28.5.2024:
Who would not know the American author Mark Twain (1835-1910), and at least once in life read, heard, or at least watched a movie adaptation of his famous novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)?
I imagine that even if you are not a fan of classical literature or reading altogether, you still could hear about this novelist and his work at school.
The story of Huckleberry Finn was at first a commercial failure and in the end, has become a best-seller and a masterpiece of American literature.
The first book tells the story of a boy, Tom Sawyer who is supposed to live near the Mississippi River in the town of St. Petersburg which was Twain´s literary picture of Hannibal in Missouri. Tom experiences a few adventures with his best friend who becomes Huckleberry Finn, the main character of Twain´s sequel.
The story as I remember it is quite cheerful and humorous, however, it also contains elements of satire and social criticism.
Therefore I was quite surprised when recently I got into my hands Twain´s The Mysterious Stranger (1916, posthumous).
Undetected Literary Fraud
The Mysterious Stranger is an unfinished novel by Mark Twain written between 1897 and 1908.
I guess, that for today´s commercial authors, it´s quite impossible to imagine writing a book over a decade. Twain wrote during that time a several version of the story with different titles.
The final version that was published in 1916 was compiled by an American author and biographer Albert Bigelow Paine (1861-1937). After his death in 1937 were Twain´s manuscripts released to the public. In the 1960’s critics discovered that Paine and perhaps another of his companions altered together a few different of Twain´s unfinished texts in an attempt to finish The Mysterious Stranger. It was even discovered that the text contains passages that were not written by Mark Twain. Because of that, The Mysterious Stranger is considered a literary fraud that went undetected for more than 40 years.
Despite the facts mentioned above critics and literature experts admit that the story has the strength to move and satisfy its readers.
What Have I Took Out of It?
Caution: The following lines contain a spoiler.
The story takes place in 1590 in a small village in Austria where all of a sudden appears a mysterious stranger to three friends, three boys named Theodor, Seppi, and Nikolaus.
The stranger proclaims that he is Satan, a nephew of the fallen angel of the same name, and starts to impress them with all sorts of talks and acts.
Also, The Mysterious Stranger is quite clearly a criticism of conventional religion it overlaps with philosophy, existentialism, fatalism etc. It sets a mirror to the human society. I must say that I love this kind of art.
There are for example very deep thoughts about how it would be to meet a supernatural immortal being for which time and space have different meanings than for us because its existence is unlimited.
One of the biggest targets for Twain´s or more likely authors’ criticism is human morality that Satan laughs at.
Satan befriends the three boys and tells them examples and stories that ridicule then human morality. He for example mentions people who got other people burned to death for a witchery. Or rich people who employ poor people for ridiculous pay, so they are just, just surviving their whole life without a prospect of a change. Or old people that confess to a crime that they never did, so they can be sentenced to death instead of slowly dying in poverty. The boys themselves witness a case of an alcoholic who is very cruel to his dog who is however his only remaining loyal friend. The dog even tries to call for help when the man accidentally falls into a ravine. He is also the only one who cries after he dies.
Satan constantly points out that human beings with their morality are capable of very inhumane actions in the name of their morality.
He gets upset whenever someone compares someone else to an animal. When someone says that someone has acted as an animal. He proclaims on the contrary that animals are not able to be intentionally cruel towards each other and enjoy the cruelty. Only humans are capable of such actions.
People Are Sheep
Twain also points out through Satan´s mouth the fact that goes across the whole of human history from the very beginning of days: the course of human history has been always driven by so-called strong individuals followed by people who are not strong enough to push through their own will or even express their thoughts. The whole of human history has been always driven by individuals followed by sheep.
The author directly points out the danger of fear of not expressing one´s thoughts and will, just because of fear of judgement from others, and what bad ill it can cause. It is pictured in the story when the storyteller, one of the three friends, Theodor, decides to join a crowd of people to stone a woman who is charged with witchery. Theodor decides to join the crowd out of fear of what other people could think of him, not because he would be so cruel that he would enjoy throwing a stone at someone.
Satan just laughs at this human foolishness.
Fatalism in The Mysterious Stranger
Fatalism also plays a big part in Twain´s The Mysterious Stranger.
Fatalism is all about human fate that is supposed to be set at the moment we are born, and no one can change it, no matter how hard one tries. It has its roots in ancient Greece.
Twain takes his thoughts almost into the depth of theory about parallel universes where one action leads to neverending options where our life could go and end.
Satan cautions people to be careful what they wish for. He says that we should be careful before we start to complain to God about why we suffer so much because we cannot know God´s real intention.
However, Twain´s work was written between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, so his work is quite clearly motivated by the actual relationship of society towards religions where fatalism was very often abused to get worshippers to a state of subjects without objecting, I cannot help it. It has sent shivers down my spine, although Satan uses quite dark examples of how to prove his point, as he always does.
Satan changes the fate of one of the three friends, Nikolaus in a way that he dies in an attempt to save a drowning girl. Then he explains to his remaining friends that it was a better fate for him because originally he was supposed to survive, get a sickness from water poisoning and spend 40 remaining years of his life on a sick bed.
And, now tell me if you have never complained about some difficulties or hardships in your life sometimes even coursing God even though you are not a believer?
I would say that this is Twain´s quite dark example of the common knowledge that it is not about what is happening to us but how we want to see it.
It Was All Just a Story
After Nikolaus’s death, the storyteller starts to complain that Satan cannot improve people´s lives any other way than by killing them or causing them misfortune. Stan however continues to patiently explain to him that he just saves them from even worse misfortune.
He tries to prove it for example by helping a local pastor Peter who was excommunicated from the catholic church for his progressive, or more likely heretical thoughts.
Satan gives him secretly money in his travelling bag for which pastor Peter is charged with thievery by a stargazer who is a local VIP and a big authority.
Pastor Peter is in the end cleared of all the charges with Satan’s secret help, but he ends up losing his mind. Again with Satan´s contribution.
At that moment the storyteller, Theodor gets very mad at him because Satan has promised him that pastor Peter will spend the rest of his life happy. Satan however opposes that the only way how humans can be happy in their lives is when they lose their logical minds. Because it is always the logical mind that causes all human suffering.
I would say 1:0 for Satan. Or more likely a hit on the solar plexus of humanity.
And, the story ends with another knock-out when Satan gives the storyteller his farewell because he has another business to attempt in another corner of the universe far far away. When the storyteller asks him if they will meet again, perhaps in another life, Satan answers factually that there is no other life for humans.
There is just this one life that we have! And, in my opinion, it is a fact!
In the end author through Satan´s mouth delivers to readers a bit of hope when he admits that it was all just a story made in someone´s mind, that none of it happened, that none of them ever existed. The storyteller doesn´t exist and Satan doesn´t exist either because they are just thoughts, and as thoughts, they will disappear. Then he starts to dissolve until is completely gone.
George