A grab bag collection of musings and meanderings on Mark Twain and
his continuing cultural influences. But Fishkin (American
Studies/Univ. of Texas, Austin) seems too often more preoccupied
with herself than with her subject. By the end of the book, we know
about her likes and dislikes, her career, travels (to Twain's
native Hannibal, Mo., and elsewhere in search of Twain and his
legacy), family, and, by the way, some of her interesting ideas on
Twain. These non-Fishkin-focused sections are largely taken up with
an original and vigorous defense of Twain against charges of
racism. That such a defense is even necessary is a sad commentary
on our age's unironic obtuseness (Huckleberry Finn has been banned
in many school districts): If a book contains the word "nigger,"
well then it must be a wicked book and the author a wicked man.
Fishkin ably lays waste to these canards, turning up in the process
irrefutable evidence of Twain's strong hatred of racism. Critics
have often assailed Huckleberry Finn's long final section, in which
Jim, not aware that he has been freed, is humiliated by Tom Sawyer,
but Fishkin convincingly reads this as a satire of Reconstruction.
Still, Fishkin's overwhelming emphasis on Twain as an "antiracist
writer" is ultimately part of the same flawed zeitgeist that
wrongly condemns him for racism. One of the 19th century's most
original minds, Twain had a talent and breadth of his concerns that
ranged far beyond such easy delineations. Fishkin gives some sense
of this, but she is too concerned with boxing Twain into the narrow
categories our age seems to demand. Despite Fishkin's scholarship
and intelligence, Twain's own words on his work are perhaps the
best: "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will
be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be
banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."
(Kirkus Reviews)
In Lighting Out for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American Culture, Shelley Fisher Fishkin explores how this son of slaveholders came to write one of the greatest anti-racist novels of all time -- and why this remarkable odyssey is so often erased or ignored today. Fishkin's bold original blend of personal narrative, biography, history, and criticism will change the way we look at Mark Twain and, perhaps, ourselves.
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