Read in 2026 - 3: The Mysterious Stranger

Not my cover, but it fits the story.

The Mysterious Stranger

Mark Twain

Maybe one or two of you remember that I like Mark Twain, both as a person and as a writer. In 2018, I was given two biographies about him, one of which I have reviewed here.

It's been a while since I had last read anything by or about him, but for a few weeks now, "The Mysterious Stranger" kept me company on train journeys.

One of several books left unfinished by the time of the author's death, this one has been written and re-written several times, and different versions of it exist. I only found this out from the wikipedia article and have come to the conclusion that the free ebook I have on my Kindle is the so-called "Eseldorf"-Version.

The story is told by a boy named Theodore, living in a village in Austria at the turn of the 17th to the 18th century. With his two best friends, he enjoys what pleasures village life has to offer to the boys; they roam the woods and fields, fish in the stream and avoid formal education whenever possible.

One day they meet a stranger, a teenage boy some years older than they are. The boy is very handsome and friendly, and after talking for a while, he starts showing his small audience some things that can only be described as magic. For instance, he conjures food and drink out of thin air, and later instructs the three to make little people and animals out of clay who then come alive.

He also seems to be able to read their thoughts, and claims to know the future.

When the boys ask his name, he replies "Satan" but insists that he is an angel, the nephew of the one known to the boys as the Devil.

Partly frightened, the boys are too fascinated by the stranger to leave, and over the course of the following days, weeks and months, a friendship develops between them and the boy who calls himself Philipp Traum (Traum means dream in German) when he shows himself to other people.

At a time when witchcraft is punished with hanging or burning at the stake, somehow young Satan manages to convince everyone that he is just a very handsome young stranger who knows a lot because he has travelled and read much. Instead, witchcraft and other crimes are attributed to harmless folk who happen to "benefit" from his tricks.

The boys repeatedly implore their "friend" to help those who encounter difficulties, and he always concedes - but in his very own way. For instance, when a little girl drowns and her mother goes mad with grief, they ask him to help her. He makes sure that the village people accuse her of witchcraft, and she is killed - in that way, he explains that she died quickly instead of ailing in poverty, illness and distress for many more years until her "natural" death.

Several such events take place in the book. What the boys take to be good things turn out bad, and what seems bad luck for someone is explained as their greatest benefit.

Eventually, their mysterious friend loses interest. His visits become less and less frequent, and the (incomplete) book ends with his good-bye visit, explaining to Theodore that nothing is real, nothing exists but Theodore himself, and only as a thought, not in any real way.

This rather strange, fairytale-like story clearly shows Mark Twain's take on religious fanatism, mass hysteria and the general weakness of human nature in that we do things for fear of standing out as different, even when we know they are wrong. Laughter is described to be the only really effective weapon mankind has ever invented.

I can't say I enjoyed this book, but as an experiment and collection of thoughts and ideas I found it worth reading.