By Mark Twain (reviewed by Robert L. Franck)
You may be wondering why no theological tomes have yet been reviewed in this theological journal. Patience, dear reader. In proper time.
But first I seek to encourage you to read broadly. A sole focus on theology is like a strict diet of greens. More variety is needed. A little dessert will bring refreshment and enjoyment into your life. You need a serving of good fiction.
Good fiction instructs the mind and the heart, not through the formal presentation of precepts but through the actions and thoughts of the characters. While fiction is not true historically, since it was created by the imagination of the author, it may be true spiritually by accurately reflecting the struggles between the image of God in a man and his sinful fallenness, between redemption and rejection, between faith and unbelief. Fiction also reflects truth if there are moral consequences to actions, either good or evil.
Fiction has the added challenge of achieving all of this while being entertaining, which brings us to Mark Twain. He rightly deserves prominence among American authors for his clever wit, his power of personal description, and his ability to weave a compelling story. Christians may feel the sharp stab of his pen when he exposes religious hypocrisy, but this is a wound that we may deserve and should benefit from. Moreover, Twain exposes all manner of human weaknesses and helps us to recognize them in ourselves. (We recognize them easily enough in others without his assistance.)
Pudd’nhead Wilson is a highly entertaining short novel that meets all of the criteria of good fiction. It is an excellent choice to read anytime, but there is a special reason to read it right now. The story addresses racism.
Here is how the story begins: a slave woman swaps her baby son—who is 1/32 black—with the master’s son. The black boy is raised as a white. The white boy is raised as a black. Twain wrote this in 1894 and was undoubtedly wading in politically incorrect waters as much then as now. His message is just as needed today.
There are two kinds of racism. The first kind considers a man worse than he is because of his race. The second kind considers him better. Both denigrate a man—the first by slandering him, the second by patronizing him. Twain would have none of either. He satirizes the absurdity of race distinctions, and, more importantly, he holds all of his characters, black or white, accountable for the content of their character. In short, he treats them as individual human beings, not as representatives of a race. May we treat all men, including our new president, with the same respect.
If this sounds too weighty to be any fun to read, don’t worry. Twain does not sermonize. He weaves all such lessons into the souls of his men and women. And even if you are too busy laughing to notice these subtleties, a hearty snort will do you a world of good and clear your head for further consideration of New Covenant Theology.
Excerpt:
He was a homely, freckled, sandy-haired young fellow, with an intelligent blue eye that had frankness and comradeship in it and a covert twinkle of a pleasant sort. But for an unfortunate remark of his, he would no doubt have entered at once upon a successful career at Dawson’s Landing. But he made his fatal remark the first day he spent in the village, and it “gaged” him. He had just made the acquaintance of a group of citizens when an invisible dog began to yelp and snarl and howl and make himself very comprehensively disagreeable, whereupon young Wilson said, much as one who is thinking aloud:
“I wish I owned half of that dog.”
“Why?” somebody asked.
“Because I would kill my half.”
The group searched his face with curiosity, with anxiety even, but found no light there, no expression that they could read. They fell away from him as from something uncanny, and went into privacy to discuss him. One said:
“ ‘Pears to be a fool.”