A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy

 

never the twain shall meet

Today, April 21, is the 93rd anniversary of Mark Twain's death. Ezra wants to go public with an apology.

If you're like Ezra, you were force fed a regimen of Huckleberry, Tom Sawyer, and Jumping Frogs of some county or another at an age when you couldn't possibly appreciate the subtlety of Mark Twain's humor. Here, he was touted as one of America's greatest writers and all you wanted to do was to get your hands on a copy of Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal, or Sartre's No Exit,or some European writer or another with the darkest vision of humanity possible. At least, that's how Ezra felt at a precocious age when the world of reading first opened up to him.

You see, Ezra grew up at a time just after the publishing industry had blossomed into what later became known as the paperback revolution. It's hard for most Americans these days to comprehend what the word 'revolution' even means. The term gets touted around so much as an advertising gimmick. Every time Microsoft comes out with a new version of Windows, it's revolution time in America, or so it would seem.

Actually, Ezra came along when the paperback revolution had already gained a foothold in America. Back in those days, every single minor work by every single minor writer on all five continents was actually in print in an affordable edition.Millions of books, billions of pages. All aging badly in boxes in someone's storage unit now. Americans Ezra's age must spend a fortune annually on storage fees. Because it was impossible not to collect books at that time, that is, if you had half an interest in books.

It's gratifying to find some young people who have the same interest in books and ideas that Ezra's generation did. Like DB who hauled over 30 boxes with him when he moved west recently to discover his destiny.

If you check out the semi-annual Friends of the Library Sale on Esty St. you'll find evidence of the publishing explosion of the 1960's -'70s. Thousands of books, all browning at different rates, all printed at a time when just about every title every written had been reissued. (At last year's sale, Ezra noticed about 400 copies of Theodore's Roszak's Making of the Counter Culture lying about. Guess that didn't work out, heh? No use keeping yesterday's stale message.)

It makes Ezra think about mortality. Folks are disgorging old books at an alarming rate. Ezra hopes it has nothing to do with the 'd' word. He wants to have his books buried with him. Might be the only way he'll have time to read some of them.

Anyway, with all these books around at the time Ezra was growing up, why would he ever want to read Mark Twain? Sure, he tried, or else, had to for some assignment or another. But, even Victor Hugo was easier going than Samuel Clemens. Reading about the sewers of Paris was a lot more interesting than reading about life on the Mississippi.

But times have changed and so has Ezra. Nowadays books cost a lot more money. Titles have disappeared from print at a disturbing rate. In the 1980's the publishing revolution exploded into the publishing nightmare as economics and changing tastes transformed the industry into a pulp factory. Jacqueline Susan (Valley of the Dolls) and Robert Ludlum replaced Knut Hamsun and Henry James on bookstore shelves. These days you have to browse used bookshops or library sales to rediscover the stuff you always wanted to buy at a time when you couldn't fit another book into your apartment.

And Ezra has rediscovered Mark Twain. He just picked up a copy of Twain's On the Damned Human Race. In the first chapter, Twain talks about an earlier version of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Spanish American War. When we brought freedom and dignity to the people of the Philippines. Switch some names around - William McKinley for George Bush, Admiral Dewey for Gen. Tommy Franks - and, presto digito, deja vu!

You see, Mark Twain lived in a low, dishonest time in American history. The days of robber barons (baby corporations), yellow journalism (pre-Fox News), and bumbling, incompetent politicians (another Republican administration.) And Twain had been very much a participant in the life and craziness of his milieu. He wasn't simply another arm chair critic. Twain talks to our times now from the perspective of an experienced, reformed sucker. He lost his fortune in quixotic business deals, chased false messiahs (Christian Science), knew the leading people of his era (Edison, Teddy R.

More to the point Ezra is trying to make, Twain lived in small town America. Little hamlets like Ithaca. He understood the pseudo-pomposity, the hypocrisy, the quirkiness of small town life, and captured the flavor in his books. It's time to read a little more Twain this year and draw a few interesting comparisons between Ithaca and Hannibal.

Not that Ezra believes for a moment that he could ever become another Mark Twain. Ezra has ditched his belief in reincarnation. After an experience, 17 years ago, when he started imagining he might be the retread of Edgar Allen Poe. Ezra apologizes to Edgar Allen as well as to Mark Twain. (The pills really helped!)

Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 7:39 AM