Mark Twain.

Mark Twain. By Larzer Ziff. Lives and Legacies. (New York and other cities: Oxford University Press, 2004. Pp. [viii], 126. $17.95, ISBN 0-19-517019-9.)

Larzer Ziff's book on Mark Twain appears in a series entitled Lives and Legacies. Other books in the series include David S. Reynolds's Walt Whitman and Craig T. Raine's T. S. Eliot, which places Ziff' s introduction to Mark Twain in excellent scholarly company. The book is based on much research, and Ziff masters the art of communicating his findings. There are four pages of notes and no bibliography. The book is well written, worth reading, and easy to understand.

As indicated by the chapter titles, the book tells us about Twain as "Celebrity," "Novelist," and "Humorist," and contains a chapter that could have been called "Stylist." The subject of humor is approached often enough, but the preparatory running approaches do not lead to the expected jump, which just goes to show how difficult it is to write about that topic. In an excellent chapter Ziff refreshingly gives space to Twain as the perpetual "Tourist," a part of his life that is often ignored.

Larzer Ziff has written and edited books about American literary culture, mostly focused on New England and the nineteenth century. They serve him well in his efforts to see Twain's writings in contemporary societal and literary contexts. This is the strength of the book but also its weakness. The fact is that Ziff's book on Twain is more old-fashioned than anything Twain himself ever wrote. There is too much Matthew Arnold in Ziff's view of Twain's achievement.

Twain was the first post-modernist in American literature, especially in the writings based on his own life. It is time that we take Twain seriously. Without him there would have been no Vonnegut, Mailer, or Roth. Unfortunately Ziff continues the tradition of apologizing for Twain's exuberance and irreverence, as if Twain were a childish man out of control. Twain was more than an entertaining and fumbling stand-up comedian. It is time we realize that he was in control of his material and did with it what he wanted, which was to cross borders, break conventions, upend genres, burlesque criteria, ignore traditions, mock culture, tell a lie, trespass on emotions, and confuse his reader.

Ziff writes about the audience in Twain's time and does it well, but he does little to address Twain's popularity today. Why is it that today Mark Twain is considered the good American, and this even in places where any American is hated with passion? Twain's thought and political discomfort prefigure much thinking in 2005. By keeping Twain in the Victorian room, the book goes only halfway toward answering why Twain is the good American. I hope Ziff will now go the rest of the way and place Twain in our post-modern time.

JAN WORDBY GERTLUND

University of Southern Denmark