There are many reasons to read Mark Twain

While many people are reading the cyberpunk, speculative fiction author William Gibson to gain an insight into how one might imagine the future, why are we reading Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer?

What most readers look for in fiction are stories. Situations and fantasies that relate to their own experiences and allow them to let those stories float around in their imaginations. Themes built around love, mystery, suspense, routine, the environment, trust, friendships, adventure, religion and exploration.

While The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was written for the “entertainment of boys and girls” it was also written to “pleasantly remind adults of what they once were themselves.” While we consider the book a fictionalized account of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (aka Mark Twain) childhood, it can also be considered a memoir, as most of the narrative is based on real stories.

If you are looking for love, mystery, suspense, routine, the environment, trust, friendships, adventure, religion and exploration, you will find it in Tom Sawyer. Satirical and funny, you will occasionally laugh out loud, feel empathy for Tom and Huck and sigh at the thought of adolescent love.

Another reason to read Mark Twain is to learn more about this man. He spent two summers in Dublin, New Hampshire (1905-1906) during the last decade of his life, renting houses on the Monadnock slope where he could sit on the veranda and dictate notes for his autobiography.

“This is a magnificent morning. This shady front porch is the right vantage-ground to dictate from. There isn’t a softer, peacefuller prospect than this anywhere in the earth. There isn’t a bluer sky, even over Sweden.”

During one of the summers he was spending in New Hampshire, King Leopold’s Soliloquy was published in Europe. You rarely find the book mentioned in lists of his work, as it was written to expose injustice in Africa, specifically in the Congo. Soon after it was published it was buried, became a rare book and did not reappear until 1961, when it was published by Seven Seas Books. Twain the cynic and humorist had become a humanist.

It was also Mark Twain who published The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant in two volumes. The books are considered one of the most moving war memoirs ever written. In dire financial straits and suffering with cancer, Grant, through sheer will, brilliance and determination worked relentlessly to finish the manuscript, understanding he was working against time. Published by Charles L. Webster (a company Samuel L. Clemens formed with his nephew) seven months after Grant’s death, the book sold over 300,000 copies. Grant’s family received a check for $200,000 from Twain and eventually over $450,000, allowing them to live comfortably relieved of financial burdens.

Reading the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, one can reflect on the experiences of childhood, the moral dilemmas we face and the urge for exploration and adventure that can derail us from time to time. What it means to have a family, what it means to grow up without a family and what it means to be different and to live on the fringes of society and community – an American community with its many rituals, complications and diversity.

As we begin to reimagine our lives, we have the advantage and the possibility, living in New Hampshire, of being able to sit in a rocking chair on the veranda, glance across the lake or the mountains and reflect on what the world could be as we begin to put it all back together.

You can pick up a copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at the Laconia Public Library. Or download it to a mobile device. Please join me in reading and spending a few hours each week with Tom Sawyer, growing up in a small town on the banks of the Mississippi River.

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Elizabeth Howard’s career intersects journalism, marketing and communications. Ned O’Gorman: A Glance Back, a book she edited, was published in May 2016. She is the author of A Day with Bonefish Joe, a children’s book, published by David R. Godine. You can send her a note at: Elizabeth@laconiadailysun.com