BOOK REVIEW

_Heretical Fictions: Religion in the Literature of Mark Twain_. By Lawrence
I. Berkove and Joseph Csicsila. University of Iowa Press, 2010. Softcover.
Pp. 288. ISBN: 978-1-58729-903-2. $39.95.

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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
David Foster
Ashland University

Copyright © 2010 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.


Mark Twain wrote that "Humor must not professedly teach and it must not
professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever." Both are
exactly what Twain's humor did, according to this provocative book by
Lawrence I. Berkove and Joseph Csicsila. They argue that our maestro of the
humorous story preached and taught a peculiar, heretical version of
Calvinism. This religious teaching is not obvious because Twain spent much
of his life openly criticizing and emphatically trying to break with the
strict Presbyterianism that was his spiritual inheritance. Berkove and
Csicsila maintain that despite his great effort of repudiation, Twain found
Calvinism's view of God and humanity too compelling to discard. In the end,
he was able to reject only one of Calvinism's three main tenets. While he
agreed that God is omnipotent and omniscient, he denied that God was
benevolent: Twain's God is a malevolent trickster who toys with mankind for
his own entertainment. As Berkove and Csicsila sum it up, Twain "preached
all his life in his literature a distinct departure from a conventional
Christian message: that because of God's _malice_ life is deceitful and
humans are not meant to achieve in it their dearest goals of freedom,
happiness, and fulfillment" (p. 2). This "countertheology" is not only
present in each of Twain's major novels, but is the deep, albeit sometimes
hidden, source of those novels' true meaning. It is therefore the clue to
recognizing Twain's literary genius and the theme that gives his corpus
unity of purpose and consistency from _Roughing It_ to the last unpublished
writings.

In making the case for their rather grim thesis, Berkove and Csicsila are
sensitive to biography and autobiography, but their primary evidence is laid
out in detailed and very readable discussions of Twain's books. They devote
a chapter to each of five novels: _Roughing It_ (a good case is made that
this is a novel), _The Adventures of Tom Sawyer_, _Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn_, _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court_, and _No. 44, The
Mysterious Stranger_. The final chapter, "The Last Letters from Earth,"
examines many unpublished works written in the final decade of Twain's life.
The basic story told is of the gradual revelation of Twain's
"countertheology." At first it is expressed indirectly and cautiously and
sometimes, perhaps, also somewhat unconsciously. It gradually becomes more
overt, emerging most fully developed, though still veiled by artistry, in
_Connecticut Yankee_, which is said to rival _Huckleberry Finn_ as Twain's
greatest novel. _No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger_ explores a potential
escape from Calvinism through scientific psychology, but in the end circles
back to confirm it. In the final works, the "countertheology" becomes
explicit, but its harshness is somewhat mitigated by Twain's growing
compassion for the human condition.

_Heretical Fictions_ makes several valuable contributions. The thesis that
Twain's works are organized around one idea poses an important challenge to
many conventional readings, which see Twain as a mere humorist or an
inconsistent, episodic writer, who showed flashes of genius, but whose
literature is determined by shifting biographical influences, mercurial
intellectual interests, sudden losses of focus, and so on. The focus on
theological issues also leads to many fresh readings, useful suggestions,
and stimulating insights. For an example, see the discussion of allusions to
Christ's birth in the annunciation of Hank Morgan's newspaper (p. 136 ff).
Throughout the book interesting light is shone on words, incidents, and
literary techniques, especially hoaxes and dreams.

Few readers would deny that Twain was concerned with religion, but some
might wonder how stories that millions have found delightful or funny and
even inspiring could support the thesis that Berkove and Csicsila lay out
here. Facing this question directly, they argue that Twain must be read as a
kind of esoteric writer. Early in his career, Twain was "devious or
circumspect about hiding his targets and beliefs beneath dark hints and
veiled clues," and he always used a "layered style" of writing (p. 55).
Accordingly, we must distinguish between the "surfaces" of his books, which
express the gifts of narrative and humor that established and sustained his
reputation, and "the deep tidal swells of his mind that drive his
creativity" and give depth and unity to his corpus (p. 7).

The difficulty in making this distinction is especially acute in the case of
_Roughing It_, the earliest work considered here, and a book that is usually
considered a rip-roaring medley of funny stories, practical jokes, hoaxes,
and tall tales. Acknowledging that it is all that, Berkove and Csicsila
argue that it also presents a vision of reality that can be summed up as a
"close-up tour of ruined Eden overlooking hell" (p. 53). The transition from
amusing stories to ruined Eden is found by noting that the novel's humorous
surface falls into several repeated patterns. The most important is that
many of the stories show that those who went West in search of easy
wealth--that is, who tried to evade the labor imposed by God as punishment
for the fall--find their hopes and dreams frustrated, usually in bitter and
violent ways. Their hopes and dreams turn out to be hoaxes. Repeated in
story after story, the pattern becomes, the authors suggest, a metaphor for
Twain's pessimistic view of existence. The novel suggests that man never
learns from failures and that he is unable, through self-examination, to
find a more sober guide to life than romantic dreams and extravagant hopes.
In seeking an explanation for this outlook, the authors note that the
inevitability of failure depicted in Twain's narratives has the tincture of
predestination about it. In addition, it is difficult to tell which Twain
holds more responsible for the human condition--man's own vices and folly,
or the Creator; and this duality resembles the Calvinist doctrine of
double-damnation, according to which humans, most of whom are already
predestined to damnation, are also damned for their actual behavior. Putting
all this together, the authors suggest that Calvinism is the "probable
source" or "wellspring" of the pattern of failure found in _Roughing It_.

Thus, the authors argue that the surface features of Twain's novels that
normally attract readers both hide the deeper currents of meaning and
contribute to their development. I have no objection to reading Twain as an
esoteric writer. The proliferation of hoaxes, tricks, concealed and double
identities, and other such devices that abound in his fiction speaks
strongly in favor of this approach, and it is a significant contribution of
_Heretical Fictions_ that it makes a serious argument for this way of
reading Twain. On the other hand, I am not persuaded that in the case of
books like _Roughing It_, the surface features should be interpreted in the
light of "deeper" meanings that appear most clearly only in much later
works. The authors do show that Twain's later pessimism existed to some
extent in his earlier works, but was it already the controlling theme?
Maybe, but I wonder whether it might not rather have been a sign of an
internal struggle or debate whose outcome was at this point still
undetermined.

Berkove and Csicsila argue that St. Petersburg in _Tom Sawyer_ (and the
other towns that appear in Twain's fiction), depict not only Twain's view of
social life, but are metaphors for his view of the cosmos. And they argue
that both society and the cosmos are characterized by "the omnipresent
threat of violence," spiritual repression, cruelty, loneliness, moral
hollowness, "deadening " and "disfiguring" reality, and above all,
autocratic or tyrannical rule and the complete absence of any form of
freedom (Chapter 3). There is no doubt a dark side to Twain's depiction of
social life, which is amply brought out here, but the description of St.
Petersburg seems overwrought. The town's Russian namesake has an autocratic
czar, but there is no such thing or real equivalent in 19th century
democratic America. And to treat "culture" as the source of repression and
cruelty is to suggest, implausibly, that culture is an autonomous force
independent of the will of human beings. The argument treats Tom as
motivated solely by a desire for freedom (until he experiences the
"savagery" of nature on Jackson's Island and gets co-opted by society). But
that ignores some of the lessons of the fence-painting incident, Tom's
desire from the beginning to be a leader among the small boys, his desire
for Aunt Polly's affection, and his spontaneous initial love for Becky, all
of which point to other motives than the desire for freedom. In short, the
book is filled with good observations, but there is sometimes a tendency by
the authors to infer too much from them.

Probably the most controversial argument of the book (apart from the idea
that Twain really believed in a God he hated) is that, contrary to
appearances, _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ is not an affirmation of
freedom but actually "denies the possibility of human freedom" (p. 109; 84).
The argument turns on an interpretation of the well-known problem of the
"evasion" chapters at the end. Most previous readings either consider the
end a major flaw or strain to fit it into the hopes for freedom generated in
other parts of the novel. Against these readings, Berkove and Csicsila
maintain that the "evasion" chapters make perfect sense when they are read
as showing the impossibility of human freedom. They show that neither Huck
nor Jim is free in the sense that neither has the capacity "to create his .
. . own identity" (p. 85). Both are forced by Tom (and society) into an
"impersonation" or role that they would never choose: Jim, to be a prisoner,
Huck, a romantic hero. The general idea is that family, society,
environment, and ultimately destiny, providence, or God compels each of us
to assume certain "impersonations," thereby denying us freedom. This is
perhaps the most important of the many hoaxes that God plays on man: while
making man desire freedom and think it possible, He so constructed the world
that freedom is actually impossible. Indeed, the hope of freedom is what
disguises its absence! Twain's novel is an imitation of this divine hoax,
since its surface makes us hope that Huck and Jim are or could be free,
while its deeper meaning is that freedom is impossible.

This reading has the advantage that it renders _Huckleberry Finn_ a coherent
whole and thereby vindicates Twain's excellence as an author. But I suspect
that not every reader will be convinced. In most of the story, Jim's freedom
in the normal, political sense is the main concern. To be sure, Berkove and
Csicsila argue at some length that Jim will not be fully free even in that
sense, for emancipated slaves were restricted in many grievous ways. Still,
in the novel, Jim who had been someone's property is at the end legally a
free man. That there are limits to this freedom does not do away with that
freedom, nor does the fact that no human is perfectly able to construct his
own identity. To suggest that each of us should be master of his or her own
identity is to set up an impossible standard of freedom, given the need all
individuals have for some education and the need all societies have for some
rules and conventions.

A great contribution of _Heretical Fictions_ is that it establishes in
detail that biblical or theological themes are crucial for understanding
Twain's literature. Having said that, it may seem churlish to complain that
some biblical references are overlooked or inadequately discussed. Neither
Tom Sawyer's inability to memorize the beatitudes, an important clue to his
character, nor the cross marking Injun Joe's treasure are analyzed. A more
important example concerns the sermon through which Tom suffers in Chapter 5
and to which Berkove and Csicsila draw our attention in the epigraph to
their chapter on _Tom Sawyer_. The minister's theme is the millennium,
which, in the context of Calvinism, raises questions about the elect, the
damned, and predestination. In the novel the mood appropriate for
considering these momentous themes is destroyed by the mirth created by the
actions of a poodle and a pinchbug. The passage suggests something like the
Enlightenment strategy of laughing orthodoxy out of existence. In this case,
the surface humor of the novel would be a weapon against its "deeper"
theological meaning, not an attractive way of masking objectionable beliefs
(25, 29). In making their case, Berkove and Csicsila sometimes allude to
this possibility (see p. 55-56), but do not give it the sustained attention
it deserves.

According to _Heretical Fictions_, Mark Twain's humor is the honey conveying
a hefty dose of wormwood. But if there really is no freedom, because
everything is predetermined by an omnipotent, omniscient, and malevolent
God, Twain's literature itself would have to be understood as a
predetermined expression of divine malice. And in that case, could we
continue to admire it? For this reason and others, we can hope that, as
thought-provoking as it is, _Heretical Fictions_ is not the last word on
Twain's humor or on his deepest preaching.