About Those Aliens

So I'm reading Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi for the first time. I've avoided the entire Mark Twain catalogue for as long as I can remember. I think my aversion has something to do with being forced to read Tom Sawyer of Huckleberry Finn early on in life and I just couldn't get into it at the time. I was a fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy and that is all I read.

So after one has read a couple thousand books or so (ok I have no clue really how many I've read. I dream of a day where I have the space to display them and some easy way to catalogue the ones I own) the idea that the space aliens need the war like humans to fight the galactic battle, gets kind of old. I still don't understand how an elf who lives thousands of years doesn't live as richly as a human does, but all the stories tell me it's true. There are always bad aliens and good aliens and the bad ones always get here first, posing as the good aliens. The pure hearted farmer always kills the veteran warlord. Talking animals are always smarter than humans. Roger Zelazny is still missed.

So all of this to explain that my interests have branched over the years in an attempt to discover fresh ideas. (Ok Mark Twain wrote before all of these people I mentioned, but his ideas, plots and characters are fresh to me). The thing about Twain is that his English, his lexicon, is incredibly similar to our lexicon. Go back to the dawn of American literature and they didn't use words in the same ways we do. They sounded like bad Shakespearean English with maybe some lawyer lingo thrown in for good measure. Twain is clear. He is of the age of technology.

Then there is the love of the Midwest. I don't see this very often. People are often proud of getting away from the Midwest. Twain loves the river and all the people up and down it. When they are ignorant or mean he shows them as such, but isn't passing judgment on them. He also shows the Mississippi from a foreign view with excerpts of articles and journals written by those who had visited the river over the years since the white man came America. Some thought it a wonderful place others thought us to beastly savage, especially in the way we take our eggs. (On that point I agree. The people where whipping em up in a glass and drinking em. Nasty!)

I can see why, as a young man, I didn't want to read Twain. He is sarcastic and his humor is often subtle. I'm sure there are many parts I wouldn't have found as funny as I do now as I didn't have the knowledge of language and history that one acquires with age and the history channel.

In summary: When the Aliens land and are completely confounded by the language of King George II, lets give em some Mark Twain.