“It is true, that which I have revealed to you: there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a Dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but You. And You are but a Thought—a vagrant Thought, a useless Thought, a homeless Thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!”
No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger, is Mark Twain's last book. It's virtually unknown partly because it wasn't published until long after his death in 1910. This version was carefully edited by scholars and published in 1969. But the other reason is that it's just not on the same level as Twain's classics. If you loved Huckleberry Finn, there's no telling how you will feel about No. 44. I had to put aside my expectations very quickly.
The book is set in the dark age of medieval Austria, before the discovery of the Americas. One day a boy shows up at a largely empty gothic castle asking for food and work. He looks homeless and innocent. But No. 44, as he mysteriously calls himself, turns out to be a creature with extraordinary powers, including the ability to time-travel to the past and future. He befriends one of the castle residents and tries to open his eyes to the realities of life, free from religious dogma. He preforms magical acts that amazes and terrifies, shaking the foundations of every belief.
Side note: One of Twain's curious characters in this book is Father Adolf. He is a grim character, a zealot, focused on fighting evil. I was struck by the parallels between him and Adolf Hitler, who was also born in Austria, who was also a deranged zealot. Twain died more than 20 years before the Nazi leader's rise to power. But his fictional Austria says something about his powers of observation from his travel to Europe.
Excerpts
It was in 1490—winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Faith in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it.
***
Mainly we were trained to be good Catholics; to revere the Virgin, the Church and the saints above everything; to hold the Monarch in awful reverence, speak of him with bated breath, uncover before his picture, regard him as the gracious provider of our daily bread and of all our earthly blessings, and ourselves as being sent into the world with the one only mission, to labor for him, bleed for him, die for him, when necessary.
***
One day Father Adolf came along and found the widow sitting in the shade of the horse-chestnut that stood by her house, reading these iniquities. He was a very loud and zealous and strenuous priest, and was always working to get more reputation, hoping to be a Bishop some day; and he was always spying around and keeping a sharp lookout on other people’s flocks as well as his own; and he was dissolute and profane and malicious, but otherwise a good enough man, it was generally thought. And he certainly had talent; he was a most fluent and chirpy speaker, and could say the cuttingest things and the wittiest, though a little coarse, maybe—however it was only his enemies who said that, and it really wasn’t any truer of him than of others; but he belonged to the village council, and lorded it there, and played smart dodges that carried his projects through, and of course that nettled the others; and in their resentment they gave him nicknames privately, and called him the “Town Bull,” and “Hell’s Delight,” and all sorts of things; which was natural, for when you are in politics you are in the wasp’s nest with a short shirt-tail, as the saying is.
***
All men speak in bitter disapproval of the Devil, but they do it reverently, not flippantly; but Father Adolf’s way was very different; he called him by every vile and putrid name he could lay his tongue to, and it made every one shudder that heard him; and often he would even speak of him scornfully and scoffingly; then the people crossed themselves and went quickly out of his presence, fearing that something fearful might happen;...
***
“Nothing exists; all is a dream. God—man—the world,—the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars: a dream, all a dream, they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space—and you!”
“I!”
“And you are not you—you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence, I am but a dream—your dream, creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothingness out of which you made me . . . .
“I am perishing already—I am failing, I am passing away. In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever—for you will remain a Thought, the only existent Thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I your poor servant have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better! . . . .
“Strange! that you should not have suspected, years ago, centuries, ages, æons ago! for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fictions! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane—like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell—mouths mercy, and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor abused slave to worship him! . . . .
“You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible, except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks—in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present—you should have recognized them earlier . . . . .
“It is true, that which I have revealed to you: there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a Dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but You. And You are but a Thought—a vagrant Thought, a useless Thought, a homeless Thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!”
He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had said was true.
It's scary!! He is really unique One of my favorite writers, he is mostly famous for his witty quotes.... This part of the text amazed me:
"a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it;
who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell—mouths mercy, and invented hell—mouths Golden Rules, and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself;
who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor abused slave to worship him! . . . ."
It's interesting, they constantly ask you to write something.... and when you wrtie, they come and read it, but nobody contribute!
Funny!
I think you must wtire about hezb toudeh, you will get better audiance
dear Kamal
The link you provided was not working properly, therefore I had to dig more and do a "hard work" to go back to your old blogs and finally finding that great you wrote about Mark Twian's story :)
I read also all the comment.
Actually, I know Twain mostly from his quotes rather than his books. I have read only Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn which had great effect en me when I was young.
But just reading his biography and studying him through his quotes, is a simple way to know who he was and how he was thinking!
It is unfortunate that we, the Iranians, are stuborn at the point that we don't want to admit it when we "don't know" something or "we do a wrong judgement". When we come to realize this in a debate, instead of showing some humility and being thankful, we tend to belittling and insulting the other person, who has a diffferent idea !
Recently I had a debate with someone who is so full of himself that he thinks the "best way of debating" is mocking and belittling the person who thinks differently! He says: When you give wrong information, there's a price to pay for that!
And he decides to do both the judge and the guru to sanction that "ignorant" person...
Anyway....
It is the 21 centuray and we are still far behind the art of civil discussion..... go figure how we can establish the democracy in Iran, after that the IRI is gone!
Thanks for your great input.
(and I'm sure you have some ghasam-khordeh enemy over here, who love to give you the Red light :) no matter what you write )