Interview with Mark Twain

I wrote this six page interview with Mark Twain for my Creative Nonfiction Workshop II class with Alex Lemon. We had to choose a person in history to interview and I chose Mark Twain solely so I could share it with everyone on my blog :)



Kate Watson
CNF Workshop II
February 21, 2010


Interview with Mark Twain


I must have looked nervous. I could feel myself twirling my hair self-consciously but had no power to stop myself. There I was, sitting in front of Mark Twain – Mark Twain! – or Samuel Langhorne Clemens, as he was known in his boyhood. He wore an all white suit with brass buttons and had graying dark hair. The crinkles around his eyes made him look downright jolly, as if he was going to break into laughter at the drop of a hat. The lines contrasted starkly with his dark, sincere eyes, the kind of eyes that seemed to look straight through you.
Twain coughed deliberately in an attempt to get my attention. I jolted in my seat. “I am so sorry, Mr. Twain! I am so very nervous to be in your presence.”
“Come now, dahlin’! I won’t bite!” he drawled with a smile. “Never in mah life have I seen such a shy interviewer! Get on with it, dahlin’!” His words may have been a touch insulting but his tone and manner made me relax. He was the kind of man who made you feel like you’ve known him your whole life.
“Well, I… I suppose we should start with, with um… your family?” I squeaked.
“Is that a question, dear, or a statement?” He paused. I must have look terrified, or mortified, or both. “Well, let us begin then with mah family. Mah dear sweet wife Olivia is the best mother this side of the Mississippi.”
I furiously scribbled notes, nodding. “And how many children do you have?”
“Three: Susy, Clara and Jean. Those girls are the little apples of these eyes,” he remarked while pointing at his right eye with his index finger. He chuckled.
“Did your daughters inspire you to write the children-centric novel Tom Sawyer?” I asked, this time without squeaking or stuttering.
He gestured to the cup of tea he had given me upon my arrival. Best this side of the Mississippi, he’d told me. I had yet to take a sip and that clearly wasn’t acceptable. I took a big gulp. Mr. Twain looked pleased.
“I wish I could say they inspired me to write Tom Sawyer but I am afraid they did not. You see, I was a bit of a rapscallion when I was young – well, I still am a bit of a rapscallion now that I think of it! – and I got into trouble of all sorts.”
“So… Tom Sawyer is you?” I had not ever even considered that!
He chuckled again, such a soothing chuckle. “Why yes, dahlin’, Tom Sawyer is me. And what messes I got into! Now, I might have embellished just a bit, to make my childhood a touch more interestin’, you see.”
I asked, “How much schooling did you have, Mr. Twain?”
Twain hesitated. I glanced around the extravagant house I was sitting in to conduct this interview. Mr. Twain’s house was three stories, nineteen rooms and the epitome of luxury. The marble floors kept my feet pleasantly cool on that warm summer’s day.
“Dahlin’ I had schooling until the ripe age of eleven, until mah father died of pneumonia and I had to join the work force. Everything I learned that is not taught in primary school I learned from livin’ life, talkin’ to interesting people and readin’ interesting books.”
“Mr. Twain, er, Clemens…” I paused. “I’ve noticed your accent comes in and out. Sometimes it’s more southern and other times you could pass for a New Englander!”
Twain found this very amusing. “Now I could never pass for a New Englander, darhlin’! I was born in Florida, Mississippi on November 30, 1847 and I grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, a port town on the Mississippi River. That’s the bona fide South, mah dear! But see, I got out of the South pretty quick and I pride myself on havin’ an ear for dialects and accents. I fancy writing in dialects and accents, too. I test them out and speak them out loud while I’m writing, of course, to make certain it’s real.” His accent may have sneaked in and out, but his speech was the slow, relaxed type found in the South.
“November thirtieth… wasn’t that-“
Twain interrupted me, clearly thrilled that I noticed the date. “November 30, 1835 was the day that Halley’s comet flew past the Earth. And I plan to live to see Halley’s comet again!” Halley’s comet only came by every seventy-five years but Twain seemed so sure of himself. He radiated good-natured confidence.
“Could we go back to Tom Sawyer for a bit?” I asked.
“Ah, right darlin’. Tom, Tom Sawyer. Me!”
I pondered a moment on what exactly I wanted to know, what my readers would want to know. “What characteristics of yours did you write into Tom’s character?”
He didn’t need the blink of an eye to think. “Well, Tom is a romantic. Now, he’s a bit skewed as to how a romantic behaves himself but I was too, at that age. He’s always fallin’ in love with beauties in the town. Only two romances are mentioned in the book but I imagined him to have many more.”
“So you’re a romantic as well?”
Twain glowed as he told me about Olivia. “Dahlin’, it was love at first sight when I first laid eyes on mah dear, sweet Olivia. Her brother, Charles, was a good friend of mine at the time and showed me a picture of her. Why she was the loveliest thing I had ever seen! She seemed to be 100% woman and 100% girl all at the same time. She never lost her imagination, her childhood spirit, her girlish giggles. We are kindred spirits that way. Neither Olivia nor I have forgotten how to laugh.” He paused a beat. “Now Tom is foolish, but so am I. We both get into trouble and sometimes, we’re both too creative for our own good!”
This sounded like an opportunity to inquire about the harsh social commentary apparent in his writings. “Mr. Twain, you often criticize ‘civilized’ people and organized religion as well as politics and, well, America society in general!”
“Now that’s not entirely fair, dahlin’. I criticized European society in Innocents Abroad, too!” He couldn’t even finish the sentence before chuckling. “I was brought up in a church so it’s not fair to say I haven’t a clue as to what I’m criticizin’. People try and say that, you see. They say I shouldn’t criticize things I know nothing about but I do know!”
I nodded. My hand was starting to ache from writing everything down. I took another sip of tea. This pleased him. “Your Cannibalism in the Cars, for example-“
“Was a piece written after talking to a gentleman over scotch one night,” Twain interrupted. “I frequent taverns while traveling around giving lectures, you see. Taverns are the greatest places, in mah opinion, to find the most interesting people. And interesting people tell interesting stories. And those stories need to be written down, by me.” He paused for a beat and said with a smile, “And perhaps embellished, just a little.” He winked at me, his dark eyes as bright as stars.
I just couldn’t let it go. “But… Cannibalism in the Cars involves politicians literally eating each other!”
“This gentleman – the one I drank scotch with – explained to me the uncouth nation of United States politicians. I thought it would make a fine story, seein’ as how the American people aren’t often made aware of their backstabbing behavior. But you can’t very well tell people in black and white, now can you? You have to spice things up a bit, to make them interesting. You have to add a little flair, a little cannibalism.”
I stared at Mr. Twain, enthralled. “So it’s really metaphorical cannibalism.” I suppose I meant it as a question, but it came out as more of a statement.
“Sure, dahlin’!” Twain winked jovially at me once more.
I tapped my pen on my notepad, thinking. “Mr. Twain, many people find The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to be…offensive.”
“I am aware.”
“…and…how do you feel about… about Huck Finn being banned from some libraries?”
“Well, I know the problem is the certain level of … vulgarity, particularly the-“
For the first time, I felt bold enough to interrupt Mr. Twain. “Please, sir. I know the word. No need to repeat it.”
Mr. Twain opened his mouth to speak but instead, narrowed his eyes with a sigh and leaned back in his chair. “Ahh, so you mean to say that you are offended by the language in Huck Finn.” I opened my mouth to protest but he wouldn’t give me the chance. “In Huck Finn I wrote a true account of life in the south. I correctly represented the vernacular and ideologies of the area. So whomever that may offend is really offended by the people of the South, not by me.”
“That was very eloquently worded, Mr. Twain.”
“Daddy! Daddy!” a little girl’s voice echoed from the front room, where Olivia had entered with Mr. Twain’s three daughters. Jean, the youngest, ran into the study, where we were conducting the interview. She leapt into his lap and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him on both cheeks.
Twain was chuckling helplessly. It was easy to see how smitten he was by his daughters. “Well, hello, little Princess! Aren’t you excited to see me! You only left not four hours ago!” Olivia had taken the girls into town to go shopping so that her husband could have privacy for the interview. “Show me what your fine purchases might be!”
Jean scrambled off his lap and ran to fetch Olivia and the bags. She came back in with Twain’s other women in tow and asked for her shoes to show him. Olivia rummaged through the bags and pulled out a pair of little girls’ shoes. Twain squealed with delight and requested that Jean try them on. She did and spun around in little ballerina circles while Twain applauded her taste in shoes. Olivia stared at her husband adoringly throughout the episode. The Twain family may be wealthy in the economical sense, but it is their abundance of love that makes them rich.
I decided to thank Mr. Twain for his time and take my leave.

Huck Finn

It turns out I prefer Tom Sawyer to Huck Finn. I hadn't read either since middle school and I thought I liked them both equally, if not Huck Finn more , but upon second reading, I like Tom Sawyer considerably more.

Huck is a great sidekick, I think, but he lacks the onion-layers to be a strong leading character. This book is also more difficult to read because speed-reading really isn't an option with the way Jim speaks. Sometimes I get so bogged down, I have to read out loud to make sense of it!

I've just gotten to the point where Huck decides that the duke really isn't a duke at all. Huck Finn also lacks and interesting plot. (We discussed in class that Tom Sawyer arguably lacks plot as well but TS has WAY more of a plot that HF, what with the love story between Tom and Becky and the murder of Dr. Robinson.) Maybe it's the fact that HF is written in first person that makes it less interesting. I'd rather hear MT's commentary than Huck's thoughts.

I should clarify that I don't DISLIKE Huck Finn by any means. It's entertaining and fun and Jim's thick dialect adds depth. Hopefully it will pick up soon!