(Book 825 from 1001 books) - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn = Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Adventures of Tom and Huck #2), Mark Twain

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885.

It is told in the first person by Huckleberry "Huck" Finn, the narrator of two other Twain novels (Tom Sawyer Abroad and Tom Sawyer, Detective) and a friend of Tom Sawyer.

It is a direct sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «هکلبری فین»؛ «برده فراری ماجراهای هاکلبری فین»؛ «ماجراهای هاکلبری فین»؛ «سرگذشت هکلبری فین»؛ «هاکلبری فین»؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ انتشاراتیها (آگاه، روزن، علمی فرهنکی، امیرکبیر، نشر کلاغ، فرانکلین، زرین، ارسطو، مهتاب، دادجو، خوارزمی، ارغوان، گوتنبرگ، ناژ، عصر اندیشه، نهال نویدان، قدیانی) تاریخ نخستین خوانش ماه اکتبر سال 1994میلادی

عنوان: هکلبری فین؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ مترجم: ابراهیم گلستان؛ چاپ نخست 1328؛ چاپ دوم تهران، آگاه، 1349؛ چاپ سوم تهران، روزن، 1348؛ در308ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، بازتاب نگار، 1387، در 383ص؛ شابک 9789648223408؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، نشر کلاغ، 1393، در368ص؛ شابک9786009418879؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان ایالات متحده آمریکا - سده 19م

عنوان: ماجراهای هاکلبری فین؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ فروست ادبیات نوجوانان؛ مترجم: هوشنگ پیرنظر؛ تهران، سازمان کتابهای جیبی فرانکلین، 1345؛ در312ص؛ چاپ ششم تهران، علمی فرهنگی، 1377، در 416ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، امیرکبیر، 1389، در 443ص؛ شابک 9789640013182؛

عنوان: ماجراهای هاکلبری فین؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ مترجم: شهرام پورانفر؛ تهران، زرین، 1362؛ در 394ص؛ چاپ دیگر؛ مشهد، ارسطو، 1370؛ در394ص؛ چاپ دیگر تهران، مهتاب، 1370؛ در 394ص؛

عنوان: ماجراهای هاکلبری فین؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ مترجم: سودابه زرکف؛ تهران، دادجو، 1364؛ در 255ص؛

عنوان: سرگذشت هکلبری فین؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ مترجم: نجف دریابندری؛ تهران، خوارزمی، 1366؛ در 380ص؛

عنوان: ماجراهای هاکلبری فین؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ مترجم: رویا گیلانی؛ تهران، ارغوان، 1372؛ در 136ص؛ چاپ دوم 1390؛

عنوان: برده فراری ماجراهای هاکلبری فین؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ مترجم: جواد محیی؛ تهران، گوتنبرگ، 1379؛ در 228ص؛ چاپ دیگر مشهد، جاودان خرد، 1375، در 228ص؛ چاپ دوم 1385؛

عنوان: هکلبری فین؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ مترجم: کیومرث پارسای؛ تهران، ناژ، 1390، در 397ص، شابک 9786009109746؛ عنوان روی جلد ماجراهای هکلبری فین؛

عنوان: ماجراهای هاکلبری فین؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ مترجم: محمد همت خواه؛ تهران، عصر اندیشه، 1391؛ در 59ص؛ شابک 9786005550078؛

عنوان: ماجراهای هاکلبری فین؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ مترجم: شکوفه اخوان؛ تهران، نهال نویدان، 1392؛ در 175ص؛شابک 9789645680440؛

عنوان: ماجراهای هاکلبری فین؛ اثر: مارک تواین؛ مترجم: سحرالسادات رخصت پناه؛ تهران، قدیانی، 1394؛ در 336ص؛ شابک9786002517029؛

جناب آقای «مجید آقاخانی» نیز داستان خلاصه شده را ترجمه کرده اند در 177ص؛

داستان نوجوانی با پدری الکلی است، «هکلبری» در پی نزاع با پدرش، از خانه فرار می‌کند؛ در راه با برده ی سیاهپوستی به نام «جیم» آشنا می‌شود؛ آنها کلکی می‌سازند، و سوار بر امواج رودخانه ی «می‌.سی‌.سی‌.پی» را می‌پیمایند؛ این کتاب به رویدادهایی که بر این دو رخ می‌دهند و میگذرند، می‌پردازد

جناب آقای «ابراهیم گلستان» در جایی از مقدمه ی کتاب نوشته اند: (آنچه مهم است این است که درس خشن زندگی، «هک (هکلبری فین)» را خبیث نمی‌کند؛ فطرت او خلاف زندگی نمی‌رود؛ دلش شک برمی‌دارد اما به قساوت آلوده نمی‌شود، بی اعتنا نمی‌شود؛ آن‌ها که به او نارو زده ‌اند اگر گرفتار شوند نه به توطئه اوست بلکه خلاف میل اوست و او از گرفتاری‌هایشان غمگین می‌شود و دریغ می‌خورد که چرا آدم‌ها یکدیگر را می‌آزارند؛ «هک» همدم است با هر آنچه درست و پاک و زیباست، بی آن‌که خود بداند، می‌فهمد اگر دنیا زشتی‌ها دارد، چرکی‌ها دارد، شادی‌ها و گرمی‌ها نیز دارد.)؛ پایان نقل

تاریخ 08/08/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 21/06/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

What a fresh narrative voice, I never would have expected that for a 19th century novel! And the level of adventure is right up there with any modern YA book.
I go a good deal on instinct - No sh*t, Huckleberry

With a protagonist named after a fruit that cannot be successfully domesticated, this classic gives us an especially irreverent 14 year old. Huckleberry flees an abusive and drunk father, just when he started to settle into a life of school and being less influenced by his youthful friends. He ends up faking his own death and navigating the Mississippi together with Jim, an enslaved man that tries to escape being sold in New Orleans.
Many dead people, storms, mist, treasures and con artists (who go by the name Duke and Dauphin and have everyone bowing to them) are encountered along the river, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn delivers on its title! Huckleberry even needs to dress up as a girl (like Achilles) to get information.
Along the journey the prejudices he has against black people start to be questioned and waiver due to the friendship and shared hardship experienced with Jim.

In terms of language I was a bit annoyed with so many by and by and the use of the word ornery (not to mention the continual use of the N word), but it is a feat this book remains remarkably readable after more than 100 years. The surroundings of Huckleberry and Jim are full of guns, barter trade and bounties to turn in free freed enslaved people. People project a lot on the travellers, with blabbering being their worst enemy in terms of getting exploited (Ain’t we got all the fools in town on our side, and ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?).
Circus and steamboat postal services serve as the limited connections to the outside world.

There is definitely humor in the book. For instance Huck his father, a no good drunk, ranting against the government, reminded me enormously of current day conspiracy theorists. Huckleberry his poor schooling also leads to Henry VIII being rendered as responsible for the Boston Tea Party and being the son of the Duke of Wellington. Shakespeare is butchered by some con artists in the most terrible enactment of Hamlet ever.

The section with Huck and Tom working on undoing Jim’s imprisonment near the end is rather confusing and less engaging, and severely convoluted, with Tom Sawyer his plans making me tired just reading about them. Also Jim his plight is not really covered much, which is a shame and renders him rather stereotypically, besides some observations like: Human beings can be awful cruel to each other

n  "It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race."n

4.5 stars — What a devilishly clever Trojan Horse of a novel this is! Dressing up as a folksy, comical story of boyhood adventure, what in reality is a scathing satire of the rank hypocrisy and moral rot that has been infecting the soul of this country ever since its inception and Original Sin.

Walnut Grove and Mayberry, this is not. Rather, Twain takes us on a Dante-esqe journey deeper and deeper into the truly deranged and delusional American South. His America is a colorful collection of murderous thieves, feuding fools, greedy con-men, gullible rubes, and religious hypocrites. Same today as it ever was! (If this is the former "greatness" to which all the MAGA morons so eagerly aspire, they're a lot closer to reaching their goal than they realize.)

It's a shame that the relentless onslaught of toxic but historically accurate language and outdated racial stereotypes will (understandably) prevent this from being discovered by contemporary readers, because even nearly 150 years later, it still holds up an unflattering but brutally honest mirror to American society that we need to look into now more than ever. Twain was revealing and interrogating things like "white supremacy" and "white privilege" long before they ever became 21st century buzzwords.

All while telling an engrossing and poignant coming-of-age story about friendship, freedom, and a young boy grappling with the growing dissonance between his own observed reality and moral instincts on the one hand, and the nonsensical religious bullshit and racism he's been indoctrinated with since birth on the other. In other words, precisely the kind of "woke" YA propaganda that conservatives are actively trying to remove from schools and libraries as we speak.

I know Twain's characterization of Jim has been puzzling and polarizing readers and scholars for a century and a half, but it wasn't nearly as problematic as I'd feared, and in fact Jim quickly became my favorite character in the entire novel. Obviously, we're only ever seeing Jim through the eyes of an uneducated preteen White boy born and raised in the rural South, a biased perspective that is just inherently and inescapably going to be limiting, and include some dehumanizing stereotypes.

But reading between the lines, I see Twain doing some sophisticated, subversive stuff here, constantly reminding us of Jim's (and other enslaved characters') complex emotions and full humanity long before Huck begins to recognize those things for himself. Scene after scene, Jim is almost always the smartest, wisest, funniest, and most compassionate character in the room (or raft, as it were).

Only thing holding this back from a full five stars is that disappointing clunker of an ending. Bringing Tom Sawyer back into the story felt like the 19th century equivalent of "fan service" rather than good storytelling, and I pretty much HATED everything from that point on. If Tom was a pompous little brat before, he's absolutely insufferable here and those final chapters were a real slog to get through.

Славен момък е тоя Хъкълбери Фин, честно слово! Ако не вярвате, питайте мистър Марк Твен, той ще ви каже...

„Приключенията на Хъкълбери Фин“ четох в превод от 65-та година. Чудесно придава атмосферата на по-миналия век в САЩ. Не зная дали съвременен преводач, пък бил той и умел, би могъл така добре да се справи. Малкото, което помня от „Приключенията на Том Сойер“ (освен Беки, леля Поли, която донякъде напомня баба Цоцолана по нрав, и гангренясалия пръст на Том), е, че романът носеше същия дух. А самият Том, разбира се, не пропуска да се появи и да обагри и тукашните премеждия.

Някаква магия има в малките момченца. Благоприличните момиченца не си играят на разбойници, не си измислят кървави клетви, нямат пръчки саби и метли кончета. Момиченцата си играят на сервизи и мама и татко, и общо взето още от малки се подготвят да станат пълноправни и сериозни членове на обществото (скучна работа, но все някой трябва да я върши). Виж, момченцата са друга работа. Съвсем спокойно можеш да скалъпиш освобождаването на негър от робовладелци и то по всички правила на рицарските и там другите му приключенски романи. Оставяш изчегъртани в камък скръбни послания (оф, пришки излязоха от това дълбаене!), копаеш тунел с часове, нищо, че безпрепятствено можеш да влезеш през вратата, за която имаш ключ (не се прави така, не разбирате ли) и освен това помагаш да избяга на някого, който е бил затворник 37 години! Е, те всъщност са били няколко седмици, но на ужким всичко е позволено. Пък и къде остава интересното иначе… Това ми напомня за В., която съвсем не в стила на момиченцата като била малка и се налагало да помага в градината на село и да носи нещо-си-тежко, си представяла, че била роб на галера, който трябвало да мъкне кофи с вода и един ден да се превърне в бъдещия страховит Черен корсар на Емилио Салгари.

Хубаво е да прочетеш подобен роман като дете. Разгаря въображението като нищо друго. Хубаво е да го прочетеш и като възрастен. Виждаш какво изпускаш във всички онези дни, в които си зает с работата-си-за-големи, с чистене на фугите в банята и търкане на загорелия тиган след тиквичките. Хубаво е да се сетиш какво е да си толкова безгрижен, че всъщност да имаш време да го пуснеш на воля онова въображение, дето сякаш ти се беше разгоряло като малък и най-сериозният проблем беше, когато коремчето те подсеща, че май е време за вечеря. Ех, и всичкото това бързане да пораснем…

-احدى امتع القصص التي قرأتها ابدا. تصلح لكل الأعمار، فكلما نضج القارئ نضجت الرواية معه واستقى معان جديدة منها.

- القصة على لسان صبي مراهق؛ تنطلق ببطئ في الفصول الأولى لكن سحرها يبدأ في الكوخ المنعزل مع الفكرة المجنونة للفتى، وتنطلق الرحلة الساحرة.

-الشخصيات كانت ممتازة، ف "هاكلبري" مغامر ذكي وفطن وطيب، "جيم" العبد وقصة تلاقيهما والصفات المعطاة له من "توين" كانت مذهلة، "الدوق"و "الملك" من افضل الشخصيات التي وجدتها في رواية يوماً لما يمتلكاه من اساليب شيطانية.

- لم يطل توين الأحداث، لكنه جعلها متواترة بطريقة لا تشعرك بالملل وتجعلك تعيش في القصة منتظراً ما الذي سيحصل تالياً، والتنويع الحاصل بين اصناف المغامرات ومواقعها (غابة، نهر، قرية، سيرك، مزرعة...) اتى ليعزز التشويق في هذه الرواية.

-الأسلوب سلس على عادة "مارك توين"، ساخر ومبطن في العديد من الأماكن ومن هنا فمهما كان عمر القارئ سيستقي معنى جديد مبطن بين سطور الرواية.

- "هاكلبري" ليس بطلاً امريكيا كما اعتادت هوليوود تصويره، فهو ليس مع اعطاء الحرية للعبيد، لكنه طيب القلب وكان جميلاً ان نرى وجهة النظر هذه من دون المزايدات المتعارف عليها!!

- "توين" يقوم بالسخرية من "سوير"في نهاية الرواية، ويصوره ككائن جليدي لا يهتم سوى بأفكاره دون اخذ ادنى اعتبار لمشاعر الآخرين.

- الترجمة ممتازة وسلسة، واللغة المستعملة بسيطة.

- أنصح الجميع بقرأتها لأنها ستضحككم من الصميم في العديد من الأماكن (خصوصا مع "الملك"و"الدوق")، وستقرأون فيها العديد من اللمسات الإنسانية، العاطفية وبعض الحبكات المشوقة جداً.

I read this book as a senior in high school. My favorite part of it was the gothic fighting families because it reminded me of Romeo and Juliet! I also remember that we watched a interesting PBS documentary about if it should or should not be taught in school. I forget what the title of the film was. I also remember that I got a horrible grade on the paper I wrote about the book. High school was not one of the best times it was more like the worst times (pun intended).

I just reread the famous young adult classic book (first edition: 1884) after many years.
The thing that caught my eye first and foremost is the everyday racism here, which is satirized by the author in order to make a point. As you may know, the story is told from the perspective of Huckleberry Finn, a neglected, albeit smart and good-hearted teenage boy, who begins to realize that discrimination against black people may not be all right and starts to revolt against slavery.
A very entertaining book, a classic and a key work of American literature, and still deservedly so, I think.

SPOILER ALERT! My review is primarily focused on the controversial denouement and ending. Therefore, if you haven’t read the book in its original form—not a bowdlerized, sentimental travesty like the film versions—you may want to stop reading here. Anyway, you’ve been warned!

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn belongs on the list of great American novels, and probably at a place near the top. It earns that honor by the authenticity of Huck’s first person narrative voice; the psychological complexity of his character; his relationship with the runaway slave, Jim; the detailed description of life on the Mississippi in the late 1840’s including descriptions of nature that are at once accurate and poetic, some of the finest “word painting” in the 19th century rural American vernacular.

The novel is not a sentimental portrait of back-country boyhood in a bygone era; on the contrary, Clemens left us a realistic “warts and all” depiction of that time and place, of slavery, of ignorance, bigotry, cruelty, vice, child abuse, blood feuds, drunkenness, fraud, mob violence and lynch law. Clemens placed each memorable scene within the structure of a series of “adventures” as the two runaways travel down the great river on a raft. What were they running from? Jim fears being sold down the river. His goal is liberty in a free state or territory and a job where he can earn enough to buy his wife and children out of slavery. Huck, who has $6,000 held in trust for him (See The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for details on how Huck and Tom made their small fortunes) is running from his brutal, avaricious, alcoholic bum of a father, but he’s also escaping from “civilization” and adult responsibility.

CLIMAX AND DENOUEMENT: “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.” About halfway through the story Huck and Jim fall into bad company in the form of the King and the Duke, a pair of pretentious con artists. When their most elaborate and reprehensible scheme ends in failure, they sell out Jim for forty dollars; they print phony handbills advertising Jim as a runaway slave and hand him over to a farmer who takes Jim at a discount in anticipation of receiving a bogus reward from a non-existent owner. (They don't know or care about Jim's real owner any more than they care about Jim. All they care about is the money.)

The King and the Duke eventually get their comeuppance at the hands of a mob. However, when Huck sees the criminals tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail, he feels sympathy: “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.” That statement is self-revealing. Huck has suffered abuse from his cruel father, however, he his pal Tom Sawyer can be very cruel indeed.

Huck’s Moral Dilemma: About two-thirds of the way through the narrative, Huck faces a moral crisis. Should he notify Jim’s lawful owner, Miss Watson, about her slave’s whereabouts, or should he help Jim escape? The answer, from a moral standpoint, might seem obvious to a contemporary reader, but it certainly wouldn’t have been obvious to Huck Finn who’d been raised in a slave state two decades before the Civil War, nor would it have been obvious to many of Mark Twain’s readers in the 1880’s, and especially so to those readers in the post-war, post-reconstruction era South.
According to the laws of his state and community morality, Huck ought to have given Jim over to his owner, Miss Watson. On the other hand, Jim treated Huck with nothing but kindness and friendship and Huck felt a strong attachment to his fellow runaway. He turns the matter over in his mind; the inner conflict and tension rise until he decides to send Miss Watson the following letter:
“Miss Watson, your runaway n***** Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.   HUCK FINN.”

But Huck can’t betray his friend, which leads to the novel’s dramatic climax. He destroys the letter and comes to this resolution:
"All right, then, I'll go to hell"—and tore it up. It was awful thoughts and awful words….And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.”
It's important to note that contrary to our contemporary attitude toward the situation, Huck has decided to do the “wrong” thing by helping to free Jim, something he believes is so bad that he’ll go to hell for it. What’s more, he’s saying he’s decided on doing the “wrong” thing because he’s no good and badness is in his nature, so he “might as well go the whole hog.” This is sharp irony on the writer’s part, but what would his contemporary readers think, especially those readers in the South? And what do we now think of a society and culture that taught a boy to believe he would go to hell for helping a runaway slave? Clemens was in dangerous waters, especially for someone who deserted a Confederate militia and headed west to the Nevada territory to avoid fighting in the war.
I believe the author has revealed his own moral dilemma through Huck’s narrative, in the opening humorous disclaimer and the apologia in the final chapter as well as the problematic denouement.
First, the novel’s opening “Notice” in the form of a disclaimer:
Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
Second, the final chapter/ending apologia:
“…and so there ain't nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd 'a' knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't 'a' tackled it, and ain't a-going to no more.”
Finally, the denouement leading up to the final chapter.

Tom Sawyer: Diabolus ex Machina: Around the time of Huck’s decision to free Jim, Tom Sawyer makes a highly improbable appearance. Jim is being held by Mr. Phelps, a farmer who purchased the runaway at a discount from the King and the Duke. When Huck arrives at the Phelps farm, they mistake him for their nephew, Tom Sawyer (!) who they’ve been expecting to arrive on the steamboat. Huck pretends to be Tom until the real Tom turns up! The boys explain away this conundrum by telling another fib; Huck is really Tom’s brother, Sid! Please note: from this point on, the realistic narrative descends into low farce and parody, a stumbling block for many admirers of this novel.

Huck enlists Tom in his plan to free Jim, but according to Tom it mustn’t be done in the simplest, most practical way. On the contrary, Tom Sawyer wants to do things right, to make the escape a legendary feat, with style, mystery, and great obstacles to overcome, a grand adventure. Tom’s elaborate scheme is convoluted and ridiculous; it’s practically guaranteed to fail in its purported purpose of freeing Jim, while placing all parties involved in danger of life and limb. However, it does provide Clemens with page after page in which to parody adventure stories involving prisoners and daring escapes including Dumas père’s The Count of Monte Cristo and The Man in the Iron Mask. It also provides Tom and Huck the opportunity to play devilish pranks on the Phelps family, their servants, and poor Jim who the boys torment needlessly. What’s more, Huck participates in Tom’s nasty pranks despite having sworn he’d never again play such mean tricks on Jim. “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”

Eventually, the escape comes off with disastrous results. Tom is shot in the leg and Jim is nearly lynched by a mob of angry farmers. However, tragedy is averted. Huck fetches a doctor who arrives just in time to save Tom’s life. What’s more, instead of running from the mob, Jim stays with Tom and helps the doctor. The doctor vouches for Jim, which probably saves him from hanging, although the farmers also consider the fact that if they hanged Jim, they’d be obliged to compensate his owner for the loss of valuable property.

All’s well that ends well. Tom recovers and Jim is freed. As it turns out, Miss Watson died and freed Jim in her will, a fact Tom Sawyer knew all along but didn’t reveal because it would have spoiled all the fun and adventure of the great escape.

Did Clemens compromise his art to please his readers? Did he contrive an ending that pleased those who wanted to see Jim freed with Huck’s help while at the same time appeasing others who didn’t mind Jim being freed as long as it was done legally? I can’t answer those questions definitively. But there could be more to it than that. “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.” Throughout the novel, Clemens shows humanity at its worst: greedy, violent, dishonest, arrogant, vindictive, ignorant, stupid and cruel. In this unflattering portrait of human nature, Jim, the poor, illiterate Black slave comes off the best. Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, was able to show the dark side of humanity while entertaining us, making us laugh at ourselves without turning us against him. All in all, I’d say that’s quite an accomplishment.

2023: I'm not sure how I found this so funny in 2016. Did I not get it? This kid escaped from a horrific situation with an abusive father who tried to use him and unknowingly kill him. He runs away and meets up with a runaway slave, who has been separated from his family and misses his wife and two kids. I know the word people don't like in this book had been part of that time, but reading it over and over made me cringe. The two meet up with others enslaved by different things in life apart from literal slavery and a terrible father within his rights of the law. They meet people enslaved to hatred, feuds, forbidden love, killing, cowardice, conning, deceiving and stealing. It ripped my heart apart, a powerful and intense rebuke to the world and society of Twain's time, all under the guise of humor and entertainment.

2016 RE-READ

I read this when I was like ten or something and all I remembered was that it was one of my favorites. Here I am, 26 years later, having read it again, and loving it perhaps more than I did then. I don’t remember Mark Twain being so damn hilarious. I mean I was in hysteria I was laughing so hard. I had to cover my mouth a few times when I burst out laughing when I was reading next to my sleeping beauty. I liked this so much that I bought a hard copy. I plan to read it again and again.
I was so sad to get to the end of this because I felt like Huck was my best friend ‘dat I ever did haive ya see. I don’t know, that’s kind of how the whole book is written – so very wonderful. He touched on some very deep, heartbreaking issues, all covered in lightheartedness. I can’t seem to express how much I loved this.
I remember reading this when I was young, then reading other books on slavery because of it. I felt that interest peaking again as I read it. As I was thinking about this I got inspired to look up some old Negro spiritual songs on YouTube and stumbled upon Martin Luther King’s last speech, “I Have Seen the Mountaintop.” I thought, “What if he would have seen Obama as President.” It made me weep. Then I saw a link to Robert Kennedy’s speech announcing that MLK was shot. That made me weep too.
We sure have come a long way.

"All right, then, I'll GO to hell" --

This is Huck's decision, rather than turn in his friend, Jim. They had been through many things together.

Here's the story....

Huck faked his death and ran away from his drunken father. On Jackson’s Island, in the middle of the Mississippi River, Huck encounters Jim, a runaway slave and his friend. Jim fled because he overheard his owner, Miss Watson, planning to sell him to a plantation. Huck and Jim ultimately must escape the island because their campfire is spotted.

Later in their adventures Huck reports...

I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

‘Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.’

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking -- thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell.

And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind.

I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the ONLY one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll GO to hell" -- and tore it up.’

Huck's epiphany is that Jim is a human being, no matter what people call him or how they treat him, and Huck is willing to risk his soul to help him.

===========

I don't listen to many audiobooks, but if you like them may I suggest the brilliantly narrated version by Elijah Wood. He captures the colloquial speech brilliantly in a way I never got from the written page.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/audiobook...

I really quite enjoyed this well-written satire of slavery-era America. I reads a lot like a Dickens novel, very episodic and with a youthful protagonist. I'll put aside the fact that Huck Finn may be the most annoying character in all of literature and say that this is a great American classic for a reason. It's captivating, it's funny, and it's never boring. While it may not have aged very well, it's still an important text that covers a time when America was in its adolescent stage.

ماجراهای هاکلبری فین رمانی اثر مارک توین است که در سال ۱۸۸۴ برای اولین بار چاپ شد. این کتاب در پی رمان تام سایر منتشر شد.
این کتاب داستان نوجوانی است که از پدری الکلی متولد می‌شود. پدرش بعد از چند سال گم می‌شود بعد او با تام سایر دوست می‌شود .او را بدست فردی به نام بیوه می سپارند. او همراه با خواهرش دوشیزه واتسون زندگی می‌کند که او یک برده سیاه به اسم جیم دارد.پدر هاکلبری فین بالاخره به روستایشان می آید و هاک را به کلبه ای وسط جنگل می برد.هاک پس از چند روز از آنجا فرار می‌کند و...