James Phelan (1) (1951–)

Huck Finn had burden of being a Classic before I even started reading. Book opens extremely well with hilarious first chapter. After that, first hundred pages, while fast paced and interesting, felt point less as there didn't seem to be any direction to narrative. Once 'King' and 'Duke' characters arrived, story, while still meandering, became exceedingly funny and engaging. Last narrative on freedom of Jim was perhaps a bit stretched yet nonetheless funny. Book ended with nagging feeling of show more the point of it all. But perhaps that is what is intended because book isn't like other literature where character development and scene depiction takes up lot of word count. Story is very fast moving, full of dialogues, full of action, and really hilarious in parts. In that sense book has quality amenable to children's reading and is adaptable to any movie with minimal tweaking. In the end, book leaves you with wanting more. Though I am little nonplussed by implication by some critics on multi-layered meanings of this book, since I found book to be very straight forward with little scope of ambiguity or multiple interpretation. show less

The book includes the complete text of the novel and a large part dedicated to popular controversies related to it (i.e., the ending, race, and gender and sexuality). While I bought the book just to have a copy of the text, the section on "controversies" was educational and a good usage of my time to read and think about.

As for the novel itself, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an American classic, and in my opinion should be on the "must read" list for all American high school show more students. I thoroughly enjoyed my re-reading of the novel as a "senior citizen."

There is a possible link between the characters Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and my Stone-Campbell religious heritage. Legend has it that they were inspired by children of Amanda Stone Bowen, of Hannibal, Missouri, and grandchildren of Barton W. Stone. Whether or not there is truth to the legend, it's fun to contemplate anyway. show less

A great book for anyone who is interested in the rhetorical theory of narrative. Phelan sums up most of the key points of his theory in the first few pages and they are indeed fascinating.

i read this as a sophomore in highschool and then again in an american cultural studies graduate class. it's worth reading again.