Bernard DeVoto's book Mark Twain's America is an interesting but often wordy read that suffers from the authors inability to focus on his self-declared purpose. It is as if DeVoto isn't sure if he wants to write about America, Mark Twain, or how misled other authors are in regards to Twain and his literature. At times he does a great job of tying in the writer with his country, and how America shaped Twain and vice versa. At others, however, he spends pages telling stories and citing countless names and places that seem completely impertinent to DeVoto's task at hand. He concludes strongly, making solid points to finalize his argument, but one cannot help but be left a little confused as to DeVoto's primary purpose and, in turn, cannot discern whether he has supported that argument effectively.

To open the book, DeVoto includes a foreword to explain precisely what his book is going to be and what it will not. The key passage that expresses DeVoto's direction in his work states, "I have no interest beyond (Twain's) books. My effort has been to perceive where and how they issue from American life" (xi). However, once the book begins, there is almost three complete chapters and over seventy pages of text before there is even a mention of one of Twain's books. I realize that an introduction and foundation needs to be established before an author delves into the meat of his work, but for this reader the first couple of chapters of names and stories came off as unrelated to Twain, and more of a folk summary of the early frontier. Furthermore, DeVoto begins disproving the opinions and writings of other authors concerned with Twain before he even begins developing his own argument. Thus, the opening of DeVoto's book exists as more of a salad bowl of mixed stories and interpretations as opposed to a melting pot of different entities of America and Twain that is beginning to mold and form a coherent argument. In short, the first seventy or eighty pages do not set a good tone for the body of the work.

After 100 pages, DeVoto finally draws his first distinct and meaningful connection between America's development and where Twain's writings fit into the expanding country. After explaining, often repetitively, the vitality and nationalist sentiment that defined the frontier and movement westward, DeVoto talks about the rise of frontier humorist literature. He writes, "No aspect of the life in the simpler America is missing from this literature" (98). And continues, "The importance of this literature for criticism is that, humble as it is - a sort of rudimentary art on or just below the threshold of literature - it finally ripened in Mark Twain" (98). Though he strays at times, from this point on DeVoto does a much better job of developing and supporting his stated argument for the book.

As the work moves on to chronicle Samuel Clemens' growth as a writer as he travels to different parts of America, DeVoto also begins to allude to and even directly cite some of Twain's writings. Further, he does a good job of balancing and connecting Clemens' experiences and development with the maturation of the character and author of Mark Twain. When describing Clemens' experiences in Washoe, DeVoto writes, "It was Washoe that matured Samuel Clemens, that gave him, after three false apprenticeships, the trade he would follow all his life, and that brought into harmony the elements of his mind which before had fumbled for expression" (133). Moreover, in summing up Clemens' days on the Washoe frontier, DeVoto writes, "The wisdom of the Mississippi frontier found its function on the farther frontier. The shaping of Mark Twain was finished" (154).

Unfortunately, DeVoto's concentration wanders. He uses all of Chapter 7 to craft rebuttals against other authors' previous writings on Clemens and Twain. It's almost as if the author has some personal vendetta against these other writers who hold opinions on Twain. Though he makes some valid points that contribute to his overall argument, the chapter just seems grossly out of place, and his statements seem to be cluttered with personal frustrations with others' interpretations.

DeVoto finishes his book well, however, drawing some insightful conclusions that significantly augment his attempt to accomplish what he aimed to do from the outset. One example is when he writes, "It is as the fulfillment of (other frontier humorists') beginnings as a realist writing in comic tradition that Mark Twain achieves his permanence in American literature" (257). Moreover, he continues to address specific passages in Twain's writings, focusing in his final chapter primarily on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Thus, his book culminates into an altogether adequate, but at times unsatisfying, portrayal of Mark Twain's America. It's readable, yes, but it had the potential to be very good.

On a separate note, throughout the book DeVoto brings up key points of interest concerning Twain that we as a class have discussed in this first half of the semester. For instance, on page 78 DeVoto states, "It is essential to distinguish in some measure the imaginative artist Mark Twain from the historical personage Samuel Clemens." Indeed, is that not one of the primary issues we have addressed and have yet to conclude upon: Who was this man Sam Clemens, and, in turn, who was this creation of his, Mark Twain? Further, the book chronicles Clemens' journeys west, stating, "Sam Clemens followed the migration of his folk and was merged in the myth and legend and fable of America" (114). In fact, DeVoto even sites the quote that this reader brought to light when leading class discussion. That is, the quote from Roughing It when Twain awakes each morning on the shores of Lake Tahoe with "the wild sense of freedom that used to make the blood dance in my veins." The idea of American imperialism and nationalistic expansion has assuredly been a topic of debate in class.

Moreover, in his final chapter, "The Artist as American," DeVoto cites specific events in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that we as a class addressed. Specifically, the author talks about how "such incidents as the whitewashing of the fence are, like a familiar landscape, so intimate to our experience that their importance is easily forgotten" (304). Yet DeVoto concludes, like our class did, that part of Twain's appeal lies in his transformation of the common, seemingly insignificant events in life into entertaining and unforgettable experiences in his writings. Further, DeVoto evens mentions language, a popular topic of discussion, when he states that "Huck's language is a sensitive, subtle, and versatile instrument - capable of every effect it is called upon to manage" (318). That sounds a lot like Hemingway's claim that all American language comes from Huck Finn. And on his final page, DeVoto gives perhaps a too broad yet still definitive answer to our class' question of the identity of Mark Twain and his place in American history, stating simply, "he, more completely than any other writer, took part in American experience" (321).