The War Prayer by Mark Twain: Review

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I mentioned I would be mostly reviewing action/adventure fiction books on this blog (and I will be); but today I am doing something slightly different and reviewing a poem by Mark Twain, the famous author of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Note: I will have a review up of the latter shortly).

How I Found It

It is a very unknown poem and I am guessing the vast majority of you have never heard about it. Everyone I’ve mentioned it to also didn’t know of its existence.

Perhaps ironically, that is why I found it. I had read where someone mentioned that a lot of people don’t learn the full truth. They read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, but not “The War Prayer,” so I decided to see what “The War Prayer” is about.

Note: If you have any suggestions of your own for books/poems/short stories/etc. for me to review; please let me know in the comments below. I’d really appreciate it.

Description

So what is The War Prayer about? The War Prayer espouses Twain’s anti-war and anti-imperialist views by depicting religious demagogues enthusiastically encouraging people into war. Mothers and sisters of soliders cheer them, and those that did not have a male member of the family that could go to war were saddened.

The community was gathered together at church and were praying for victory in the war. But, in the middle of all this, a man steps in and points out that they shouldn’t just go into a war based on blind faith and pride. No, they should realize that it will be a very costly and bloody war, and they should carefully consider the facts and consequences in order so that they don’t go to war in error.

Not surprisingly, the people, in their ferver, discard him as a lunatic. The poem has clear anti-war undertones. It was not published before Twain’s death. As to why, he said, “No, I have told the whole truth in that, and only dead men can tell the truth in this world. It can be published after I am dead.” It is reported he was worried that it would ruin his career and cause him to be thought of as crazy. His family, his publisher, and many of his friends all urged him not to put it into publication

The Message

As to whether I agree with the political view of the poem I don’t want to get into here-this is not a political blog. However, it is very reminiscent of our society today. For example, with the recent war in Libya; people were saying it was going to help the Libyans greatly and we’d be home in days. They said we were helping people get out from a brutal dictatorship. Of course, not mentioning the Al Qaeda presence among the rebels, the tens of thousands of civilizan deaths, and the great expense of the war. And we’re still there!

I’m not saying you need to be against the war. But at least consider the possibilities, and don’t make a decision based on fabrications and lies! That is what Twain was saying.

The Negatives

The problem with the story is that Twain’s writing is not at its best here. As I mentioned previously, it was never published, so it never went through the final stages of editing, where it would have been further polished. It is not impossible to understand by any means, but the meaning of the story is not expressed in a totally clear fashion, and it was not immediately apparent to me what Twain was communicating. It was dictated by Mark Twain instead of written, which may have contributed to the relatively poor writing (I have had a similar problem with dictating myself, as well).

It is also only 1298 words, so it is fairly short. It should not take too much time to move through, even with the ambiguous way in which it was written. You can find it in several places online for free by merely searching, “Mark Twain War Prayer,” in Google. I won’t include the actual poem here because of possible copyright infringement.

The Verdict

So do I recommend it? It is definitely a very interesting piece, and shows more clearly Mark Twain’s political views (which he only hints at in his most popular novels). While it is not exactly like the current society and wars today (at least in the Untied States), which are not much motivated by religious reasons as much as political, it casts an interesting light on ideas like, “The United States must be the Policemen of the World,” American exceptionalism (the idea that America is so great it can boss the other countries around), and other similar notions; which begin to look more irrational and silly than carefully thought out, sound views. Again, even if you do believe in those concepts, it is a good challenge for the open minded.

It’s free and takes little time, so there’s not much reason not to read it. Overall, I give it a 3.5/5. I would give it a 4.5/5, but had to dock a point because of the relatively poor and unclear writing.

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