BOOK REVIEW:


_Mark Twain and France: The Making of a New American Identity_. By Paula
Harrington and Ronald Jenn. University of Missouri Press, 2017. Pp. 248.
Hardcover. $50.00. ISBN: 978-0-8262-2119-3.


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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
Barbara Schmidt


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 This review may not be published or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



Mark Twain's public and private writings are often filled with
contradictions that have left scholars searching for clear and convincing
answers regarding changes in his attitudes. In _Mark Twain & France: The
Making of a New American Identity_, the latest in the Mark Twain and his
Circle series from the University of Missouri Press, Paula Harrington and
Ronald Jenn tackle questions surrounding Mark Twain's relationship with
France. Their book offers the most nearly definitive answers yet regarding
Mark Twain's early "free floating" dislike for all things French which
dissipated later in his life.


Harrington, on the faculty of Colby College in Maine, and Jenn, a professor
of translation studies at Universite de Lille in France, make an ideal team
for this study which incorporates an examination of French and American
cultural history, Mark Twain biography, and literary analysis. Their study
documents how Mark Twain expressed some of his most hateful and vengeful
thoughts about France and the French over many years. It traces his
reversal of attitudes which enabled him to write a book that idolized the
French martyr Joan of Arc.


The book opens with a scene from 1902 in St. Louis, Missouri, with Mark
Twain standing aboard a harbor boat being renamed in his honor alongside
members of French aristocracy. His speech on this occasion praises the
French explorer La Salle. Mark Twain's anti-French sentiments from his
early years as a writer were well known but Harrington and Jenn explain
that at that point in his life he could afford to be gracious. America had
prevailed in a cultural battle with France and Mark Twain had played a role
in constructing that new American identity.


Harrington and Jenn begin their search for answers by examining the history
of the French in Missouri long before the Clemens family settled there.
French trappers and traders left a reputation of being sympathetic to
Indian interests and being their partners in crime. With a surgical
precision the authors examine such minute details as the first McGuffey
reader young Sam Clemens encountered in his Hannibal, Missouri, schoolroom
and what it taught youngsters about America and France.


Harrington and Jenn lay out their theory that Clemens saw France as a foil
and a competitor to be defeated in order for America to be the world's
political and cultural leader. They also compare Clemens's attitudes to "a
sibling rivalry" on a national level (p. 13). In this same process, he
competed to be an author who was superior to any French writer. In addition
to his reading material and books about France that he collected, the
authors examine Clemens's letters sent home to his family from his
steamboat piloting days and his lengthy description of a New Orleans Mardi
Gras. They highlight several pieces from his Western journalism that saw
him perfecting the art of using French jokes to comment humorously on
Americans while at the same time truly criticizing French lifestyles. They
recount the experiences he had in Nevada territory with men and women of
French descent. From _Roughing It_ they carefully analyze what was omitted
stating that "Twain inserts fake Frenchness when he wants to associate it
with loose morals but removes real Frenchness when it connotes good
behavior" (p. 43). The authors also find additional French commentary in
the notebook Mark Twain kept during his visit to the Sandwich Islands when
he wrote "the French nation spit in the face of Hawaii" (p. 53).


Harrington and Jenn dissect Mark Twain's first major publishing success
_The Innocents Abroad_, published in 1869, written after Clemens had
visited France and experienced French culture firsthand. The authors
identify four scenes in the book where the French become an American foil.
"These scenes highlight American white Anglo-Saxon Protestant virtues by
opposition: the French--who are overwhelmingly Catholic--are dirty, lazy
and promiscuous, while the 'WASPs' are clean, industrious, and chaste" (p.
74). The authors also speculate these French traits were ones that "he
recognized--and was afraid of--in himself" (p. 79). This theory of
obsession and "projecting" was also one put forth by biographer Justin
Kaplan who stated that Mark Twain's invective against the French often
"went far beyond the conventional split in the Victorian psyche" and "far
beyond France itself" (p. 116).


Harrington and Jenn analyze several minor sketches written while Mark Twain
was part owner of the _Buffalo Express_ newspaper including "Dining with a
Cannibal" which features the narrator being offered a Frenchman to eat.
"Mark Twain's Map of the Fortifications of Paris," also written during the
same time frame, has often been misjudged as a slapstick dig at journalist
practices of the day. However, Harrington and Jenn interpret the piece in
light of the events in Clemens's own life as well as the Franco-Prussian
War in 1870--with nuances often lost on many of today's scholars. They
conclude, "However much Twain is poking fun at American journalism--and
surely it is substantial--his map shows France in a diminished, surrounded,
easily defeated position that encourages readers to have a laugh at French
expense as well" (p. 91).


By 1872, Mark Twain's popularity was growing among American readers and it
attracted the attention of French literary critic Therese Bentzon, who
published a profile of Mark Twain in the popular French publication _Revue
des Deux Mondes_. In it she provided a French translation of Twain's
jumping frog story. At this point in Mark Twain's life he had achieved a
reading and writing level of the French language, fully understood what she
had written, and was clearly offended. Harrington and Jenn point out that,
in spite of being an accurate translation of the jumping frog story, the
underlying tone of Bentzon's article was condescending and "she minimizes
him [Mark Twain] personally as well as the new American literature he is
coming to represent" (p. 93). Twain's response was to publish a rejoinder
"The 'Jumping Frog' in English. Then in French, Then Clawed Back into a
Civilized Language Once More by Patient, Unrenumerated Toil."  His essay
ignores Bentzon's personal degradation of his background and talent and
instead mocks her French language translation of his work and by extension
French culture. The authors agree with previous scholarship that this
incident "contributed significantly to [his] angry store of loathing for
the French" (pp. 97-8) but believe his foundation for French antipathy had
already been established with this incident only helping solidify it.


One of the most enlightening and extensive studies in this volume relates
to the four months Clemens and his family spent in France in 1879 while he
gathered material for his forthcoming book _A Tramp Abroad_. The weather
was bad, he was in poor health, and his personal notebooks show him writing
hateful things about the French. However, blaming ill will on sickness and
the weather is to oversimplify. The authors point to previously unstudied
materials such as Clemens's own _carte de visite_ album of French
personalities put together during this trip which "belies the idea that
Twain's only responses to the French during that unpleasant stay were to
dislike them personally and demean their way of life" (p. 110). The album,
sold by Clara Clemens in 1951, is now in the special collections at Cornell
University. The authors offer it as evidence that Clemens was as compelled
to learn about the French as he was repelled by their way of life.


Harrington and Jenn believe any study of _A Tramp Abroad_ must include the
three French chapters he wrote for the book but ultimately decided not to
make public, perhaps because of his wife Livy's disapproval. Upon examining
the whole body of these manuscripts, a pattern of authorial intent emerges.
"Twain is creating an inverted scale of civilization, with the French
falling at the bottom" below Indians (p. 127). Harrington and Jenn describe
the three chapters that were left out of _A Tramp Abroad_ as a chapter
extolling female virtues which are the key to civilization; a burlesque of
a French etiquette book; and a chapter comparing the French with Comanche
Indians. This last chapter was eventually published by Bernard DeVoto in
_Letters from the Earth_ (1962) and is identified by Harrington and Jenn as
his "most vicious piece of writing" and one in which he probably realized
"he had finally gone too far by moving from satire to vitriol" (p. 129). By
the time the Clemens family returned to the United States in the latter
half of 1879, Harrington and Jenn suggest he had worked through his
inferiority complex with the French and had won. Or as Twain himself might
have said, "I emptied the bile out of my system."


In a chapter titled "Less to Prove" covering the years 1880-1892, the
authors document Mark Twain's rise as a world famous author and his return
trip to France in 1891. The authors pay particular attention to the
unfinished manuscript "The Innocents Adrift," a story about his river trip
down the Rhone in September 1891. The story was left unfinished although
Albert Bigelow Paine did publish a gutted version of it in _Europe and
Elsewhere_ (1923). The authors describe this manuscript in detail and
identify it as a "universal tale of human experience and friendship" (p.
150) and not the travelogue that Paine's version presented. Unfortunately,
a series of Kodak photos Clemens made on this river trip appear to have
been lost when the negatives were delivered to Nice for printing. In an
essay titled "Some National Stupidities," also not printed during Mark
Twain's lifetime, he addressed the incident in comparatively mild terms
writing, "Pray get no Kodak pictures developed in France--and especially in
Nice" (p. 160). In spite of this mild and understandable rebuke, the
authors see "The Innocents Adrift" as signaling an improved relationship
with the French, a turning point, and bridging the gap between the
unpublished vitriolic chapters of _A Tramp Abroad_ (1880) and Mark Twain's
reverential _Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc_ which began appearing
in serial installments in 1895.


Although Mark Twain had rid himself of much of his anti-French sentiment by
1894, an incident sparked by French travel writer Paul Bourget did cause
him to take up his anti-French pen once again. When Bourget wrote about his
impressions of American society in a series of newspaper articles, Mark
Twain took offence and published his own response. Harrington and Jenn
dismiss this war of words as akin to a sibling rivalry that set off a
"mini-feud probably driven more by a desire for press attention than actual
outrage" (p. 175).


In a chapter titled "Coming to Terms" the authors believe that Mark Twain
was finally able to "meld French and American identities" (p. 167) as he
wrote _Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc_. After this book he
discontinued his practice of using the French as a competitive foil.
Subsequent works such as _Is He Dead?_ and his public praising of French
writer Emile Zola are examples of an author at peace with French culture.


Errors in this volume are few. With the exception of Henry Clapp's name
rendered as Henry "Capp" (p. 45), other errors relate to reference notes
that fail to fully document the location of sources cited. This current
volume features a "Timeline of the Clemenses in France 1867-1895," seven
chapters devoted to specific time periods, a photo section, extensive
annotations, a bibliography that features both English and French
resources, and an index. The resources utilized are impressive and indicate
Harrington and Jenn left few stones unturned. Their writing style is direct
and to the point. Their arguments that the French served Mark Twain as a
foil to advance American culture and his own reputation as a distinctly
American writer are strong and likely to convince future scholars for years
to come.