The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

I first read Huckleberry Finn back in 1984, and I would have thought that would be enough. But just in the last five months I've read two retellings -- the graphic novel Big Jim and the White Boy: An American Classic Reimagined by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson and the novel James by Percival Everett -- and I found myself wanting to refresh my memory of the original work to see how much the retellings kept and discarded. Indeed, they stray quite a lot, but they also amplify what Twain began.

Twain's version is amusing, ironic, satirical and sardonic. While I never tire of Huck's narration and admire the start of the book, the many digressions do wear on me. The Duke and the King overstay their welcome and Tom Sawyer all but show more ruins the ending. Still, it's easy to see why this has earned its classic status and 140 years of controversy. show less

A Coming-of-Age Story for a Nation

Picking up from the ending of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), the newly wealthy Huckleberry Finn escapes the chafing rules of civilization imposed by his new adoptive mother, the Widow Douglas, by spending his nights acting out boyish adventures with Tom and their friends. When Huck's abusive, alcoholic Pap kidnaps Huck for his money, Huck fakes his own death and sneaks out on a raft up the Mississippi River, where he encounters Jim, an escaped slave of the Widow's sister, Miss Douglas, and the two have a series of adventures as they try to float up the raft to Illinois and Jim's freedom. Mark Twain constantly juxtaposes the "gentlemanly civilization" of the Antebellum South not only with Huck and show more Jim's innocent state of nature, but also with Tom's seemingly comparatively harmless romantic fantasies of chivalry and heroism. As witness to the dangers and violence of both fantasies, 13-year-old Huck with his often wistful observations is a stand-in for all of America during the Civil War, making this Great American Novel as much the coming-of-age story of a nation as it is for a boy. In the 21st century, it is appropriate - and important - for school-aged children to read the bowdlerized version (the one with the N-word replaced with the word "slave"), but the original version needs to be available to adults who may - and should - reread it with adult awareness.

[For more on this series, see also my review of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876).] show less

"I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide,
forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it."

Mark Twain was a genius and this his magnum opus. He wrote this story with his ear pressed to the breast of a living America. The American heart that is still alive and still ailing from the same diseases today.

Twain starts his yarn off as do most good ol' yarns, with an innocent, a boy, the "ignorant" Huck Finn. Through Huck's many misadventures, Twain is slowly peeling back curtains. Without flinching, he has slowly put the real world on stage. Like his English counterpart, Charles Dickens, he made it so comical that a whole country would eagerly read it.

And read it they did.

But now some don't think you should read it.

America is rejoicing show more in banning books by our nation's geniuses like Mark Twain, and Toni Morrison, and many others (sheesh, the self-appointed gatekeepers will even ban a book about freckles, Freckleface Strawberry). Books especially about the history and indignity of slavery are their big political targets. Those books, they say, will hurt your feelings, hurt the nation's self-image, and not advance the population's enlightened sensibilities. That's a government out of touch with reality and in touch with totalitarianism.

Banning means one thing: someone "smarter than you" thinks you should not think about something.

I say be like Huck Finn! Don't let a committee of scared grownups deny your intelligence, treat you as if they were kings and dukes, brutal fathers, and spinsters who make right only after they are dead. Take your own trip down the Mississippi River. What do you think of this book, exactly as it was written? Read it here:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/76

After you are done, feel your own trembling. That's a sign you understood Twain's genius and have intelligence and strength in you. Trust yourself. show less

In the Missouri river town where he lives, Huck Finn doesn't really fit in. His abusive drunk of a father is rarely around (arguably a good thing), and had the Widow Douglas not taken him in he'd have nowhere to live at all. The widow naturally aims to civilize him, forcing Huck to attend school, use good manners and learn his catechisms. Through a series of unexpected events he instead finds himself riding a raft down the Mississippi River, accompanied by Jim, an enslaved man making his break for freedom.

I first read this classic tale of adventure as assigned reading in (I think?) tenth grade. On this second read-through several of the scenes felt familiar, but many more did not. If you, as a 21st-century reader, can get past the show more problematic and extremely uncomfortable language throughout, it remains a highly entertaining and humorous story of adventure, danger, subterfuge, cunning and faking one's own death. For me, it also earns extra points for providing a handful of laugh-out-loud moments (e.g., the scene in which eleven dogs suddenly come barreling out from under Jim's bed). I also liked that I really had to scratch my head to parse some of the dialects spoken. show less

Now, how in the nation is a body going to start this review? Well, I'll be ding-busted!

I usually don’t like reading colloquial prose style, accented dialogue and dialects. All too often they require additional effort to decipher and are just plain irritating. However, I have to make an exception for Mark Twain because he does it better than anybody else I can think of. There is never any confusion about the meaning and his colloquial narrative style and dialogue add a great deal of humour, charm and atmosphere to the story.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn does not need any synopsis I think, as it is one of the most widely read novel of all time. At the most basic level it is an adventure yarn of a rough young lad and an escaped slave on show more a raft down the Mississippi River, both running away from unbearable circumstances, and meeting some very colorful characters along the river. It is a very funny novel without actually being a “comic novel” in the sense that its primary purpose is not to make you laugh but to tell a ripping yarn with some serious issues embedded therein. I find it to be a generally good-natured story in spite of some underlying dark themes like slavery, parental abuse and violence. The biting social satire is delightful and Twain seems to enjoy poking fun at his favorite targets of nice but dim gentility, racists, bigots, roughnecks, con men and the religious.

There is a genuine sense of childhood innocence in Huck Finn’s first person narrative and I felt swept along with his enthusiasm for life and taste for adventures. Huck is a wonderful protagonist who is easy to identify with. Twain subtly charts the development of Huck’s morality through his experiences in this book, particularly from the time he spends with Jim, the escaped slave who he initially views as a little less than human. Jim is in fact the moral compass and the true hero of this book, much more so than Huck’s famous friend Tom Sawyer who does some highly reprehensible things in this book just for a lark*

The word “nigger” appears on just about every page of this book and I have read that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is banned in some schools because of this***. I have to wonder whether the people who want to ban the book actually bothered to read it. Twain is very compassionate toward the black characters in this book, and – as I mentioned earlier – Jim comes out of it shining brighter than anybody else.

The book is at its funniest when detailing Tom Sawyer’s plan for rescuing Jim from captivity, his absurd adherence to the principles of a proper prison break is hilarious (though he really is an atrocious little fellow). However, the funniest part of the book for me is when Huck is trying to explain the concept of a foreign language to Jim. Twain gives an almost unassailable reason why the French should only speak English**

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book I can read again and again just for the prose. Certainly if you have never read it even once you should make a bee line for it.

___________________________
Notes
I listened to the excellent audiobook edition from Librivox.org. Wonderfully read performed by John Greenman. Thank you sir!

* “What the hell? A brother's freedom ain't no game man!” - Thug Notes review (on Youtube).

Update: Having read [b:The Adventures of Tom Sawyer|24583|The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Tom Sawyer & Huckleberry Finn, #1)|Mark Twain|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1404811979s/24583.jpg|41326609] since reading this Huck Finn book I find that Tom in the previous book is just a naughty — kind of hyperactive — boy, not so despicable and borderline insane as he is in this book. That is some character arc! Huck Finn — after his own adventures — has become much more mature.


** "Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?"
"No, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said—not a single word."
"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?"
"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy—what would you think?"
"I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head—dat is, if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat."
"Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know how to talk French?"
"Well, den, why couldn't he say it?"
"Why, he is a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's way of saying it."
"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it."

*** Apparently NewSouth Books published an edition where "nigger" is replaced by "slave" ಠ_ಠ. On the bright side, this led to publication of The Hipster Huckleberry Finn where "nigger" is replaced with "hipster" to placate the hip and sensitive. show less

eBook

What is there to say? It's my favorite novel. Funny and profound and moving; It's almost hard to read because it spins my thoughts and imagination in all different directions on almost every page.

I suppose you could take something different from it every time you pick it up, but for me, it's about recognizing that everyone has the power to shape their beliefs to meet the world they encounter. As Huck travels down the river, he keeps adopting and discarding the belief systems he encounters until he finally realizes that it's up to him to decide what's right and what's wrong. That he's unable to stick to his guns is what makes this both a tragic work and a profoundly real one.

Huck, the boy, is the man I aspire to be. Smart, despite show more not being educated; wise, yet not without flaws. It's a good day when I recognize his cadences in my thoughts. show less

Yes, yes…this is another instance of not having yet read a book virtually everyone in the English speaking world had read when they were young. Yet it is true…I had never before this past week read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

In this case I am glad I hadn’t read it before. Having grown up with the Disney-ification of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer I am convinced had I read this as a youth, it would not have made any more an impression on me than any other book of adventure. Having now read it as an adult I can appreciate the biting social and political commentary contained within the story. Themes of slavery and freedom, gender roles, the role of religious worship, class and regional distinctions, and competing economic show more systems are all contained in the prose….wrapped within a humorous, and exciting adventure story.

I would absolutely love it if a movie were made of this that was actually true to the book; one that explored all of these themes and didn’t shy away from the ugliness Huck and Jim encounter on their adventure. Coen brothers…are you listening? :) show less