Like every other American high school gradumate of a certain age, I was required to read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. Good books, no question, but like many of the other scholastically inflicted tomes, they didn’t inspire me to continue on to Mr. Clemens collected works.
From time immemorial or at least all of my life, my parents had enthroned upon the living room bookshelves a complete set of Twain’s works, published in about 1920. The 25 volumes are handsomly bound in green and add a certain dignity to one’s shelves. Anyhow… They’d always been around. My folks moved in June and I inherited the books. They sat in a box in the corner of my office until last week, when inspired by my wife’s masterful nagging, I finally unpacked them.
Now, I consider myself a somewhat literate fellow. I read all the time. I read (and write) for a living. I read for recreation – on the web, on these boards, in the bathroom, while I’m eating, before I go to sleep, whenever I can. I’m an information junkie and I haven’t found any better way to satisfy my habit.
I also collect books. I think I’ve got around 5000 crammed and stacked around the house. S’funny how if you continually buy books and religiously refused to get rid of any how they seem to pile up. All my shelves have gotten double stacked again, so I’ve got to do something soon… again.
So, it’s not like I’m some illiterate philistine. But for some reason it had never occured to me to actually read the treasured Twain set. They were an icon, like Carol Brady’s favorite vase, to admire rather than to actually enjoy.
I don’t know what changed when I put them on my own shelves. Chalk it up to the ravages of my addiction or the iconoclastic effect of seeing the family treasures displayed in my own humble and familiar digs. But suddenly one night last week they were just books, just fodder for the old insatiable literary furnace. So I grabbed one, pretty much at random, and tucked in.
And finally, I reach the point of this blowhardinous exposition… It’s great! I picked up The Innocents Abroad, Twain’s description of an extended cruise around the perimeter of the Mediterranean. Now, I’m a big fan of travel writing – Paul Theroux is a particular favorite. Twain shines.
It’s astoundingly non-PC. From today’s perspective he’s an unforgivable cultural imperialist. But he’s undeniably perceptive and he focuses as often on his fellow American passengers as he does on the natives they encounter. In an odd way, he reminds me of Vonnegut. He’s so honest, economical and essentially American.
I have to iron a shirt and go to bed now. So, I’ll sum up… Twain good. Read some.
