On Hannibal, MO and Stratford-upon-Avon

When I first visited Shakespeare's grave in Stratford-upon-Avon, what struck me most was how Shakespeare, "at the top of his game, still returned to Stratford-upon-Avon, that hickville one-horse-town of his youth he couldn't run away from fast enough. He voluntarily returned...Shakespeare had everything in London, fame, riches, popularity, prestige, and yet as he approached middle-age, he still chose to leave it all behind to return to podunk Stratford-upon-Avon."

I mused that "for all his profound and unsentimental understanding of nature and mankind and of all our joys and fears and sins and dreams, that he was still a man who was under the vulnerable sway of very human (even quintessential) desires.

"That is, in the end, William Shakespeare just wanted to go home.

"And he did."

I was deeply moved.

These thoughts were once again on my mind as I finally visited Hannibal, Missouri this week, to pay my respects to the birthplace of Samuel Clemens, AKA Mark Twain.  At least theoretically, Stratford and Hannibal have much in common: both are small rural river towns out in the sticks that have scarcely grown since their most renowned resident left, whose sole claim to fame is to have produced their respective nation's most famous writer, and have been trying to cash in on it ever since. They are both filled with monuments and museums and birth-homes and book-stores and gift shops and theaters and "authentic recreations" all tripping over each other.

And who can blame them?  Without Shakespeare and Twain tourism, both towns would continue to languish in obscurity.

Nevertheless, as I walked the Main Street of the "Historical District" of Hannibal, my feeling wasn't one of revelation or insight as in Stratford, but of something sadder...Maybe it was the hanging street signs squeaking sadly in the biting wind; Maybe it was the fact that the Midwest in later-winter is a big, brown, uniform slog with grey skies; maybe it's because to many, Missouri is best pronounced "Misery"; maybe it's because any cursory reading of Twain will tell you how much he despised all of the kitchy, tacky knick-knacks that cluttered up American households as much back then as they still do today, but now it's his face that's been reduced to the same sort of cheap tourist clap-trap, completely missing the point of his writings, and that in his own hometown no less!

But maybe, it's just knowing that Twain is not buried here, that he in fact elected to be buried up in New York state somewhere.  Remember that after leaving Hannibal, Twain never lived there again, that he became world famous, that he traveled the world extensively, that he saw far more of the Earth than even Shakespeare could have imagined. Now, Twain did come back to visit Hannibal late in his life, the museums all assured me of this, and they even confess that he was filled with a deep melancholy when he did.  And why wouldn't he?  This is exactly why people don't like to go to their high school reunions, because as nice as it is to take a trip down memory lane, there is something borderline tragic about seeing how little others have moved on with their lives after you did.

That is, for all his profound and unsentimental understanding of nature and mankind and of all our joys and fears and sins and dreams, Twain was still a man under the vulnerable sway of very human (even quintessential) desires.

But unlike Shakespeare, Twain sadly knew he could never go home again.

And he didn't.