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A review by vanishingworld
The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain
4.0
What a remarkable piece of writing from a man known for his subtle mind. This is an almost unknown novella, one that has been shunted off stage in favor of the luminous Huck Finn, the multifarious Roughing It and Innocents Abroad, and is considered part of Twain's "dark period" because it doesn't adhere to our expectations of his style. I'm deeply fascinated by Twain's manifold aspects as a writer, and this interesting novella illuminates one of them. Many have dismissed this nihilistic, atheistic story as the work of an emotionally exhausted and broken man, who had suffered ruinous financial losses and the death of beloved family members, one after the other. I find this dismissal deeply condescending and moralistic. In fact, Twain was a critic of religion from his earliest writings, most memorably in Huck Finn.
While The Mysterious Stranger's narrative framework is unconventional, even if fable-like, its lucid and unsparing criticism of religious belief at a time when such criticism would have been career-endangering, is frankly wonderful and profoundly emotional. Twain set this fable in fifteenth-century Austria in order to gain closer access to the most horrific aspects of inquisitorial religious authority, but it reads as if it could have happened in St. Petersburg, Missouri. (In fact, there is a "St. Petersburg" fragment associated with this book.) Some readers looking for the kind of rich, detailed setting one finds in Twain's other work will be sorely disappointed. Humor is sparse here (notable exception is the name of the town, Eseldorf, or "ass/donkey town"). As a devoted admirer of Mark Twain, I found in this novella a important pathway toward better understanding him, as well as an affirmation of some of my own core beliefs, which are rarely reflected in the literature contemporaneous with Twain.
An important last note: The copy of this novella I checked out from my library was actually the 1916 publication, which was cobbled together by Albert Bigelow Paine, who had sole possession of Twain's papers at that time. In an attempt to smooth out a piece in revision, he made some additions. Be sure to read the version found in the University of California's definitive collection of Mysterious Stranger manuscripts titled "No.44, The Mysterious Stranger."
While The Mysterious Stranger's narrative framework is unconventional, even if fable-like, its lucid and unsparing criticism of religious belief at a time when such criticism would have been career-endangering, is frankly wonderful and profoundly emotional. Twain set this fable in fifteenth-century Austria in order to gain closer access to the most horrific aspects of inquisitorial religious authority, but it reads as if it could have happened in St. Petersburg, Missouri. (In fact, there is a "St. Petersburg" fragment associated with this book.) Some readers looking for the kind of rich, detailed setting one finds in Twain's other work will be sorely disappointed. Humor is sparse here (notable exception is the name of the town, Eseldorf, or "ass/donkey town"). As a devoted admirer of Mark Twain, I found in this novella a important pathway toward better understanding him, as well as an affirmation of some of my own core beliefs, which are rarely reflected in the literature contemporaneous with Twain.
An important last note: The copy of this novella I checked out from my library was actually the 1916 publication, which was cobbled together by Albert Bigelow Paine, who had sole possession of Twain's papers at that time. In an attempt to smooth out a piece in revision, he made some additions. Be sure to read the version found in the University of California's definitive collection of Mysterious Stranger manuscripts titled "No.44, The Mysterious Stranger."