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

_The Introspective Art of Mark Twain_. Douglas Anderson. Bloomsbury, 2017.
Pp. 278. Hardcover. $120.00. ISBN 978-1-5013-2955-5. Paperback. $29.95.
ISBN 978-1-5013-2954-8. E-book. $25.99. ISBN 978-1-5013-2957-9.


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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 This review may not be published or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.



There is nothing better than a preface that explicitly spells out what the
author hopes to accomplish, and Douglas Anderson wastes no time doing this.
In his very first sentence he declares "This book begins an examination of
Mark Twain's artistic preoccupations by assuming that he was . . . an
unusually perceptive student of his own mind and career, and that he
undertook a review of that career . . . near the end of his life" (ix). A
page later Anderson is more specific: "The following pages undertake to
explore that legacy by tracing its inward excursions . . . . The journey
will begin by considering . . . the enigmatic dialogue _What is Man?_" (x).
Anderson promptly brings his preface to a close on the very next page with
a final observation: "To begin a book such as this one with _What Is Man?_
risks discouraging many admirers of Twain's comic art and caustic political
satire. But the risk is worth taking if it succeeds in alerting Twain's
readers to a rich and neglected dimension of his achievement" (xi). Even
when faced with the risk of discouragement, what's a reviewer to do when
the author of a book practically writes the review for him?


Mark Twain's readers are all aware of the outer dressing and décor of his
fiction, and Twain's mastery of the literary arts leaves most of them with
few doubts about the truths of those "inward excursions" that flow just
below those fictional surfaces. Anderson is not the first to explore this
realm in Twain's writings, and he is not the first to apply a close reading
of _What Is Man?_ to Twain's other writings, but he is the first to plumb
those depths at length, using _What Is Man?_ as the prism through which
three decades of Twain's most important works can be understood.


Mark Twain himself claimed that the gestation for _What Is Man?_, first
published in 1906, had been underway for "twenty-five or twenty-seven
years" (1). Anderson accepts this claim that the composition of that work
had begun decades earlier and had extended through the years of Twain's
most productive literary output. His introduction charts the structure and
philosophy he discerns from his own close reading of _What Is Man?_,
followed by four chapters in which he explains how this work functions as a
master-key that unlocks the deeper meanings lurking under the surface of
Twain's earlier writings. He then uses that key to unlock Mark Twain's
other writings, revealing the "introspective art" that gives this book its
title.


Early in his introductory chapter, Anderson notes that _What is Man?_ could
just as easily be titled _What is Consciousness?_ and treats Twain's
Socratic dialogue in between the Old Man and the Young Man as a series of
thought experiments proposed by the Old Man to the Young Man. He discusses
at length the familiar issues of nature versus nurture, and the mechanistic
philosophy that views the human mind as a kind of machine. These ideas were
first explored by Paul Carus in _The Mechanistic Principle and the
Non-Mechanical_ (1913) in which  more than forty pages are devoted to _What
Is Man?_ including extensive quotes from Twain's work, but Anderson does
not cite Carus. However, Anderson's explication of _What Is Man?_ is
excellent and full of fresh insights. He concludes by announcing that the
following chapters will "work backward from the end of Twain's career to
its beginning, when he first formulated and explored the account of mental
life to which the Old Man gives sustained expression" (14).


In the first chapter he focuses on Mark Twain's autobiography, taking his
cue from episodes in Twain's life that Twain himself recalls. Anderson
demonstrates how they reflect various aspects of Twain's inner and outer
lives, and cites the seemingly plagiarized dedication to _The Innocents
Abroad_ as an example that no man has original ideas (18-19), and describes
how actor John T. Raymond was able to successfully portray the outer life
of Col. Sellers on stage, but not his inner life (25). He draws parallels
between Orion Clemens's failures and Twain's own failures, pointing out
that Twain's indictment of his brother's failures "reads like a painful
confession of his own insecurities" (41). He also draws parallels between
the inner lives of Susy Clemens and her father, noting that the father
himself reflected the same light and dark aspects of personality that he
described at length in his assessment of his daughter's nature, and aptly
calls Twain's anguished reaction to Susy's death a "nightmarish interior
journey" (38-39). Bernard DeVoto examined Twain's autobiography in his
thoughtful introduction to _Mark Twain in Eruption_ (1940), and concluded
that it was "not a document of the inner life" but Anderson does not cite
DeVoto. Anderson's first chapter concludes with extended explorations of
the three stories that form _The Mysterious Stranger_ manuscripts, and
draws striking parallels between the operations of the mind or mental
machinery reflected in these writings and the concepts of "consciousness"
and "interest" defined by philosopher William James, whose writings were
familiar to Twain.


By the time he begins his second chapter Anderson has cited many of the
Twain scholars whose books have previously explored this supposedly
"neglected" territory: Howard Baetzhold, John Bird, Gregg Camfield, James
Cox, Sherwood Cummings, Susan Gillman, Susan K. Harris, Jason Gary Horn,
Randall Knoper, Bruce Michelson, Tom Quirk, and Forrest G. Robinson. He
cites a number of articles and shorter works by others as well. Some of
these scholars might beg to differ whether Anderson dives deeper than they
into the depths of the interior worlds of Twain and his fictional
creations. But at this point Anderson dives into writings that precede the
time-frame claimed for the creative process for _What Is Man?_ (ca.
1880-1906) and looks at evidence of inner and outer lives in _The Innocents
Abroad_ (1869) and _Roughing It_ (1872). "_The Innocents Abroad_ never
tires of exploring the contrast between the banality of prescribed states
of feeling and the intoxicating surprise of genuine ones" says Anderson
(99), and he provides ample examples, among them the many towns that look
inviting at a distance but prove filthy and repellant when experienced
first-hand. He then compares Twain's _Quaker City_ excursion that resulted
in _Innocents Abroad_ with Twain's self-described western "vagabonding" in
_Roughing It_. He cites examples of outward parallels drawn by Twain
between Lake Como and Lake Tahoe, and outward contrasts like the boredom of
riding by rail in France and the excitement of riding by stage coach to
Nevada, but concludes that "the direction in which their confluence steers
Twain's work, however, is largely inward" (105). Ironically, what steers
Twain inward in both works says Anderson are the vast spaces that provide
an infinite mental terrain in which Twain's imagination wanders.


In the next chapter _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_, _The Prince and the
Pauper_, and _A Tramp Abroad_ are examined for evidence of interior spaces
behind the out-facing surfaces. Anderson's catalogue of objects in _Tom
Sawyer_ and their multiple metaphoric meanings is convincing (144-47) and
is also as good an example of his methodology as any. Here and in
_Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_, the "outward technicalities" of Twain's
adult "Mississippi experience" give way to a presentation of the "inward
intensities" of childhood (141). Likewise, in _Prince and the Pauper_ the
"interchange between an upper and an underworld" dramatically reflects the
inner lives of the two boys who exchange outer surfaces and then undergo
inner journeys (157).


The final chapter focuses on _Life on the Mississippi_, _Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn_, and _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_. The
contrast between a seasoned steamboat pilot's pragmatic reading of the
river and the poetical mythic spell it casts on that same pilot years later
are indicators of the inner and outer meanings competing in _Life on the
Mississippi_. In _Huckleberry Finn_ and _Connecticut Yankee_ Anderson is
less convincing when he describes the two worlds that exist in each work,
and the extent to which those dual worlds reflect the inner and outer lives
of the characters who must inhabit them. He says that toward the end of
_Huckleberry Finn_ "Huck finds himself once more suspended between two
worlds . . . represented . . . by pap Finn at one extreme and Sally Phelps
at the other" (215). In _Connecticut Yankee_ the worlds of the past and
present are expressed by a "burlesque collision between science and
superstition, aristocracy and democracy" (217). Much of the evidence
Anderson presents are the familiar--even shopworn--themes of duality that
have long been the subject of scholarly attention. Interpreting old
evidence in new ways is never easy. In Anderson's brief Conclusion,
_Personal Recollection of Joan of Arc_ is presented as a rejoinder to
_Connecticut Yankee_ and the celestial voice Joan hears is the spiritual
center of her mental machinery and sustains her to the end.


Anderson wisely avoids wading too deeply into the academic jargon that
sometimes infects interpretive studies, but the absence of a bibliography
will frustrate those wishing to dive deeper into this topic. Most will
agree that Anderson makes his case that Twain was indeed a perceptive
student of his own mind and that he engaged in an introspective study of
his own experiences late in life through the writing of his autobiography.
The application of _What Is Man?_ to Twain's earlier works will strike some
as convincing, and Anderson certainly provides detailed readings and new
insights. However, others may find this familiar territory, crowded with
evidence that does not always convince. This reaction is not
unexpected--even mechanistic?--when a rereading of Twain's major writings
offers a new assessment of how his imagination evolved. Readers of this
book, whether convinced or not of every argument presented, will find it
rewarding reading.