Mark Twain  Life on the Mississippi (1883)

Two-part structure (post-modern in effect—kaleidoscopic approach—tangle of narrative—calls into question the limits of narrative itself—calls into attention the medium itself—showing the illusion and power of narrative)

1)      Memoir of Twain/Clemens as cub-pilot

2)      Trip with friends down the River and telling stories, getting into adventures, etc. (but all are about the limit of story/narrative/language)—the text seems to be going a hundred different ways at once, but there’s some kind of underlying meaning that we as reader can construct out of it  (construct rather than receive the “meaning” of a text) 

3)      Genetics vs. Social Construction—Art as reception or construction?

Postmodern conception—who is the “author” of this work?  Mark Twain—but we learn that Mark is pseudonym of another writer/pilot and also means “two fathoms depth of water”—undermines the notion of “authority” (just another social construction?)

Did Chandler Harris “write” the Tar Baby story?  Who “owns” the material? 

Passage in Ch. 9 about not finding the beauty of the river once he’s learned to “read” it for navigation

Disappointed by becoming acquainted with his subject (intellect overcomes the emotional/intuitive reaction)—split in culture (dissociation of sensibility—T.S. Eliot—split between the heart and head)

Innocence vs. Experience

Second half of the book: travel narrative that Twain twists around to show the illusion of narrative

XXXXI—Detective/Mystery Narrative

Twain pulls our leg—puts a tall tale over on us—what’s the point of telling a tall tale?  To get reaction, Distract, instruct (to give them a second look, to look past the surface, the obvious, to realize that stories can be lies, not to trust “authority”)

Twain begins very realistically in his use of syntax and sentence structure—short sentences

Frame story—Life on the Mississippi --Twain talking to two friends in present 1880s—story goes past story—story within story like Chinese boxes—we’re addicted to stories and the meaning we construct from stories

Opening scene in “morgue”—the dead bodies portrayed very realistically

Injects humor, but he plays the whole episode pretty straight—he has to for us to believe him

Ritter—Twain is sole intimate—like twin halves of shared experience/reality—storyteller and listener—illustration makes the old man look like an old Twain (doppelgangers/twins)

“--a thing which you will willingly undertake after you shall have heard my narrative.”—how does Ritter know Twain will do what he asks?  Power of narrative.

Wife and daughter killed—why does Twain/Ritter explain the murder this way?  The realism of the mental torture—the worst thing you can imagine—emotional pull at the same time it’s realistic—sees paper, blood, then realizes the murder has taken place

Start with something halfway believable (home invasion) to something less so (fortune-teller story—like detective or mystery story about hero taking on a false guise)  Not as realistic. But he does use the idea of fingerprinting (the CSI of 1880s)

Ritter finds Franz Adler in the morgue (where Ritter is the “watchman”)—moved into very fanciful story (like Poe, very gothic, unbelievable stretch of the imagination?)  What long shot that these two would come back and be face to face?  You are willing to suspend your disbelief or give it the benefit of the doubt if you think the story has a meaning (or meaning you can construct from it)

What should we learn from Ritter’s story?  Does vengeance work as planned?  No.  Is he happy?  No.  Violence doesn’t solve anything. 

Ritter is like Poe’s lead character in “Cask of Amontillado”—the trick of buying into a madman’s narration

In the next chapter Twain twists the Poe-like narrative into a comic tall tale in which Twain is willing to lampoon himself as a mercenary character (as if everybody is greedy)

Bathos—going from the sublime to the ridiculous—getting into fistfight with two friends after story of man losing wife and child

Twain is showing us in the act of getting our legs pulled

“Serious” is the exact opposite of the actual story arc now?

What’s the moral difference between Twain and his two companions and the original thieves?  Not much, really.  Both are greedy.  Who in the end is all powerful—the River, the Mississippi—a symbol of something that cannot be put into human language or comprehension (like the Creator in Letters from Earth). 

Mississippi is a reality beyond human/social construction  (Nature, God, the Universe, Presence, Spirit)

Human begins look small/think small compared to the Mississippi (which can erase a whole town and a bunch of stories/narratives).