(published 11/15/06 by Seven Days)

PHOTO: MYESHA GOSLIN

“The loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean” is how Mark Twain described Hawaii as a young journalist in 1866. On assignment for the Sacramento Union, he attended a royal funeral, tried surfing, and trekked to an erupting Kilauea at night. He sent readers delightful dispatches filled with wry observations and sly insights.

Burlington College English professor Nora Mitchell discussed the humorist’s Hawaiian adventures as part of a fall lecture series examining America’s interaction with non-Western cultures. Soft ukulele strumming — an Israel Kamakawiwo’ole CD — warmed the sterile classroom environment as the crowd of three dozen arrived.

Assisted by a handy timeline, Mitchell briefly sketched the history of Western involvement in Hawaii: Captain James Cook’s 1778 “discovery,” the explosion of trade, especially whaling, and the missionaries’ arrival. Germs — “invisible bullets” — inflicted the most violence, she said, decimating the Hawaiian population.

When Twain arrived, social order was in disarray. Foreigners behaved with “Wild West” lawlessness and fomented plots against the embattled monarchy. “What he saw shaped his anti-imperial perspective,” Mitchell said. Twain applauded the demise of the ancient Hawaiian caste system. But he also realized “how the overthrow of injustice leads to further injustice,” an insight that “feels familiar these days,” she remarked.

Mitchell then developed the fascinating thesis that Twain’s 1889 classic, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, grew out of his Hawaiian experience. By setting the story in sixth-century England, he skirted the combustible issue of race. Connecticut Yankee cuts deeply, satirizing the failings of feudalism but savaging those who impose “modern” life upon pre-industrial societies. It ends in bloodbath.

The prof concluded by quoting a 1901 essay in which Twain pondered the West’s “progressive” mission. “Shall we go on conferring our Civilization upon the peoples that sit in darkness, or shall we give the poor things a rest? Shall we bang right ahead in our old-time, loud, pious way . . . or shall we sober up and sit down and think it over first?” Still a good question today.

ELISABETH CREAN