Enten Samueller

Ny yndlingskritiker; MARK TWAIN! (tønder af mokkasiner)

På Bogbørsen-hylderne ved Hellerup Bibliotek snuppede jeg i går The Portable Mark Twain, og hjemadvandrende læste jeg hans brillante nedsabling "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses", og fattede, at jeg stadig havde meget at lære, hvad angår Den Dårlige Anmeldelses Kunst. Sådan begynder blodigheden (note til selv: benytte listeformen meget meget mere):

"Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in "Deerslayer," and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.
There are nineteen rules governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction -- some say twenty-two. In "Deerslayer," Cooper violated eighteen of them. These eighteen require:

1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. But the "Deerslayer" tale accomplishes nothing and arrives in air. 2. They require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. But as the "Deerslayer" tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the episodes have no rightful place in the work, since there was nothing for them to develop.
3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the "Deerslayer" tale.
4. They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. But this detail also has been overlooked in the "Deerslayer" tale.
5. The require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. But this requirement has been ignored from the beginning of the "Deerslayer" tale to the end of it.
6. They require that when the author describes the character of a personage in the tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. But this law gets little or no attention in the "Deerslayer" tale, as Natty Bumppo's case will amply prove.
7. They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven- dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it. But this rule is flung down and danced upon in the "Deerslayer" tale.
8. They require that crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as "the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest," by either the author or the people in the tale. But this rule is persistently violated in the "Deerslayer" tale.
9. They require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable. But these rules are not respected in the "Deerslayer" tale.
10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the "Deerslayer" tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.
11. They require that the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. But in the "Deerslayer" tale, this rule is vacated.

In addition to these large rules, there are some little ones. These require that the author shall:

12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it. 13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple and straightforward style.

Even these seven are coldly and persistently violated in the "Deerslayer" tale.

Cooper's gift in the way of invention was not a rich endowment; but such as it was he liked to work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed he did some quite sweet things with it. In his little box of stage-properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go. A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of a moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. Another stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was the broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around. Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred other handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leatherstocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series."

Til den næste indbrudstyv (genren: Forbryderhenvendelse)

As he slept upstairs on September 8th of 1908, two young burglars entered Mark Twain's home, took an entire sideboard into the garden and proceeded to break it open. They were eventually caught by police with a stash of silverware. The next day, with the help of an aspiring young artist named Dorothy Sturgis, Twain produced the following note for the attention of future burglars. From that day on, it was permanently attached to his front door. (fra sitet Letters of Note)

(Transcript:

 NOTICE.

To the next Burglar.

There is nothing but plated ware in this house, now and henceforth. You will find it in that brass thing in the dining-room over in the corner by the basket of kittens. If you want the basket, put the kittens in the brass thing. Do not make a noise — it disturbs the family. You will find rubbers in the front hall, by that thing which has the umbrellas in it, chiffonier, I think they call it, or pergola, or something like that.

Please close the door when you go away!

Very truly yours,

S.L. Clemens)

Kandestedvejen er (ikke ligefrem) Mississipi

Vel er jeg ikke Huckleberry Finn, men lige nu er Kandestedvejen våd som en provinsiel og bedrøvelig parodi på Mississippi; det lømmelregner helt vildt, og jeg havde planlagt at cykle over til Hjorts Hotel og tjekke mail og blogge en smule, når jeg havde læst Huckleberry færdig, og det har jeg nu, og det er en fantastisk god roman, frit strømmende og energisk zigzaggende akkurat som den ægte Mississippi, og med en sindrig malstrøm af en slutning, der til allersidst sender Tom og Huck og Jim i vejret og tilbage på gyngende højkant, men i forhold til, hvad Huck og Jim udsætter sig for af livsfarlige eventyr på deres tømmeflåde-odyssé, er det jo ærligt talt noget sølle, at jeg ikke drage ud i regnen og gøre mig lidt våd, når jeg har den ædle mission at poste blogposter, klokken er nu halv fem, jeg tror lige, jeg venter en halv time og ser, om det ikke skulle klare op en smule, men hvis det ikke gør, lover jeg at  iklæde mig min mors gamle, lyseblå regnfrakke og trodse elementerne, og jeg som troede, at min store bedrift i dag var at cykle de 7 + 7 km. frem og tilbage til Aalbæk .- i melletiden afskriver jeg et pænt udødeligt afsnit om floden og natten og stjernerne fra Mark Twains store drengebog (Ole Storms gæve oversættelse):  

Sommetider havde vi hele den store flod for os selv det meste af natten. Langt ude var der bredder og øer, nu og da et lysglimt – der var et lys i et vindue og sommetider kunne man se et glimt eller to ude på vandet – det var fra en flåde eller en pram, og måske kunne man høre en violin eller sang ovre fra et af de andre fartøjer. Det er dejligt at leve på en flåde. Vi havde himlen over os, helt oversået med stjerner, og vi lå på ryggen og så op på dem og diskuterede om de var skabt eller bare var kommet af sig selv. Jim holdt på at de var skabt men jeg holdt på at de var kommet af sig selv. Jeg mente at det ville have taget for lang tid at have lavet så mange. Jim sagde at månen kunne have lagt dem og det lød jo meget rimeligt, så jeg sagde ikke noget imod det, for jeg havde set en frø lægge næsten lige så mange, så det kunne altså gøres. Vi så også på stjerneskuddene der fór som en streg over himlen. Jim holdt på at de havde været uartige og var blevet verfet ud af reden.

- klokken er nu halv seks, og det regner så ledt som nogensinde, og jeg vil jo for for fanden heller ikke søle hotellets dagligstue og blomstrede sofa til, jeg venter lidt endnu …

- klokken er nu halv ni - !

Hvidvaskningsvederlag - en liste

(objekter drenge giver som betaling for at "whitwashe" et plankeværk, som Tom Sawyer i Mark Twains The Adventures of Tom Sawyer bilder dem ind er en en fornøjelse at "hvidvaske")

An apple
A Kite
A dead rat and a string to swing it with
Twelve marbles
Part of a jew¨s harp
At piece of blue bottle glass to look through
A spool canon
A key that wouldn't unlock anything
A fragment of chalk
A glass stopper of a decanter
A tin solider
A couple of tadpoles
Six firecrackers
A kitten with only one eye
A brass doorknob
A dog collar (but no dog)
The handle of a knife
Four pieces of orange peel
A dilapidated old window sash