American Procession (9780804151276) by Kazin Alfred

Author:Kazin, Alfred [Kazin, Alfred]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8041-5127-6
Publisher: Random House Digital
Published: 2013-09-24T16:00:00+00:00

The boy without anything to his name finally has something to carry away. Taking the full inventory of his possessions is a ritual that Huck goes through whenever he is in danger and about to hunt up a new place to “hide.” This element of necessity can be the most moving side of the book. It “explains” the unique freshness of the style as much as anything can. A writer finds his needed style, his true style, in the discovery of a book’s hidden subject, its “figure in the carpet.” Here is a book which is an absolute marvel of style, but in which, by a greater marvel, life is not reduced to style and is certainly not confused with style. Huck Finn’s voice has many sides, but fundamentally it is the voice of a boy-man up to his ears in life, tumbling from danger to danger, negotiating with people, and fighting back at things as necessity commands. The sense of necessity that only bottom dogs know is what gives such unmediated, unintellectualized beauty to the style. Mark Twain, fully for the first time, knew how to let life carry out its own rhythm.

The interesting thing is that he did not particularly intend to do this. When he took the book up again several years after he had written chapter 16, planning to describe the comedy and horror of the Grangerfords’ existence, he was tougher on the society along the river than he had ever expected to be. For starting with chapter 17 he had to describe the folly of “quality” folk like the Grangerfords, the inhuman arrogance of Colonel Sherburn, and the stupidity and loutishness of “ordinary” plain people.

Mark Twain’s fascinated loathing extends to the whiskey-sodden townspeople who egg on poor old Boggs as he stumbles about, foolishly threatening Colonel Sherburn. Because that imperious man murders Boggs, Mark Twain can disgorge himself of his own exasperation with “ordinary” Americans by describing the crowd around the dying man.

There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out, thinking maybe there was going to be trouble. The streets was full, and everybody was excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened, and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows, stretching their necks and listening. One long lanky man, with long hair and a big white fur stove-pipe hat on the back of his head, and a crooked-handled cane, marked out the places on the ground where Boggs stood, and where Sherburn stood, and the people following him around from one place t’other and watching everything he done, and bobbing their heads to show they understood, and stooping a little and resting their hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places on the ground with his cane; and then he stood up straight and stiff where Sherburn had stood, frowning and having his hat-brim down over his eyes, and sung out, “Boggs!” and then fetched his cane down slow to a level, and says “Bang!” staggered backwards, says “Bang!” again, and fell down flat on his back.

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