I'd say that the contradiction you see is explained by the difference between a personal belief in an afterlife (1889 letter to Livy) and the fictional treatment of an afterlife (1909, Capt Stormfield). The latter does not imply the former. Kevin @ Mac Donnell Rare Books 9307 Glenlake Drive Austin TX 78730 512-345-4139 Member: ABAA, ILAB ************************* You may browse our books at: www.macdonnellrarebooks.com -----Original Message----- From: Mike Pearson Sent: Monday, July 18, 2016 10:24 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: BOOK REVIEW: _Continuing Bonds with the Dead_, Harold K. Bush My two cents from 1907: Wow. There's much good writing and profoundness in = this book review. The squeaky wheel: in Twain's "Extract from Captain Stormfield's Visit to = Heaven=2C grief and the after-life are treated with tenderness and logic. From the review=2C the following passage has puzzled me:=20 >"Twain's strongest comment hinting at the possibility of an afterlife came > in 1889=2C the year Winny died=2C when he wrote to Livy "I don't know any= thing > about the hereafter=2C but I am not afraid of it" (130)=2C but he steadil= y > moved away from any such belief thereafter." Twain wrote his story of heaven (Stormfield) before 1889=3B Twain allowed = it to be published long after 1889=2C without revising it or adding cynical= comments as far as I could detect. =20 > Date: Mon=2C 18 Jul 2016 07:11:56 -0500 > From: [log in to unmask] > Subject: BOOK REVIEW: _Continuing Bonds with the Dead_=2C Harold K. Bush > To: [log in to unmask] >=20 > The following book review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by Kevin > Mac Donnell. >=20 > ~~~~~ >=20 > _Continuing Bonds with the Dead: Parental Grief and Nineteenth-Century > American Authors_. Harold K. Bush. The University of Alabama Press=2C 201= 6. > Pp. 237. Hardcover $49.95. Ebook $49.95. ISBN 978-0-8173-1902-1 > (hardcover). ISBN 978-0-8173-8954-3 (ebook). >=20 >=20 > Many books reviewed on the Mark Twain Forum are available at discounted > prices from the Twain Web Bookstore. Purchases from this site generate > commissions that benefit the Mark Twain Project. Please visit < > http://www.twainweb.net> >=20 >=20 > Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by > Kevin Mac Donnell >=20 >=20 > Copyright (c) 2016 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or > redistributed in any medium without permission. >=20 >=20 >=20 > Twenty-three year old Daniel Bush=2C were he to read this book=2C would n= ot be > able to put it down=2C and would be grateful. He'd be proud of his father= for > writing it. But the grim truth is that Daniel Bush will never read this > book. There is no twenty-three year old Daniel Bush=3B he died seventeen > years ago at the age of six. Like every other dead child he did not leave > this life by himself: He took with him the hopes and dreams of his parent= s=2C > leaving the reality of their lives topsy-turvy in his wake=2C in complete > astonishment that they did not immediately capsize and drown in the > bottomless depths of grief. Unlike adults=2C when children step from the > sunlight of this world=2C they cast long shadows=2C everlasting. Where is > redemption to be found in such a shadow? >=20 >=20 > If the reader does not believe in redemption at the beginning of this boo= k > he will recognize it by the time he reaches the Epilogue and reads Hal > Bush's own summary of what he set out to do: "In this book=2C I've shown = and > analyzed some of the horrors a handful of our most famous writers > experienced=2C horrors very familiar to me. But I've also documented the > constructive ways that these deaths affected the worldviews and the > writings of the surviving parents. I've considered how a child's death ma= y > have influenced the direction and content of the writer's production > afterward=2C perhaps much more than has previously been thought" (193). > Redemption takes many forms=2C and as Bush readily admits=2C the writing = of > this book was itself an act of redemption. >=20 >=20 > This is not a speculative work of scholarship. This is a story from the > front lines told by a combatant who has squarely faced death and survived > to tell the tale. Somebody who has not experienced such grief firsthand > could easily be misled by some of the myths clinical research has > identified about the grief that follows the loss of a child. Contrary to > the common myth=2C the wound does not scar over and completely heal. Clos= ure > never comes. Bizarre and terrifying irrational thoughts that would be > considered pathological in other contexts are normal reactions to the dea= th > of a child. The physical manifestations of this grief are painful and rea= l. > All of the other elements of grief are present=2C as well as nightmares a= nd > magical thinking. It is not unusual for the meaning of life to be > vanquished=2C or for the pain to increase with time instead of fading. > Spiritual faith will be challenged=2C and faith can evaporate altogether= =2C but > it can also strengthen=2C as can marriages=2C contrary to conventional wi= sdom. > In fact=2C recent studies have shown that the number of divorces due to > bereavement have been wildly exaggerated. Finally=2C although parents > sometimes grieve in different ways=2C it is most common for a lost child = to > be held in loving memory to the end of a parent's life=2C the parental bo= nd > enduring unbroken=2C generating beneficial work and a positive life rich = with > meaning and purpose=2C as most of the examples in this book illustrate. >=20 >=20 > Death will come to each of us sooner or later=2C but in the meantime it l= urks > in our literature=2C inspiring a steady stream of books on the topic for = more > than a century. The same year that Mark Twain died=2C his publisher issue= d > _In After Days_=2C a collection of fascinating essays on the afterlife (a= nd > faith=2C and grief) by William Dean Howells=2C Julia Ward Howe=2C Henry J= ames=2C > Thomas Wentworth Higginson=2C and others. Books on death in literature=2C= or > death and writers=2C have continued ever since. Almost simultaneous with > Bush's book=2C Katie Riophe has published _The Violet Hour_=2C a look at = how > various twentieth century authors--Susan Sontag=2C John Updike=2C Maurice > Sendak=2C Sigmund Freud=2C and Dylan Thomas among them--have faced death > themselves. But Bush's book is clearly focused on precisely what is said = in > the subtitle: nineteenth century writers coping with the deaths of their > children. >=20 >=20 > The five authors who are the focus of this book are Harriet Beecher Stowe= =2C > Abraham Lincoln=2C William Dean Howells=2C Mark Twain=2C and W. E. B. Du = Bois. > This is a thoughtful representative cross-section of American authors who > lost children and found varying degrees of redemption in their work and > writings. Bush had plenty of grief-stricken nineteenth century parents to > choose from: Twain's friend John Hay=2C who had served as Lincoln's priva= te > secretary=2C lost a son=3B and Twain's wealthy benefactor=2C Henry Rogers= =2C lost a > daughter only a few years before Twain lost Susy. Twain's brother Orion > lost a daughter when living in Nevada. Twain didn't think James Fenimore > Cooper could write authentically about Indians=2C but he might have given > Cooper a pass on grief: Cooper lost his first son and one other child. > Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lost a daughter=2C and a few years later his > daughter's mother in a hideous accident caused by a carelessly dropped > match by another of his daughters. James Russell Lowell lost two daughter= s > and a son=2C followed by their mother=2C and when the Civil War came a fe= w > years later=2C he lost three nephews who were like sons to him. Ralph Wal= do > Emerson lost a son and years later had him exhumed to view the corpse=2C > perhaps an extreme example of trying to come to grips with the reality of > his loss. Ambrose Bierce lost two sons=2C one a suicide and the other an > alcoholic. Herman Melville lost his son=2C a suicide just down the hall i= n > the middle of the night. Fanny Fern and Bronson Alcott each lost a child= =2C > and the list could go on. Child mortality rates may have been high in the > nineteenth century but that did not lessen the grief of parents. Bush > mentions most of these other authors=2C but the five he chose to study in > depth are well-chosen. Their lives intersect at some points=2C their > responses to grief are interestingly similar and at times seemingly > disparate=2C but all of them reflect the evolution of typically American > responses to grief when facing the loss of a child. >=20 >=20 > Bush's introduction reviews the history of grieving in America=2C changin= g > funeral rituals=2C evolving psychological theories on grieving=2C and exp= lains > what distinguishes parental grief for a lost child from other forms of > grieving. The experience of death in the nineteenth century was raw and > real. Children died at home instead of hospitals=2C and families performe= d > their own funerals as often as did undertakers. Clergy offered spiritual > support more often than psychologists prescribed how to grieve. Nineteent= h > century Americans confronted death and maintained positive continuing bon= ds > with the dead through memorials=2C social work=2C and writing. But with t= ime > American responses to death became more and more clinical=2C > professionalized=2C and domesticated=2C and the continuing bonds practice= d in > the nineteenth century were replaced with Freudian theory that encouraged > severing ties and moving on. Death became something to be tamed and even = to > be made invisible. Bush points out that the culture of death is coming fu= ll > circle and the "continuing bonds" --a phrase coined by Dennis Klass in > _Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief_ (1996)--is being replaced > by the theory of "posttraumatic growth" which recognizes the presence of > the dead in the lives of the grieving and how that presence can yield > constructive results out of the trauma. >=20 >=20 > But before that can happen=2C a death must be "realized." This word crops= up > repeatedly in nineteenth century accounts by those grieving a death=2C an= d > had a particular meaning that is overlooked by the modern reader. Twain > captured that meaning perfectly when recording his reaction to reading th= e > telegram that informed him of Susy's death: "It is one of the mysteries o= f > our nature that a man=2C all unprepared=2C can receive a thunderstroke li= ke > that and live. There is but one reasonable explanation of it. The intelle= ct > is stunned by the shock and but gropingly gathers the meaning of the word= s. > The power to realize their full import is mercifully wanting. The mind ha= s > a dumb sense of vast loss--that is all. It will take mind and memory > months=2C and possibly years=2C to gather together the details and thus l= earn > and know the whole extent of the loss." In these words Bush recognizes > Twain as a fellow member of the club nobody wants to join. Twain's words > are as clear a description as were ever written of the initial trauma tha= t > must be absorbed=2C confronted=2C processed=2C and eventually accepted be= fore the > reality of the loss is truly comprehended. In this context=2C to _realize= _ > something is not merely to understand it=2C but to confront something and > move it from a state of unreality all out of time=2C and make it real in = the > present. The clinical term for this processing period is "latency" and th= e > process can take many forms and consume widely varying lengths of time=2C= as > demonstrated by the authors whose stories are told in this volume. >=20 >=20 > The chapter on Howells immediately precedes the chapter on Mark Twain=2C = and > their experiences are superficially parallel. Howells lost his daughter > Winny in 1889=2C seven years before Twain lost Susy. Winny=2C like Susy= =2C was a > moody artistic intellectual young woman with a distinct talent for writin= g=2C > and like Susy she died in her 20s with neither of her parents present. Bu= t > Howells was far more nineteenth century in his response to the loss of > Winny. Like Mark Twain=2C he frankly recorded his grief and his lost daug= hter > haunts his writings=2C especially _A Hazard of New Fortunes_ (1890)=2C as= Bush > expertly delineates. But unlike Twain=2C Howells held out hope for a reun= ion > in some kind of afterlife=2C and was able to maintain a bond with his > daughter in this way through his faith. >=20 >=20 > Twain's strongest comment hinting at the possibility of an afterlife came > in 1889=2C the year Winny died=2C when he wrote to Livy "I don't know any= thing > about the hereafter=2C but I am not afraid of it" (130)=2C but he steadil= y > moved away from any such belief thereafter. As Bush concludes "with the > passing on of the baton from Howells to Mark Twain=2C do we see the radic= al > shift from nineteenth century sentimentalism and its vague afterglow=2C i= nto > a modern=2C hardened temperament for whom reunion with the dead was itsel= f > almost certainly a dead hypothesis" (127-128). But even if they differed = in > their beliefs in an afterlife=2C they shared what Bush calls an > "anti-imperial friendship" (157) and both expressed empathy for the paren= ts > of children killed in war--Mark Twain in "A War Prayer=2C" and Howells in > _Editha_. Also like Howells=2C Twain's writings=2C even more than a decad= e > after Susy's death=2C still reflected Twain's initial response to her dea= th. > Among other works=2C Susy's presence may be detected in _Christian Scienc= e_ > (1907)=3B Twain=2C Livy=2C and even Clara had blamed Susy's "unnecessary"= death > on "fools" who practiced mental science and spiritualism (139). Bush also > makes a convincing case that even Mark Twain's late work on his > _Autobiography_ from 1906 to 1909 was prompted by a growing desire to > immerse himself in the past using what Twain called a "systemless system" > of autobiography that reflected his continuing struggle with a world fill= ed > with good and evil=2C ruled not by a just God but by an absentee landlord= =2C > with the result that Twain could not formulate a satisfactory theodicy=2C= but > instead moved toward nihilism=2C all the while continuing his bond with S= usy > by exercising his better angels=2C his powerful social conscience=2C whic= h was > Susy's legacy (162). >=20 >=20 > Twentieth century critics have sometimes treated Twain's grief over the > death of Susy with some impatience=2C hinting that it was excessive or > unhealthy=2C even morbid. Although Bush does not berate these critics=2C = this > book certainly provides much needed perspective=2C a corrective to such > dismissive attitudes that reflect mid-twentieth century cultural views on > grief rather than those in Twain's lifetime. Twainians will of course be > most interested in the chapter on Mark Twain=2C and most will convince > themselves to read the chapter on William Dean Howells. This review has > necessarily focused on Mark Twain=2C and the complexities of this subject > have been briefly described (and certainly over-simplified)=2C so the rea= der > will do well to read this book from start to finish to gain a proper > context and the fullest insight. Twenty-three year old Daniel Bush > (1993-1999) would have loved this book=2C as would have fifteen year old > Colin Thomas Waters (2001-2001)=2C the grandson of this reviewer=2C and s= o will > all readers. =