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Mark Twain and the Art of the Tall Tale. - book reviews
Studies in Short Fiction, Wntr, 1994 by Roscoe L. Buckland
Mark Twain believed that to present a story in writing or in person . . . is to initiate an encounter between rival interpreters, some of whom are privileged with inside knowledge, some of whom are filled with interpretive bravado, some of whom are merely incompetent to respond. The contest between innocent and experienced perspectives . . . is Mark Twain's greatest theme.
Working from this premise, Mark Twain and the Art of the Tall Tale is concerned with how Twain used the tall tale to dramatize the "endless permutations" of this theme.
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The "art" of the tall tale consists of both the "anecdotal content" of the yarn and the "interpretive play" that surrounds the yarn-spinning. Although Wonham is less interested in the anecdotal content-the process of stretching credulity, the progressive exaggeration and the violation of common sense-his discussion of content in the opening chapters is helpful in tracing the development of the tall narrative and in understanding the "cultural defensiveness" of Innocents Abroad.
More of the book is concerned with the interpretive play-the dramatic encounter and the characters of that drama: the initiate (the tenderfoot and the innocent romantic), the old-timer (the experienced miners, journalists and riverboat pilots), the folk community, and the audience of "insiders" and "outsiders."
By analyzing Twain's work in terms of the dramatic encounter, Wonham develops some interesting explanations of Twain's literary form, several of which teachers may find quite helpful: Twain abandoned the "frame" by which the genteel Southwest humorist distanced himself from the yarn-spinner and developed, instead, a more fair" contest between the yarn-spinner and listener in the "Celebrated Jumping Frog" story. By casting Tom Sawyer as a yarn-spinner who tells over again what the narrator has already told, Twain was able to balance romance and burlesque. Twain used a different persona (the experienced journalist instead of the tenderfoot) to give structure to the material his publisher asked him to add to the first 42 chapters of Roughing It. Thus the second part is not the "grab-bag" critics have charged.
Whether or not Twain succeeded in maintaining a structure in Roughing It is debatable. The persona of Experience is hardly as developed as the persona of Innocence of the first part. The second part may well succeed simply because the grab-bag holds some of the best anecdotal content. But, as with much of his book, Wonham opens a useful discussion.
Central to much of the discussion of Twain's major works is the idea of the "folk community." There are, for instance, the community of willing believers in Tom Sawyer, the functional folk community of riverboat pilots in Life on the Mississippi and the river men on the raft in Huckleberry Finn, and the corrupt dysfunctional folk community of Bricksville in Huckleberry Finn. In his later works, Twain's pessimism is reflected in his inability to posit a workable folk community or a "fair contest." The last two chapters of the book, essentially, demonstrate how "satire displaces the tall tale, and anger displaces pleasure as the impulse behind Mark Twain's humor." The arguments advanced in the analyses of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee, and the mysterious stranger figure are of considerable complexity.
Because it often raises points that go beyond the tall tale issue and because it is an extended discussion of the structural aspects of the relationship between storyteller and audience, the book might well be useful in an advanced creative writing class as well as in a Twain seminar.
Versions of certain chapters have appeared elsewhere, but the material is well integrated. There is not a separate bibliography, but the notes are ample both in documentation and in suggestions for further reading. Wonham's writing is lucid and concise.
COPYRIGHT 1994 Studies in Short Fiction
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