A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage

Rating:
Summary: Unpublished for a reason
Review: Finding an unpublished piece by Mark Twain is reason to celebrate, but that doesn't mean its shortcomings should be ignored. Though the story begins well and has an interesting set up, the ending is abrupt and does not fit well with what has gone before. More was needed to make this a coherent and, more importantly, an interesting read. For reasons unexplained Mark Twain ended this story savaging Jules Verne. I never read any opinions he had on Verne but would be interested in finding them, should they exist. This story is only worth reading as a curiosity. However, after doing so, one understands why Twain chose to let it languish on the shelf.

Rating:
Summary: not impressed and not disappointed
Review: I am a major fan of Twain and have always held him in the highest esteem. His "The Mysterious Stranger" got me through some tough times in college with the help of other books such as "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" IS the Great American Novel. There is little left of his that I haven't read and just when you think you've read all his best stuff, another short story comes out of nowhere and totally amazes you with his insight. This is not one of those stories. However, it's not bad and it's a nice enough way to spend an hour or so. Bear in mind that the Preface and Afterword are together longer than the story itself. There is some nice information about Twain and the the times in which this story was written but it isn't essential that you read them. Twain had an idea of taking a basic, simple plot and having 20 or so other authors of his era write their version of the story. (OK, I DID get that much out of the Preface and Afterword). His motion, however, died for lack of a second and we are left with this; his briefly written entry. It reminded me a lot of his style in "The Gilded Age". That book was too long and this book is too short but the story has an interesting twist to it. The moment I saw this book on the shelves I bought it and I have no regrets. If you're a fan of Twain's, you should buy it too. After all, if you act quickly, you too can have a first edition of Mark Twain.

Rating:
Summary: not impressed and not disappointed
Review: I am a major fan of Twain and have always held him in the highest esteem. His "The Mysterious Stranger" got me through some tough times in college with the help of other books such as "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court". "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" IS the Great American Novel. There is little left of his that I haven't read and just when you think you've read all his best stuff, another short story comes out of nowhere and totally amazes you with his insight. This is not one of those stories. However, it's not bad and it's a nice enough way to spend an hour or so. Bear in mind that the Preface and Afterword are together longer than the story itself. There is some nice information about Twain and the the times in which this story was written but it isn't essential that you read them. Twain had an idea of taking a basic, simple plot and having 20 or so other authors of his era write their version of the story. (OK, I DID get that much out of the Preface and Afterword). His motion, however, died for lack of a second and we are left with this; his briefly written entry. It reminded me a lot of his style in "The Gilded Age". That book was too long and this book is too short but the story has an interesting twist to it. The moment I saw this book on the shelves I bought it and I have no regrets. If you're a fan of Twain's, you should buy it too. After all, if you act quickly, you too can have a first edition of Mark Twain.

Rating:
Summary: LOL! My first Mark Twain book...
Review: This is my first Mark Twain book, and I got to say that I like it. For a short story, it's excellent and I usually don't like short stories.

This story tells exactly what the title is: a murder, a mystery, and a marriage. They all are excellently incorporated into each other and all has a purpose.

Also, the contributions from Roy Blount, Jr. and Peter de Sève are wonderful. The foreword and afterwords were informative about the book and the illustrations are beautifully, yet - in a way - comical. And the fact that this book is now first time published as one should cause a celebration.

Excellent book.

Rating:
Summary: A New Perspective, A Challenge, and a Snapper!
Review: Those who read The Atlantic Monthly will probably be curious about how this book compares with the material that appeared in the August 2001 issue. As best I can tell, the primary differences are in the illustrations. The book has four larger facsimile pages of the manuscript while the magazine material had two smaller ones. The book has 9 water color illustrations while the magazine has three. Obviously, a bound book is a more handsome item than part of a magazine. But anyone who is interested in this book might want to examine the magazine version first.

The "Skeleton Novelette" will probably seem to most people like just a slightly more developed version of a short story. Its text encompasses 8 magazine pages.

By itself, this work would attract relatively little attention except for its newness to the reader. What makes the story appealing are the foreword and afterword by Roy Blount, Jr. Combined, these essays are longer than the story.

The foreword explains the history of how the work came to be written and published. Of particular relevance is the reference to Mark Twain's "How to Tell a Story." Mark Twain (or Samuel Clemens, depending on your preference) wrote that "the rambling and disjointed humorous story finishes with a nub, point, snapper, or whatever you like to call it." Mr. Twain warns that "the listener must be alert, for in many cases the teller will divert attention from that nub by dropping it in a carefully casual and indifferent way . . . ." The risk, naturally, in using this approach is that the reader will fail to grasp or appreciate the snapper.

You will also learn how Mark Twain conceived of this story in 1876 as his entry into a challenge against the leading writers of the day, including potentially William Dean Howells (The Atlantic Monthly's editor and his friend), Henry James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Russell Lowell, and Bret Harte. Mr. Twain charged Mr. Howells with interesting the other authors. Although Mr. Howells did his best, the project went nowhere. Fascinated by it, Mr. Twain went on to write his version. Mr. Twain had already written Tom Sawyer and was about halfway through Huckleberry Finn at this time. Mr. Twain did not pick up writing on Huckleberry Finn again until 1879 or 1880, and it was not published until 1885.

The story itself is an unusual one for its time. As the title indicates, there's a murder and a mystery. The story also leads to a marriage, as the title also indicates. I can remember few short stories with so much action and diversity in them. The story also has several other unusual elements that I cannot comment upon without spoiling the story for you.

The site of the story is Deer Lick, Missouri (which will remind most of Hannibal, Missouri. Two young people are interested in marrying, Mary Gray (aged 20) and young Hugh Gregory (aged 27). Mary's father, John, has his eye on the potential money involved. Young Hugh Gregory's father is one of the wealthiest men in the area, second only to John's estranged brother David. Complications arise that shift John's idea of how to get the most for his daughter.

The story will strike many as strange. It takes a darker view of humanity than exists in Tom Sawyer. The afterword does a good job of addressing that shift. It has some unexpected elements which are also well explained in the afterword. I highly recommend it to you.

As to the snapper, I thought it was out in plain sight all along. The answer to the "mystery" also seemed pretty obvious to me in its simplest form. Neither element worked well for me. As a result, I graded the story down to three stars. For although it is done by one of our greatest American writers, I don't think that most will find it to be an example of his best writing. In its twists and turns, it will remind you of O. Henry's irony, but not as skillfully done. There's a meanness here that pervades the story that reduces its power. I thought the foreword, afterword and illustrations were five star efforts. So I averaged all that to my four star rating.

If you liked either Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, you will probably be glad you read this story. It provides some interesting insights into the shifts within the focus of Huckleberry Finn.

After you finish this book, I suggest that you think about where in your life you try to make too big an impression, and reduce the effect. Try doing less.

Be open to the letting the reader or listener supply more of the appeal to a story or review by extending their imagination, rather than forcing it in a certain direction.

Rating:
Summary: The story itself and the few pictures are great
Review: Twain's story is great and, as would be expected, artfully and very well written. The drawings by Peter de Seve and the pictures of Twain's handwritten manuscript are wonderful. The problem is that as you read Twain's story you hope that it continues, but then you suddenly realize that you've reached the afterword, which fills up more than half of the entire book. I know nothing about serious literary analysis, but I do know that it is frustrating to go from a thoroughly enjoyable read to a cumbersome and awkward afterword that is literally longer than the work itself. Maybe stuffy intellectuals will find Blount's writing satisfying, but for the average reader, a route canal would be preferable. Twain's story and the pictures get 3 out of 3 stars, and that's it--minus 2 because of the rest. A work can still be placed in its proper historical context without being overly wordy and frankly boring. It should be called A Foreword and Afterword by Roy Blount Jr. with (by the way) a story by Mark Twain. Pick up the book and look at the pictures, then read the story as it was published in The Atlantic over the summer.