifty times about it and its author, and the papers are copying it far and near. It is voted the best thing of the day. Cannot the Californian afford to keep Mark all to itself? It should not let him scintillate so widely without first being filtered through the California Press.” The Californian of December 16 reprinted the piece.
Mark Twain’s Eastern reputation was spread through a series of eight pieces appearing in the New York Weekly Review in 1865 and 1866, the first being an account of the October 7 San Francisco earthquake. But there was no sudden change in the author’s fortunes. He continued to write for the Enterprise, many of his letters being reprinted in the Golden Era. In the letter to Orion about his call to humorous literature, he announced that he was beginning work as a reviewer for the San Francisco Dramatic Chronicle. Although it was the earliest version of San Francisco’s current leading newspaper, it was a poor thing, a four-page advertising handout, in which Mark Twain’s work consisted of squibs and fillers in addition to reviews—all anonymous. Only one short sketch appeared there, “Earthquake Almanac.” The pages of the Chronicle mention Mark Twain frequently during his two months of employment, but usually he is identified as the Enterprise correspondent. He also contributed two pieces to the Examiner and one piece, ridiculing women’s fashions, to the Evening Bulletin.
Six new pieces appeared in the Californian in late 1865 and early 1866. One deserves mention. “The Christmas Fireside for Good Little Boys and Girls. By Grandfather Twain,” subtitled “The Story of the Bad Little Boy That Bore a Charmed Life,” appeared on December 23. The story takes all the conventions of the