The following book review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by Kevin Mac
Donnell.

~~~~~

_The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine_. By Mark Twain and Philip Stead.
Illustrations by Erin Stead. Doubleday Books for Young Readers, 2017. Pp.
152. Hardcover. $24.99. ISBN 978-0-553-52322-5 (trade); ISBN
978-0-553-52323-2 (library binding); ISBN 978-0-553-52324-9 (ebook).


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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
Kevin Mac Donnell


Copyright (c) 2017 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.



Readers of this review may not be familiar with story-telling quantum
mechanics for the simple reason that this reviewer is its only theorist and
perhaps its sole subscriber. This theory of the subatomic underpinnings of
story-telling is no different from the physics involved in broader quantum
mechanics: Several different versions of a story can begin at the same
place at the very same time, travel various distances by various routes,
and yet all end up in the very same place at the very same time, and all of
these seemingly contradictory versions can peacefully and simultaneously
coexist. However, if particles from one version of a story collide with
particles from another version, energy is released that can be observed.


An example of story-telling quantum mechanics in action is the oft-repeated
account of how Mark Twain structured his bedtime stories for his daughters
in their Hartford home. It is said that Twain would base his stories on the
bric-a-brac that stood upon the mantel, beginning a new story each night
with the painting of the "cat in the ruff" and ending it with a girl named
Emmeline. Every story began and ended at those points but took a different
path, with no repeated events allowed. Twain himself reported that if any
particle from one story collided with a single particle from a previous
story, it provoked violent explosions of energy from his observant audience
of two or three. (This was hard work, and some Twainians cannot help but
suspect it was no coincidence that he killed off poor Emmeline when he got
the chance in _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_.)


_The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine_ puts this theory to the test. The
story is inspired by sixteen pages of explicit notes left unfinished by
Mark Twain in 1879, and discovered in 2011 in the Mark Twain Papers by
well-known Mark Twain scholar John Bird, who noticed a bracketed note by
Twain at one point in the narrative that records Susy's response to the
tale. Bird suddenly recognized that he was reading what are very likely the
only notes Twain ever preserved for any of the countless bedtime stories he
told his daughters. After the University of California Press declined to
publish the unfinished story, Bird, with Mark Twain Project (MTP) editor
Bob Hirst's cooperation, brought the notes to the attention of the Mark
Twain House and Museum. Tina Wexler of IMC Partners, on behalf of the Mark
Twain House, showed them to Frances Gilbert of Random House, who arranged
to have the story reconceived and completed by the Caldecott Medal-winning
husband and wife team of Philip (text) and Erin (illustrator) Stead.
Doubleday Books for Young Readers (an imprint of Random House Children's
Books) has announced a first printing of 250,000 copies, and sales of the
book will benefit the Mark Twain House & Museum, the MTP, and the
University of California Press.


Unlike Twain's bedtime stories in Hartford, his story about a kidnapped
prince was first told in Paris when Clara was five and Susy was seven, and
was based on a picture in a magazine, not the bric-a-brac on the mantel
back home. Twain's notes sketch out in telling detail the experiences of a
boy named Johnny, whose dying mother leaves him some seeds she was given by
an old woman she believed was probably a fairy. After she dies, Johnny
follows her careful instructions, planting and watering the seeds, and
eating the flower that blossoms forth, which gives him the magical ability
to communicate with all kinds of animals (anticipating Dr. Doolittle by
four decades). He first meets a kangaroo (which provoked Susy's comment
that Twain recorded which in turn led to John Bird's recognition of what
the story represented), and soon all of the animals of the forest join
forces to build him a new home. One day Johnny finds a royal handbill
offering a reward to anyone who can rescue the king's son who has been
kidnapped by giants. Johnny, with his animal friends, heads to the king's
castle and strikes a bargain after demonstrating to the skeptical king that
he--a small insignificant boy--could indeed converse with the menagerie now
under his command. He soon sets off with his animal friends to rescue the
prince, tracking him to a cave guarded by two dragons who never sleep, and
there, without warning, Twain's notes abruptly end.


Perhaps Twain intended his notes to end at that moment, and retold it each
night with a different ending, a variation on the pattern of quantum
mechanics story-telling that he practiced at home with the mantel
bric-a-brac. Or, perhaps the remaining pages of notes were never written,
or maybe they _were_ written but later lost. It's even possible he allowed
his daughters to finish the story each evening. It should be remembered
that Twain experimented with stories with no endings in his published
works, including "Grandfather's Old Ram," "An Awful Terrible Medieval
Romance,"  "Those Extraordinary Twins" and an untitled ribald sketch in
_Following the Equator_ known as "A Story Without an End." Unless new
evidence surfaces, the answer to why Twain's notes end when they do is
unknowable.


But the Steads bravely rise to the challenge and finish Twain's story,
supplying at least one possible outcome. In doing so they take the liberty
of making many changes along the way: The characters of a mean-spirited
grandfather and an innocent chicken are added into the mix, and the plot
altered to accommodate them--one dies early on, and the other lives 100
years. The kangaroo that provoked Susy Clemens's comment is replaced by
Susy the Skunk, who exudes a faint whiff of Adele Roberts's popular _The
Adventures of Sammy the Skunk_ (2011)--with no apologies to Susy Clemens or
Adele Roberts. Twain's story itself is recast as a frame narrative with
Stead meeting with Mark Twain on Beaver Island, Michigan, where, young
readers or listeners are reminded for some reason, the Mormon leader James
Jesse Strang declared himself "King" of a renegade polygamous settlement
and was later assassinated. Twain himself intrudes into the story several
times. The dying widow (presumably Johnny's mother) who gives the seeds to
Johnny is presented merely as a blind beggar in the Stead version of
events. Along the way to the cave where Prince Oleomargarine is thought to
be held captive, Johnny encounters a parade of people who are curiously
stooped over. Comparisons are made between _Here_ and _There_ (the United
States of today, and the world of this fairy tale), introducing some social
themes (some might detect satiric political commentary) contrasting the
worlds of the fairy tale and the present day, which were also not part of
Twain's original plan. These changes all appear before the narrative
reaches the cave guarded by the two dragons who never sleep, and some of
them play out in Stead's entirely original ending. It's a more
complex--even confusing--story than the tale conceived by Mark Twain, and
young readers may need help sorting it out.


Twainians can be forgiven if they object to these alterations to Twain's
original conception of his fairy tale, and it does not help that the text
of Twain's original story does not appear in this edition, although some of
his notes are reproduced in facsimile on the end papers and readers are
referred to an online site to view them (PrinceOleomargarine.com). However,
as of 18 August 2017, these facsimiles are not yet online at that site.
Although the characters, plot, and themes are significantly changed from
what Twain described in his notes for his story, this is not a departure
from Mark Twain's urtext quite on par with the undisclosed fabrications and
confabulations performed by Albert Bigelow Paine and Frederick Duneka on
the _The Mysterious Stranger_. Stead himself has been quoted as saying "No
one's qualified to write for Mark Twain" and this book is a respectful--if
radical--reimagining of the story, using Twain's notes only as a
touch-stone. The Steads don't hide the fact that they have substantially
changed the story, although the absence of Twain's original notes makes it
impossible for the reader to determine how much of what they are reading is
Twain and how much is Stead--a valid question since both Mark Twain and
Philip Stead are credited as the authors.


Another objection that could be raised is the obvious mismatch between the
simple story and the more complex vocabulary. The publisher advertises the
reading level for this book as ages eight to twelve. Younger children who
might find the story compelling would certainly stumble over words like
"festooned," "burgled," "medallions," "prematurely," "throngs,"
"melancholic," "optimism," "cymbals," "forsaken," and "credibility" that
seem to pop up in every sentence. While this vocabulary would not challenge
older readers, those older readers would probably not be captivated by the
simple story-line like young readers. This may not be so serious a flaw as
it might seem since the best bedtime stories are those that a parent reads
or recites to a child, and the Steads's presentation makes it imperative
that the story be read by adults to children, so that the words can be
explained in context as the story is read aloud. This reflects how Twain
told his stories to his own daughters.


Objections aside, the result is wholly in the tradition of classic fairy
tales, with talking animals, dragons, a fairy in disguise, a kidnapping, a
cave, a king, and giants. Naturally, it involves a quest that takes place
in a faraway time and place. Along the way, the Stead text pays subtle
homage to other fairy tales like "Jack in the Beanstalk," "The Gingerbread
Man," and even works of Shakespeare. The enchanting and atmospheric
illustrations likewise contain some echoes of illustrations found in
various editions of _The Prince and the Pauper_ and in Maurice Sendak's
_Where the Wild Things Are_. It also teaches some lessons about the
relative values of friendship and material wealth, and is--with or without
Mark Twain--a beautifully illustrated and charming tale.


But the Steads's version is not the only possible resolution to Twain's
unfinished tale. Many other endings could have been contrived to complete
Twain's story, perhaps picking up on the obvious clues Twain left behind:
His story centers around a small boy whose courage, ingenuity, and
intelligence are doubted by those bigger or more powerful, setting him up
to overcome large obstacles like giants and dragons by calling upon those
very traits. The dragons who never sleep are merely frightened away in the
Steads's version, but the fact that Twain introduces them as dragons that
never sleep would seem to suggest that he intended them to be vanquished by
being made to go to sleep by some clever means. Twain's notes may be
incomplete, or appear so, but they contain hints of the various other ways
his story could find its way to a satisfying conclusion.


In fact, just such a version has been written. John Bird, who first
discerned what Mark Twain's notes really represented, and who has written
wisely on the family life and parenting of Sam and Livy Clemens, wrote a
perceptive completion of Mark Twain's tale. This reviewer has been
privileged to read both Bird's version and Mark Twain's original notes, and
without yielding to the temptation of revealing his ending, can only say
that Bird's completion of the tale is true to Mark Twain's intent and aimed
at young readers just like Twain's own daughters. It is far superior, and
deserves to be read alongside Mark Twain's original notes so that children
of all ages can make their own judgments.


The Steads's version presented in this edition is a valid and worthy
possibility, and this reviewer has no quarrel with what they produced--they
delivered what they were asked by their publisher--and the result can
proudly stand on its own merits. But the story they tell is not consistent
with Mark Twain's original conception, and presenting it as representative
of Mark Twain's creative talents does no justice to the great author. It
is, as Philip Stead describes it, "a brand-new work" (p. 151). The theory
of quantum mechanics story-telling reminds us that many versions are
possible. Twainians will be especially curious to know exactly what Mark
Twain wrote himself, allowing them to imagine how a version completed in a
way more consistent with Twain's original narrative plan might have played
out. In the meantime, the children and grandchildren of every Twainian who
encounter this current version will be charmed, although it won't be Mark
Twain doing the charming.