BOOK REVIEW



_Mark Twain: The Gift of Humor_. By Harold H. Kolb, Jr. University Press of
America, 2015. Pp. 504. Hardcover. 6.25 x 9.25". ISBN 978-0-7618-6420-2.
$86.00.



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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:

Martin Zehr



Copyright (c) 2014 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.



The status of classic critical works in any area of literary study is
typically, and understandably, one accorded in retrospect, following a
decent interval during which the writing in question has withstood the
slings and arrows of scholars and generational trends in literary analysis
that consign some perspectives to the dustbin and revive others. In the
world of Mark Twain studies, an incomplete listing of such works written in
the century following Twain's death might include Van Wyck Brooks's _The
Ordeal of Mark Twain_, Bernard DeVoto's _Mark Twain's America_, Henry Nash
Smith's _Mark Twain: The Development of a Writer_, Louis Budd's _Our Mark
Twain: The Making of His Public Personality_ and Tom Quirk's _ Mark Twain
and Human Nature_. The experience of reading and reviewing a work that one
senses is a candidate for classic designation requires a bit of arrogance,
but, at the risk of decidedly premature judgment, Harold Kolb's _Mark
Twain: The Gift of Humor_ has to be considered, by virtue of its scope and
accomplishment of its mission, on the short list of critical volumes
required for any serious student of Mark Twain.



Harold H. Kolb Jr. is emeritus professor of American literature at the
University of Virginia, where he was the founding director of the American
Studies Program and the Center for the Liberal Arts. His book's back-cover
blurb asserts that "Humor, in all its mercurial complexity, is at the
center of Mark Twain's talent, his successes, and its limitations," and
Kolb, through a historical and content analysis, demonstrates the means by
which Twain, through lifelong acquisition and adaptation of the components
of his trademark humor, created a lasting legacy that renders any
description of him as a "mere humorist" unequivocally laughable. Kolb's
initial three chapters, laying the foundation for analysis of Twain's uses
of humor, could be read with profit by anyone desiring a primer on the
elements of humor or, from Kolb's perspective, the physics and psychology
of humor, based on his assertion that "some kind of disparity or contrast,
with an accompanying upset of expectations, must be present in the first
place for a situation to have the potential for humor" (p. 24). This is a
theme that Kolb illustrates with examples throughout the career of Mark
Twain, even while he demonstrates how Twain's emphasis changes from the
tall-tale humor of his Missouri childhood to the satire and pointed irony
of the political writing of his later years. Through hundreds of examples,
Kolb shows that Twain was, "from the beginning, an exaggerator, with a
flair for the dramatic, who pushed the opposing sides of contrast out to
extremes to make sparks fly and rattle the cages of listeners and readers .
. ." (p. 348).



Kolb's analysis underscores Twain's early determination to distinguish
himself from the "phunny phellows" of his era, "mere humorists" with
monikers such as Orpheus C. Kerr, Petroleum V. Nasby, Josh Billings and
Artemus Ward, popular entertainers whose stock-in-trade consisted of
reliance on malapropisms, deliberate misspellings, puns and jokes
sufficient to elicit laughter but decidedly lacking in hints of an
underlying mission that might include, for example, self-reflection or
commentary on the foibles of the "the damned human race," a constant target
of Twain's efforts. As Kolb notes, Twain assiduously avoided forms of humor
of that nature as he matured (although Kolb cites a terrible pun based on
the word "whey" from _A Tramp Abroad_). That none of Twain's above-named
compatriots are remembered today except by academic comparison is
sufficient testimony to Twain's success in his missions, to entertain and
simultaneously, "not _professedly_ teach, it (humor) must not professedly
preach; but it must do both if it would live forever." Kolb's analysis of
the bases for Twain's success in this regard is certainly applicable to
modern humorists. For example, when considering the winners of the annual
Mark Twain Prize for Humor, the question is begged, which of these honorees
exhibits the qualities of the serious humorist exemplified by Twain,
qualities that hint at possible longevity?



Kolb's chapter arrangement is essentially chronological, and inclusive to
an extent that this book can, without exaggeration, be considered as a
biography of Twain's humorous (and non-humorous) writings. All of Twain's
major works, and many obscure, including posthumously published writings,
are discussed with reference to the evolving nature of Twain's reliance on
the disparities in life he observed and incorporated into his work. Kolb
cites the earliest squibs of Sam Clemens, such as "The Dandy Frightening
the Squatter," as evidence of an ability to utilize the strategies of
exaggeration and the tall-tale characteristic of southwestern humor of the
era, qualities which emerged in well-developed form by the time Mark Twain
began his literary career in earnest as "the wild humorist of the Pacific
slope" in Virginia City and San Francisco. By the time Twain writes his
breakthrough work, _The Innocents Abroad_, Kolb sees the emergence of a
polished sense of exaggeration, fed by the natural contrasts and
disparities between Twain as narrator and tourist, the Old World and the
New, and the frequently encountered shocks engendered by the clash of
established romanticized versions of historic settings and disappointing
realities. As an example, Kolb cites _The Innocents Abroad_'s summary
description of Italy as "one vast museum of magnificence and misery. . . .
for every beggar in America, Italy can show a hundred-and rags and vermin
to match. It is the wretchedest, princeliest land on earth."



The same formula, with the addition of the naive narrator, is repeated in
_Roughing It_, providing "a continuous disparity between innocence and
experience, and thus . . . endless opportunities for humor" (p. 119). The
encounter between the tenderfoot narrator and the notorious outlaw Slade is
just one hilarious example, and, in the midst of the fun, Twain is
simultaneously educating the reader on the subject of the American West,
"without the distorting filters of previous opinions and conventions and
book-frauds . . ." (p. 121), as he had in the pages of _The Innocents
Abroad_. The mixture of entertainment and education is a fixture of all
Twain's loosely styled travelogues, including _Life on the Mississippi_,
with its cub pilot narrator, described by Kolb as "ignorant, unwisely
pretentious, and forever receiving setbacks and putdowns" (p.153).



The breadth and cogency of Kolb's analysis is evident in his discussion of
items from Twain's works like "A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I
Heard It," the first-person account, by Mary Ann Cord, Aunt Rachel in the
piece, of her personal suffering in slavery. The disparity between the
naive but self-deprecating narrator and the unqualified tragedy of Rachel's
story is the basis for a tempered humor that does not detract from its
serious nature, but renders it more complex and mature, a far cry from the
tall tales of Twain's western apprenticeship.



_Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ notably uses the device of a first-person
naive narrator, borrowed from _Roughing It_, but in the person of an
uneducated boy, providing frequent opportunities for observing the
disparities between the "sound heart" and "deformed conscience" that
entertain even as Twain uses them to satirize targets as diverse as
southern aristocracy, Tom Sawyer's "addle-brained romanticism" (p. 204) and
the inherent hypocrisy of slavery in the American republic. As Kolb notes,
exaggeration in Huck's world often takes the form of stereotypes and
caricatures of the characters populating the novel, including Jim, whose
lack of education and firmly held superstitions, like Huck's, are the
source of jokes at his expense. _Huckleberry Finn_ also incorporates the
comedy of disparity, what Kolb refers to as "the unanticipated against the
expected" (p. 213) in such forms as the king's naked romp across the stage
to entertain the hicks in Bricksville and the duke's unintentional parody
of Hamlet's soliloquy. Irony and satire, however, are the most potent
humorous forms in _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_, and the ironies in this
book are "grim . . . leavened by comedy" (p. 215).



Kolb subjects other Twain books, including _The Prince and the Pauper_, _A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_, and _Pudd'nhead Wilson_, to his
analysis of the broad and changing nature of his humor and includes
discussions of incidents such as Twain's 1877 speech for the John Whittier
birthday celebration, a memorable example of Twain's ability to violate the
implicit requirements of public decorum. As such, this is proof, as Kolb
asserts, that "Humor can be a risky business. It skirts the edge of
indecorum, tastelessness, insult" (p. 167). Kolb includes an extended
discussion of _Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc_, conceding "is not an
overtly humorous book," but maintaining that "the strategies of the
humorist can be seen throughout" (p. 278).



Kolb's discussions of Twain's later writings such as the various
_Mysterious Stranger_ manuscripts, "The Great Dark," and _What Is Man?_
incorporate, by necessity, a broader conception of humor, with a greater
reliance on irony and satire than is evident in Twain's earlier works. Kolb
notes, however, that classics such as _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ also
utilize liberal helpings of irony and satire, in conjunction with
exaggeration and tall-tale humor, to entertain and subversively accomplish
its author's other missions. These later works are, moreover, still
dependent on what Kolb insists is the critical element of disparity, but
derive their humor from the implicit absurdities of the human condition
rather than the actions at the heart of pranks and other southwestern
predecessors.



Of particular note is the chapter on the relationship between Twain and
William Dean Howells, Twain's friend and champion from the 1869 publication
of _The Innocents Abroad_, reviewed by Howells for the _Atlantic Monthly_,
through the remainder of his life and beyond. Kolb's well-documented
discussion of the relationship underscores Howells's early recognition of
Twain's unique brand of humor and the underlying qualities that form the
basis of Howells's famous assessment of his friend as "the Lincoln of our
literature." This chapter provides context for understanding the
contemporary reception of Twain's work, ranging from the condemnation of
Matthew Arnold, who asserted that the "spirit of irreverence [was] the
great fault in American character," (p. 234) to Brander Matthews more
prescient conclusion that "he (Twain) is to be classed . . . with Moliere
and Cervantes, with Chaucer and Fielding, humorists all of them" (p. 235).
Another chapter recounts Twain's relationship with his erstwhile mentor,
Bret Harte, useful for comparison, as Kolb shows, because "Twain's
narrators are involved in the joke, sometimes delivering it, sometimes as
the target, and often as part of the collateral damage. Harte laughs at
others; Twain can laugh at himself" (p. 198). Even here, however, Kolb
underscores Twain's lifelong refusal to adhere to a constraining
consistency, from his earliest barbs spoofing Hannibal residents to the
later unrestrained and focused attacks on General Funston, Czar Nicholas
and King Leopold of Belgium.



Kolb's book is clearly well researched and includes an appendix listing
many of Twain's major and lesser-known works that will be particularly
useful to the novice student of Mark Twain, followed by an extensive
listing of sources, chapter notes, and index that will serve the needs of
the most-seasoned Twain scholar. That Kolb's research is up-to-date is
attested by such examples as his inclusion of an extended note in which he
outlines the recent discovery of evidence by Twain scholar Kevin Mac
Donnell relevant to the subject of Sam Clemens's choice of pseudonym and
his discussion of the definitive version of the autobiography, becoming
available through the efforts of the Mark Twain Project and the University
of California.  Kolb adds his assessment that Mac Donnell has
"persuasively" made a case for his theory regarding the source of the
moniker in an 1861 issue of the humor magazine, _Vanity Fair_. Kolb also
illustrates the misleading impressions of Twain's legacy fostered by the
incomplete versions of his autobiography prior to 2010.



It would be remiss to fail to mention other works on the subject of Twain
and humor that warrant attention. At least two other works are notable.
Kenneth Lynn's _Mark Twain and Southwestern Humor_ and James Cox's _Mark
Twain: The Fate of Humor_ both have a narrower focus than Kolb's more
comprehensive treatment of Twain and humor, but neither is displaced as a
valuable source for the Twain scholar. By comparison, Kolb's work provides
a more wide-ranging analysis of the role and importance of the varieties of
humor throughout Twain's career, in all the major forms of Twain's written
legacy, including the one-liner maxims which continue to adorn bookmarks,
T-shirts and coffee cups in Twain's posthumous, but not post-humorous,
career.



In _Mark Twain: The Gift of Humor_, Kolb has assumed the Herculean task of
providing a comprehensive study of the core of Twain's lasting attraction
to readers over the course of the last 150 years, his understanding of, and
incorporation of a depth of understanding of humor far surpassing that of
his contemporary "phunny phellows," and many of our twenty-first century
practitioners. That he has succeeded in his mission must be regarded as
nothing less than an astounding achievement, one which renders this work
worthy of including in the library of every serious student of Twain. It
can confidently be concluded that _Mark Twain: The Gift of Humor_ is the
benchmark on the subject against which any forthcoming attempts will be
measured for the next century, or, as Twain might opine, forever, adding
"By forever, I mean thirty years." Time will tell.