J E Boles wrote:  A journalist, as Mark Twain had been, has in his 
experience the observation of enormous reader fear and reaction to the 
printed word.  He has likely noted the occasional piece of writing which 
does turn around some social reality and make real change.  Any former 
journalist writing fiction might reasonably hope for such change as a 
result of his works. Indeed, Twain's works are still making change today

But for academics to declare a century and more later that Twain's works 
were in any sense failures or flawed is ridiculous.  Academic 
declarations are not significant, compared to the overwhelming voice of 
a whole people's continuous attention to a work of fiction. Twain's 
characters and fictional events are permanently embedded in the entire 
culture of the Western World, and always will be so.  There can be no 
greater achievement than that for a writer.  The academic voice is 
rarely heard, and seldom remembered, in contrast.


On 4/21/2012 3:45 PM, Lawrence Howe wrote:
> Dear forum--
>
> I've really enjoyed the exchange that has been unfolding from Scott Holmes =
> observation.  Since my name and work was invoked at the beginning of this t=
> hread, I feel obligated to qualify the basis of my characterization of Twai=
> n's texts as failures.  My position was influenced by Jim Cox's work, but I=
>   can't speak for him, so I'll offer only a clarification of my position. =20
>
> I have never suggested that his works are failures of literary art.  I woul=
> dn't return to them as often as I do if that were the case. I have little i=
> nterest in the finding fault with the structural flaws that many early crit=
> ics cited.  I very deliberately avoid the questions of formal unity and str=
> uctural consistency that New Criticism often hung its hat on because it thi=
> nk those expectations are inappropriate criteria for a writer who processed=
>   his work as Twain did.  To do so is akin to dismissing Picasso because no =
> actual person has two eyes on one side of one's face.   =20
>
> Rather, my argument is rooted in narrative theories that posit the novel's =
> existence as a social genre, one committed to subverting the status quo (an=
> d note that, from this theoretical perspective, not all narrative fiction i=
> n book length qualifies generically as a novel). But in this regard, not on=
> ly Twain's novels but all novels are failures.  Now it might seem rather ab=
> surd to think that a story about a fictional character could motivate anyon=
> e to attempt to change the world.  But novelists have often expressed their=
>   sense of having failed to achieve pretty big changes.  =20
>
> This does not mean that novels have absolutely no social impact.  One examp=
> le of a novel that did achieve real change is  _the Jungle_, but even when =
> that example is raised, we must acknowledge that Sinclair himself judged it=
>   a failure:  he was trying to bring down capitalism but the result of his e=
> fforts was the FDA.  Doris Lessing is another novelist who aimed for large =
> social impact, and she dismissed her acclaimed  _The Golden Notebooks_ as a=
>   failure because it did not achieve the kind of feminist structural changes=
>   that she expected.  The one example that often comes up as a challenge to =
> my point is _Uncle Tom's Cabin_, which even Lincoln is said to have cited a=
> s the cause of the Civil War.  If Lincoln ever said that, I assume that he =
> was being ironic.  But Lincoln aside, I find it incredibly unsettling to th=
> ink that it took a story about someone who never existed, who was nothing m=
> ore than marks on a page, to inspire the sympathy of people who couldn't ge=
> t worked up by narratives written by actual fugitive slaves.  While the tra=
> dition of sentimental philosophy cited the emotional affinity that a reader=
>   might feel for a character as a mark of that reader's sentimental pedigree=
> , I find it more troubling that a character--an artifice--would generate sy=
> mpathy where flesh and blood humans could not do so. Richard Wright apparen=
> tly felt similarly because it was the fact that banker's daughters cried up=
> on reading Richard Wright's collection of novellas, _Uncle Tom's Children, =
> that goaded him to compose _Native Son_, a text that he was determined woul=
> d shock those readers rather than move them to tears.
>
> What is most intriguing about Twain is that even when his books were popula=
> r or critically praised, he signaled his sense of disappointment about them=
>   along the lines that I'm describing.  But even more intriguing, and satisf=
> ying, is the fact that he didn't just abandon novels given what he'd experi=
> enced.  He continued to push the edges of the genre to see if he could achi=
> eve a social impact (I can see no other way to explain _CY_) or to expose t=
> he unfulfillable promise of the genre of the novel itself. =20
>
> So I hope I've made the terms of my argument somewhat clearer.  When I use =
> the term "failure," I don't mean it in the sense that Hemingway did when he=
>   discounted the ending of HF_ (rather stupidly in my view, for without that=
>   ending the satirical and novelistic purpose of the narrative evaporates). =
>   Twain produced remarkably engaging, deceptively complex, and profoundly pr=
> ovocative narrative literature.  By that measure his career is a genuine tr=
> iumph.  But he also worked in a form that imposes rather lofty ambitions; a=
> nd what his remarkably adept writing shows is that the genre of the novel t=
> antalizes its practitioners into chasing its promise: that a truly successf=
> ul novel can re-make the world.  And that promise is more like a confidence=
>   game, as Melville suggests, or a Catch 22, as Heller does. =20
>
> --Larry Howe  =20
> ________________________________________
> From: Mark Twain Forum [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark Dawidziak [hlgr=
> [log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2012 4:38 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Failures in the works of Mark Twain
>
>       Just a thought tossed into what's already an extremely thoughtful
> mix: there's a monumental difference between "flawed" and "failure." It
> certainly could be argued that "Huckleberry Finn" and "Connecticut
> Yankee" are structurally flawed. I'm trying to wrap my brain around the
> notion that either of these books would be classified as failures. If
> this be failure, please, let me write something 1/100th as good.
>        But flawed? Is there a work of art that isn't flawed in some way?
> And just because something is flawed doesn't mean it's not a
> masterpiece. In his introduction to an annotated edition of Bram
> Stoker's "Dracula," scholar Leonard Wolf writes, "Let me say at once
> that we have a complete masterpiece, flawed here and there, as the
> Chinese insist masterpieces should be, but, nevertheless, the real thing."
>       Seems to me the same might be said of "Huckleberry Finn,"
> "Connecticut Yankee" and many other Twain works. Which isn't to say
> there are not failures within these works -- flaws, if you will. Even
> the last third of "Huckleberry Finn" is now viewed in a vastly different
> light, thanks to the scholarship of Vic Doyno and others. The appraisal
> presented by William M. Gibson and others, if hardly overturned, has
> been treated to a substantive alternate interpretation. Whatever the
> view of this ending, or "Connecticut Yankee," for that matter, I'm
> guessing that most of us would contend that we are in the presence of
> the real thing.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message----- From: Scott Holmes
> <[log in to unmask]>  To: TWAIN-L<[log in to unmask]>  Sent: Fri,
> Apr 20, 2012 6:44 pm Subject: Failures in the works of Mark Twain I've
> been aware for some time now that there has been dissatisfaction with
> the concluding portion of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but not until
> this last year have I become aware of what seems to be a sense of
> failure in much of his work. =3D20 A few weeks back I mentioned I was
> reading Cox's Mark Twain The Fate of Humor and I was surprised at the
> thought that Connecticut Yankee and/or The Prince and the Pauper were
> failures. Upon finishing this book it seems to me that Cox felt most of
> Twains work were failures. And this surprised me greatly especially
> sense he seems to be so well informed on the topic. =3D20 I started today
> on Lawrence Howe's Mark Twain and the Novel. This appears to argue that
> the failures were not Twain's but are structural. Nevertheless, the idea
> that there are failures or faults in these works surprises me. In fact
> it disturbs me. I suppose this is because I am not a literary critic or
> even academically trained in English (my degrees are in Geography). In
> my mind, a book, in this case a novel, is a failure only if it fails to
> interest the reader and/or proves to be unreadable. This is not the case
> with any of Twain's works in my experience.=3D20 On further searching for
> why this sense of failure exists I came upon a review of Cox's book by
> Kristin Brown. It would seem that Mark Twain IS a Humorist and must
> write humorous material, otherwise "Twain had attempted to suppress his
> genius". This is the crux of my problem with the idea that there are
> failures. This strikes me very much like the argument that Miles Davis
> was a failure after he progressed beyond Bebop. An artist is not allowed
> to venture away from their established genre. Humor might have been his
> "strongest suit" but by no means need it be his only suit. Thoughts?
>
>