Life on the Mississippi: a journey of over 2,000 miles and nearly as many tangents

Life on the Mississippi (1883)- Mark Twain (382 pages)

Life on the Mississippi is a memoir that depicts Twain’s own experience on the Mississippi. It surrounds his childhood, briefly, his life as a steamboat cub, someone training to become a pilot, and his return to the river after many years. The novel portrays itself as almost a love story with countless examples of Twain’s infatuation with the river, many passages much like in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea are vast swaths of descriptive imagery. Twain wants the reader to admire the size, beauty, and importance of the river and attempts to convey this early on in the first chapter.

Twain in general has a relatively easy writing style. As I have described in my previous reviews on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the Adventures of Tom Sawyer seldom is the wording difficult or convoluted. This adventure’s readability is a little more complex but not much, some terms surrounding the steamboat or other nautical aspects take some time to understand but nothing requiring too much effort. Altogether an easy read despite some rather lengthy scenes of imagery which can provide slightly more complexity.

This adventure provides three main themes: travel, progression, and nature. Travel is simple enough. Twain throughout the novel is traveling. As a cub, he travels trying to make the river an extension of his body, to store every branch, depth, and bank he can in his mind. He later travels as a passenger, carefree, and allowed to roam where he pleases admiring the river and the river’s surroundings. Both stages illustrate traveling but in two very different forms. A major part of the insight this work provides is the evolution and progression of the Mississippi River itself and the towns or cities that resided upon it. This happens mostly in the second half of the adventure as Twain consistently uses the memory of his time as a cub to compare to the present state of the river. Specifically, he mentions how the Mississippi River used to change overnight when he was younger as cities would be cut off entirely from the river or others would be put underwater. Twain brings together a number of other interesting points depicting the progression of this region from the government's attempt to control this great river to the changing class structures on the river and the growth of the railroad.

Lastly, nature is a significant theme in Life on the Mississippi. From the first chapter to the last sentence, Twain is enamored with the Mississippi River and its surroundings. He spends significant passages throughout the novel describing the power and awe of the river as well as its beauty. As a cub, he focuses on the small details of the river, the shallow depth on a specific bank or the speed of the current, or even the plantations on the river that designate landing points. As Twain returns, he focuses more on the broader picture: the beautiful sunsets, the culture, and the people. Both of these viewpoints allow the reader to have a much better appreciation of this river and this time period.

I have mixed feelings about my enjoyment of this work. I really enjoyed the first 150 or so pages of it as it focused, primarily, on Twain’s time as a cub on a steamboat. It details his trials and tribulations filled with great anecdotes that provide great, exciting content. I expected the second half of the work to detail his life as a pilot but that was not the case. There is quite literally one page that describes twenty years of his life and this sets up his return to the river as an older man. The second half of the novel that details his return to the river is what I found tedious and filled with tangents. For instance, Twain would be traveling on the river and see a bank and then embark on a 10-page story on the bank. He would then see a house and dive into a 6-page story of the founding of the city that the house is near. This might sound very interesting and I found it very interesting at first, but after so many tangents that drive into so many different concepts, I found it tiresome.

Overall, I enjoyed portions of the work. I enjoyed the background it gave me on the importance of the Mississippi River region, its progression from a backward trading route to a thriving exchange, and the beauty of nature in this region. I struggled with the sheer number of tangents and random offshoots that run rampant in the second half of the novel. Twain often remarks upon the length of the Mississippi River at over 2,000 miles and at times I felt that the novel had just as many tangents especially in the latter portion.

As always, my scoring breakdown is below. Thanks for reading!

Score: 6/10- A very interesting historic work rich with descriptions and anecdotes but perhaps too many of the latter.

Readability: 6- Harder than Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, but still a very easy read overall.

Thematic Questions: 5- Has some themes and important concepts but nothing too profound.

Enjoyment: 6- An adventure whose enjoyment is best described in two parts: the first half of the novel 8, the second half 4.