The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)

From the famous episodes of the whitewashed fence and the ordeal in the cave to the trial of Injun Joe, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is redolent of life in the Mississippi River towns in which Twain spent his own youth. A somber undercurrent flows through the high humor and unabashed nostalgia of the novel, however, for beneath the innocence of childhood lie the inequities of adult reality—base emotions and superstitions, murder and revenge, starvation... ( )

This is a book about an orphan boy. The setting of this story is old South. This is about Tom's tricks and craziness as he goes about his town.

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For Christmas, I ordered an mp3 player (Library of Classics) that was pre-loaded with 100 works of classic literature in an audio format. Each work is in the public domain and is read by amateurs, so the quality of the presentation is hit or miss.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a classic piece of 19th century literature penned by Mark Twain. It recounts several adventures in the life of a young, Missouri boy living in a small town on the Mississippi River. While it is at times amusing, the rural, 19th century slang and extremely superstitious beliefs of many of the characters, explained at length, soon becomes tiresome and annoying. Taken in small doses, the escapades of Sawyer and his compatriot Huck Finn can be tolerable, but combined in book length form, they soon lose their charm. ( )

It seems somehow irreverant to dislike a classic that's so, well, classic, as Tom Sawyer. In fact I only disliked the first half. When Tom and his friends really embark on their adventures, it becomes a great story.

It could be partly cultural. English kids don't do many American classics at school, well, we certainly didn't, and although I can relate to 1830s life through other tales, films and programmes, it doesn't mean I'm at ease with them. I didn't feel that Tom's school adventures were told well. It was difficult to understand the voices of the characters, the idioms and accents. Maybe because of that, I found it hard to distinguish between the young people. Long passages of dialogue between Tom and Huckleberry Finn, for example, became just dialogue with no clear understanding of who was talking.

This changed when Tom went on his adventures. The power of the writing drew you into the scene, the hardships, the danger, imagined or not. Some of Tom's antics are cringeworthy but eventually he and his friends become embroiled in serious danger, however lightly they started out. But I felt Tom's 'voice' changed. Over the course of one summer he went from seemingly a 12 year old to a 15-16 year old. I know some kids that did that. But it was odd.

So, do I think The Adventures of Tom Sawyer worthy of its accolades, worthy of being classed as one of the greatest classics? Yes and no. Written in 1876, it is a powerful and evocative telling of an era some thirty or forty years earlier. As a picture of a medium sized town and its characters, as an adventure story, it works and works well. By the time I'd finished it, I was enjoying it. It took me a while, though.

I'm glad I've read it, but I don't think I'd read another. ( )