There’s a Mark Twain statue in Monrovia: It’s in Library Park outside the Public Library and provides a handy half a bench, which you can share with the great author and humorist. I was happy to do it, as he’s among my favorite writers.
The plaque says the sculpture is by artist Gary Price, was installed in 2003 and bears this quote attributed to Twain: “The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”
I saw it most recently in September after a farewell lunch with my friend and colleague Penny Rosenberg, who was moving out of state. She took the photo.
This piece is not precisely unique. Walking through a portion of Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley in October, I was surprised to see an almost identical bench. I posed for a photo here too, shot by my friend Frances Dinkelspiel. I’m reading “The Essential Groucho,” which I happened to be carrying.
Bancroft is a good place for a Twain bench: The library has Twain’s papers, including the original manuscript for “Finn.”
They are not the same bench, as I see upon examining the photos. Twain is reading “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” in each, but the book is open at Berkeley and closed in Monrovia. Monrovia’s sculpture is darker, either by design or by exposure to the elements. He’s angled a bit differently in each as well. I don’t know the artist for Berkeley’s; if there’s a plaque, I didn’t notice it.
His legs are crossed the same in each — as are mine, in homage.
If I find out there are more benches for Twain, maybe I will sit on them too.