Un canto a la amistad, a la vida y a la libertad, así es como yo definiría Las aventuras de Huckleberry Finn, una de las mejores historias que he leído en mi vida.

En esta novela, narrada en primera persona por nuestro protagonista Huck Finn, seguiremos su historia a lo largo de un sinfín de aventuras que vivirá junto a un gran número de personajes que se encontrará en el camino.

Huck, cansado de que lo intenten civilizar, y de tener que soportar a su alcohólico padre —sin duda, uno de los peores padres que han existido en toda la literatura—, decide embarcarse a la aventura, yendo en una balsa por el río Mississippi. La cuestión es que no lo hará solo, sino que le acompañará Jim, un esclavo que ha decido fugarse para ir en busca de la libertad.

Honestamente, no puedo definir con palabras lo mucho que amé y disfruté esta novela, va más allá del hecho de que la narrativa es brillante y la historia un tanto más. Es quizá un caso particular en el que sé que se quedará conmigo para siempre, sin embargo, no sabría explicar los motivos. Quizá a más de uno le habrá pasado con alguna obra en particular y sabrá comprenderme.

Si bien hay algo que no me terminó de convencer del todo, un nuevo personaje que aparece casi al final del libro que hizo que la historia pasara de ser reflexiva y poética, a sentirse como si estuvieras leyendo un chiste, no demerita el hecho de que para mí esta sea una completa obra de arte. Le perdono este error a Mark Twain, quizá se vio obligado a introducir a dicho personaje o no sé; para fortuna de todos, el final es una completa joya y remonta como mínimo los peldaños que había perdido la historia.

Si tuviera que decir qué fue lo que más disfruté de la novela serían dos cosas: la primera, las sublimes reflexiones e importantes cuestionamientos que se hace Huck Finn a sí mismo, especialmente cuando tiene que actuar en contra de los principios que le han sido inculcados por la sociedad, y decide ir en contra de ello para hacer algo mejor, aquello que le dicta la conciencia, y por qué no decirlo, el corazón… bueno, si les digo que se me hacía un nudo en la garganta, es poco.

La segunda tiene nombre, y se trata de mi personaje favorito, y uno de los mejores personajes que me he encontrado en una novela: nuestro querido Jim. Pienso que es imposible no querer a Jim, especialmente por su personalidad y sus acciones, así como el hecho de contar con un amigo como él, sin duda cualquiera se habría sacado la lotería. Además, el que exista más humanidad en él que en muchos otros personajes, en un tiempo donde no era respetado como ser humano, es donde se nota (así como en muchos aspectos más) el poderoso mensaje que planea dar Mark Twain con esta obra. Simplemente maravilloso.

En conclusión, hay que leer Las aventuras de Huckleberry Finn al menos una vez en la vida, y tener en cuenta que además de ser una lectura ágil, es una lectura con una profundidad y un sentido muy bien definidos.

n  “¡Vete a liberarlo! No puede seguir siendo esclavo. ¡Tiene que ser libre como cualquier criatura que ande sobre la faz de la tierra!”n

P.S. No está de más recomendar esta edición que leí de la editorial Sexto Piso; no solo me pareció una buena traducción, sino que además las ilustraciones de Pablo Auladell hacen un increíble juego con la historia y le dan el toque final.
Que por cierto, Guille, si alguna vez lees esto, muchas gracias por convencerme de que este ilustrador hacía un estupendo trabajo, ha valido completamente la pena.

n"وأيقنت ألا جدوى من إضاعة الوقت هباء, فأنت لا تستطيع أن تعلم زنجياً كيف يجادل. وعندئذ كففت عن الحديث" هاكلبري فين, بعد أن رفض الزنجي أن الاختلاف بين الأمريكي والفرنسي مثل الاختلاف بين القطة والبقرة

n


إذا لم تستطع هذه الرواية أن توصل لك قيمة العلم والمنطق, وخطر العلم الزائف فما الذي سيفعل؟
إذا لم تشعرك الرواية بكمية الخطر والخداع الذي يتحتم عليك أن تحتمي منه في هذا العالم المحيط بك, فما الذي تبقى لنشلك من سذاجة الطفولة؟

فكما يقول "بريان ديوننج":

"قد يكون مارك توين أكثر النقاد فاعلية عند نقده لجهل البشر وخدعهم حتى الآن, بالرغم من مظهرها فهي تبدو وكأنها قصص مغامرات, فهي بالحقيقة مجموعة من إفشاءات صادمة للضعف البشري, والتي تقودها الخرافات, العنصرية, الجشع, والجهل"

في ريفيو الجزء الأول: توم سوير تحدثت عن روعته الرواية كقصة مغامرات مسلية, ولكن في الجزء الثاني منها, والذي يُحكى لنا على لسان صديق توم سوير "هاكلبري فين", نشهد تحولا كبيراً واضحاً في موضوع المغامرات منذ الصفحات الأولى من الرواية:

-tفدية؟ وما هي الفدية؟
-tلست أدري! ولكن هذا ما يفعله المغامرون دائماً! ولقد قرأت عن الفدية في الكتب. ومن ثم فهذا هو ما يجب علينا أن نفعله!!
-tولكن كيف يمكننا أن نفعل ذلك ونحن لا نعرفه؟
-tمهما يكن من أمر, فإنه يجب علينا أن "نفعل" ذلك! ألم أقل لك إنه مذكور في الكتب؟ هل تريد أن تأتي عملاً يخالف ما ورد في الكتب؟ وأن تفسد كل مغامرتنا بذلك؟
...
-tولماذا لا يلتقط الإنسان هراوة و "يفتديهم" بمجرد مجيئهم إلى هنا؟!!
-tلأن ذلك ليس مذكوراً في الكتب!..هذا هو السبب يا "بن روجرز".. هل تريد أن تعالج الأمور حسب النظام المتبع أم بطريقة مخالفة؟ -هذه هي المسألة ..ألا تظن أن أولئك الذين وضعوا الكتب يعرفون الإجراءات الصحيحة التي ينبغي اتخاذها؟ هل تظن "أنك" تستطيع أن تعلمهم شيئاً؟ كلا يا سيدي! سوف "نفتدي" هؤلاء الأشخاص بالطريقة المتبعة
-t.. وهل نفتدي النساء أيضا؟
-tلا, فان أحداً لم يقرأ عن مثل هذا في الكتب!

n
======================
الرواية هي إحدى الكلاسيكيات الخالدة, وعندما نقول أنها كلاسيكية ليس فقط معناها أنها قديمة, بل لأنها أيضاً أصيلة في أفكارها التي يتداولها اللاحقون تحت غطاء مسميات أخرى, فمثلا عندما تقرأ هذا المشهد:

n
-tإن ما يجعلني أشعر بالحزن هذه المرة , هو أنني سمعت صوت باب يغلق بعنف منذ قليل , فذكرني ذلك بالمعاملة السيئة التي عاملت بها ابنتي اليزابيث الصغيرة في أحد الأيام ! لم تكن حينذاك قد بلغت الرابعة من عمرها , وأصيبت بالحمى القرمزية , وكانت إصابتها شديدة الوطأة ولكنها شفيت . واتفق ذات يوم أن كانت تقف أمام المنزل فقلت لها :
-tأغلقي الباب.
ولكنها لم تفعل , وابتسمت لي فجن جنوني , فقلت لها مرة أخرى بصوت مرتفع:
-tألا تسمعيني ؟ أغلقي الباب .
فوقفت جامدة في مكانها , والابتسامة على شفتيها , فازددت سخطاً وغيظاً وصحت :
-tسأجعلك تطيعين ما أقوله لك .
وهويت بيدي فوق رأسها , فسقطت على الأرض . ثم تركتها ودخلت المنزل وقضيت هناك عشر دقائق .. وعندما خرجت , كان الباب لا يزال مفتوحا والطفلة واقفة وقد خفضت رأسها والدموع تنهمر من عينيها .. وقد زادني ذلك جنونا ؛ وهممت بالانقضاض عليها , لولا أن الريح هبت في تلك اللحظة فأغلقت الباب خلف الطفلة .. ولمنها لم تتحرك من مكانها . فأحسست بأن قلبي يكاد يفلت من بين ضلوعي , وتقدمت نحو الباب وفتحته بلطف وهدوء وأبرزت رأسي من خلفه , فإذا بالطفلة لا تزال واقفة في مكانها ؛ وعندئذ صحت فيها صيحة مدوية مفاجئة , ولكنها لم تتحرك .. أواه يا هاك .. لقد انفجرت باكيا , وحملت الطفلة بين ذراعي وقلت لها : أيتها الطفلة المسكينة , فليغفر الله العظيم لجيم المسكين ما أتاه من أثر عظيم , لأن جيم لن يغتفر لنفسه هذا الإثم طالما بقي على قيد الحياة" .. يا الهي يا "هاك" ..
لقد كانت الطفلة التعسة بكماء صماء .. ومع ذلك عاملتها لك خشونة.!
n

n
تذكرت مشهد مشابه سرده ستيفن كوفي في كتاب العادات السبع الأكثر فعالية, رغم أنه سرده كمشهد حقيقي.
====

nوقالت لي الآنسة واطسون انه ينبغي علي أن أصلي كل يوم حتى أستطيع على كل ما أطلبه في صلاتي! ولقد جربت ذلك, ولكن الصلاة لم تحقق لي أي مطلب! ... لقد كنت أحدث قائلاً: "إذا كان الناس يستطيعون الحصول على ما يريدون بالصلاة فلماذا لا يستعيد "ويكون وين" النقود التي فقدها في تربية الخنازير؟ ولماذا لا تستطيع الأرملة دوجلاس أن تسترد علية "السعوط" الفضية التي سرقت منها؟ ولماذا لا تستطيع الآنسة واطسون أن تزيد من وزنها" وعندئذ أيقنت أنه ليس في الإمكان أن يحقق الإنسان أمنيته بالصلاة! وذهبت إلى الأرملة وقلت لها رأيي, فقالت أن الشيء الذي يستطيع الإنسان الحصول عليه من الصلاة هو "الهبات الروحية" لا الهبات المادية!!

====
في الغالب ستخرج من هذه التجربة متشكك يعمل عقله في كل الاحتمالات, فطوبى للمتشككين.

"فأجبت : أكبر الظن أن هؤلاء الجن أغبياء لأنهم لا يحتفظون بالقصر لأنفسهم بدلاً من أن يشيدوه لغيرهم ! فلو أنني كنت واحداً منهم , لما لبيت نداء أي شخص يحك مصباحاً قديماً من الصفيح !! بل لو أنني كنت واحداً من هؤلاء الجن, لتخليت عن عملي !"

A classic...if you look up classic in the dictionary there's a picture of this book.

Okay, maybe not, a lot of dictionaries don't have pictures.

The sheer volume of good things about this book defies a review. Humor, character development, intelligent crushing (yet understated) criticism of racism and the racial attitudes of the time...

Recommended, highly.

Update: By the way, there has been criticism of this book based on the use of certain words that are offensive today. Mr. Twain (Clemens) was pointing out the idiocy of racism in this book.

It's true that we also need to remember when the book was written, but on the whole when the writer uses this word it's to point out that while people tend to look down on each other due to race that's a false evil attitude. The book points out over and over that people...humans are humans.

I had mixed feelings about this book.

On the one hand, it's clear that Mark Twain was progressive for his day, satirizing the topsy-turvy morals of the slavery-era south. His heroes are two people at the bottom rung of the social ladder - a runaway slave, and the son of the town drunk. Though they're not valued by society, they turn out to be the two most honorable characters of the book. And I appreciated the questions it raised, about how we construct our own sense of morality in the context of broader social morals, and how we deal with potential conflicts between those two. I loved Huck for choosing to go to hell rather than turn in his friend.

On the other hand, it's such a far-fetched farce, with so many over-the-top scenes, one crazy situation after another, so many coincidences, such silliness, that I had a hard time enjoying it. At the end, Tom keeps adding all kinds of superfluous details into the escape plan, just to satisfy his sense of drama. The author seems to think this will be amusing - see how it's a funny game to Tom, see how he's influenced by all the adventure books he's ever read... And I just wanted to smack the kid, and say, "A man's life is in danger! How dare you treat this like a game of make-believe! Just get him out of there, you idiot!"

The humor reminded me a lot of Candide. That style (social satire, ironic farce, fable, whatever you want to call it) can be a great way to make a point. But it's not the same as a novel with well-developed characters and a realistic plot.

Sometimes I enjoy satire, but yesterday, I just wasn't in the mood. I felt like the atrocities committed in our country against African-Americans were just too horrific to laugh at.

I have heard that people often protest this book when it appears on school curricula, because of the repeated use of the n-word. I think I had an easier time accepting that word, because it reflected the common usage of the time, and it felt like part of the natural, authentic voice of the narrator. I had a harder time with the portrayal of Jim as a naive, superstitious, gullible, person, who seems completely dependent on a young white boy to figure out what to do. Jim is good, but he doesn’t come across as particularly smart. He's more an archetype - the noble savage - than a real person.

I think the main value of this book is as a historical artifact. You can see the important role it played if you look at what it was for the time it was written in, and how it influenced other books written in America. But I don’t think it could get published today. I'm glad to say, we've come a long way.

I read this in high school and reread it earlier this year after reading Percival Everett's James. I liked Evertt's revision better than Twain's original. I also liked Huck's adventures more than Tom's. Tom, to me, is an amoral little scamp who has a lot of growing up to do, whereas Huck is a mostly good kid who tries his best but is limited by his immaturity. I always think of Tom as growing up into the epitome of a Wall Street super jerk and Huck as growing up into a respectable doctor working for Doctors Without Borders. Tom is the kid who could've done better in school but never applied himself. Rather, he used his brains to get ahead outside of school and is wildly successful at stepping on/over others or tricking them into letting him to the front of the line. Huck, in comparison, hates doing the work just as much but eventually buckles down.

It might be unfair to compare them as such, but given Huckleberry is a sequel to Tom, it's hard not to - kind of the way all my brothers' teachers compared them to me when we were younger, just because they'd taught me first.

I have re-read Huckleberry Finn after more than 30 years and I must say that I did not remember it at all like that. Another of those books that are read by children believing that they are children's books and that then when they re-read as adults they have unexpected feelings. There are all the emotions of the great American novels of the past, that is, the discovery, the journey, going beyond both geographical and psychological borders, the vastness of America, freedom, everything. If you read it as a boy you like it; if you read it as an adult, you like it even more. It is a book on nonconformism, on the choice (possible but not obvious) to go against the current, not to do what others would like us to do. In some Twain biographies it is said that to write Huckleberry Finn he was inspired by his childhood friend, a boy who lived in a shack on the banks of the Mississippi. A boy out of limits, who did not go to school, did not work and spent his time fishing or hunting in the woods, refractory to all the rules to which all the others had to comply. In the book, Huckleberry Finn is a motherless boy with an abusive and alcoholic father. Huckleberry smokes, says bad words, does only what he likes and is not afraid of anything or anyone. When he and Tom Sawyer (the one from Twain's other book, of which this is the continuation) share the bandits' treasure, they become rich, which is why Huckleberry, abandoned by his alcoholic father, is adopted by Mrs. Douglas, a bigoted widow. After a while, Huck decides to escape from the widow's house, who had set herself the goal of civilizing Huck, teaching him education, reading the Bible and sending him to school. To escape, he uses a raft found on the Mississippi embankment and begins his journey with Jim, a black slave, who has fled his mistress who wanted to sell it. The Mississippi is described very well with its storms, its mists, its silences, its beauty, but the journey of the two is also full of pitfalls, such as when, for example, they meet a couple of scammers, who with various expedients manage to sell Jim to Tom's aunt's sister. The story then continues with Huckleberry and Tom trying to free Jim, while in the meantime Huckleberry and Jim are wanted by the police who want to recapture the black fugitive. After many attempts the two companions finally manage to free Jim. At the end of this trip Huckleberry is informed of the death of his father and plans to leave with his companions for a thousand other adventures, starting with the Indian Territories.
The book is very pleasantly read and, despite being a classic, it is still very current, proving, if needed, that Twain was a Great. In his journey, Huckleberry will learn to distinguish good from evil and will understand, among great difficulties, values such as solidarity and equality between men. A very readable, fun, but also profound book: during their escape Huck and Jim live the greatest and most beautiful adventures they can imagine, under the banner of the American dream of freedom. Huck and Jim embody this dream, while all the other protagonists of the book represent the "pigeonholed" or the negative, that is, the bigots, the greedy, the boring, the hateful. If the little reader recognizes the protagonist of the book in Huck, the adult reader will find that the most important figure is Jim, the black, the slave, the human refusal, or better, what society does not even consider a human being. Instead he is the only real man in the novel. The rebellious boy and the escaping slave: two to whom nobody would give two cents. Yet these two, in the nights spent on the river looking at the stars, ask themselves the same questions that the great philosophers ask themselves: they wonder (and ask us) about freedom, about the stars of heaven, about the existence of God. Does it seem little to you?

I enjoyed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer way more that this. It seems most people prefer this book to Tom Sawyer. I really cannot see why though. This book was so dull. I had to force myself to keep reading. I kept waiting for it to get better. The only parts I enjoyed were the very beginning and his escape from his father, the feuding family, and when he was revealing the truth to the girl who the king and duke were trying to rob. I was glad when Huck got away from them and was probably more disappointed than Huck and Jim when those leeches caught up with them. UGH! Even Tom Sawyer showing up didn't improve this crap. The boring and pointless stuff just went on and on and on.....

A sequel of sorts to Twain's earlier novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, this novel is also set in the 1840s and opens in the same setting, fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri, picking up the thread of events from where the first book left off. But while Tom will play an important part in the tale, here the focus is on his buddy "Huck," who's a bit older at about 13-14 years old (he doesn't know his exact age); and this book actually comes to grips with more serious themes. The greater seriousness, though, is partly masked by Huck's narrative voice (the previous book was in third person), which is that of an unschooled, dirt-poor white kid, indifferently raised by an abusive, alcoholic father with neither moral nor intellectual cultivation, whose concerns are mostly self-centered and materialistic, who views polite society from the outside and expresses himself with a naive, matter-of fact candor that's brimming with unintentional dry humor, to satiric effect. (That is, it's unintentional on Huck's part --but not on the author's!)

At the conclusion of Tom Sawyer, Tom and Huck had come into some money (long story!). But a few months later, Huck's Pap turns up in town again, wanting to get his hands on Huck's share. Before long, circumstances will force Huck and escaping slave Jim (who's overheard his owner, Miss Watson, avowing an intention to sell him away from his family) to team up in a quest for freedom, journeying down the Mississippi on an abandoned raft. (Their original intention was to turn into the Ohio River at Cairo, Illinois. Parts of the tale are set in Illinois and Arkansas, and possibly Tennessee --the locale isn't always specified.) Along the way, Huck will meet people from all strata of antebellum Southern society, be exposed to many of the permutations of human nature (often at its worst --Twain was something of a pessimist and a misanthrope), and experience titular "adventures" that are sometimes darkly humorous, sometimes ludicrous, and sometimes life-threatening, but never boring.

The author's real purpose, though, isn't to relate adventures for their own sake; he has (despite his obviously tongue-in-cheek prefatory Notice to the contrary!) a motive in writing, which very definitely has to do with imparting a moral, or morals, centering around how humans ought to treat each other, but all too often don't. (I wouldn't exactly describe it as a "coming of age" story; Huck's still pretty immature at the end of it. But he definitely does grow and learn through his experiences.) A big part of his "moral(s) of the story" is critique of slavery and its underlying racism, which remained endemic in both North and South in 1884 America, and too often still does. For modern readers, this critique is ironically often obscured by the frequent use of the n-word, and by Huck's ingrained awareness that in helping Jim escape he's defying what he's been taught is "right" behavior. But defy it he does. Twain doesn't pretend that the 1840s South was a paradise of racial brotherhood; instead, he depicts it the way it really was, and the way its people were taught to think. Glimmerings of light aren't recognizable as light if you aren't aware of the darkness. Slavery/racism isn't the only target of criticism, though. We also get up-close looks at the human propensity for homicidal violence disguised as "honor," for moral and physical cowardice and for mob psychology; for self-serving greed, for pandering to our own baser appetites, for putting on a show of "religion" reduced to formal observances and theological dogmas, but divorced from ethics.

Stylistically, this book is a product of the Realist school. Part of that is reproduction of the actual speaking style of characters in this time and place: black dialect, backwoods Southwestern speech, and different variants of the more conventional "Pike County" Missouri dialect, all of which Twain grew up hearing. The pervasive use of the n-word, even by blacks, is a reflection of that. Modern critics are often offended by the latter, just as many critics and librarians in Twain's own time were offended by the fact that Huck's narrative voice is ungrammatical and often "vulgar." But if we basically accept the idea that literary dialogue or first-person narration should reflect language as the speakers would actually use it, it's hypocritical to then fault the author in particular instances where we don't like it. (For instance, I don't like the f-word any better than I do the n-word; but I don't deduct stars from a book when the author allows characters to use it who realistically would.) The same could be said of "stereotypes;" both Jim and most of the white characters are depicted as ignorant (though he's not stupid --that's a different thing!) and superstitious because, given the conditions under which they lived, most lower-class Southerners in that day actually were ignorant and superstitious.

There are legitimate criticisms that can be made of this novel. The plotting has its drawbacks. (One aspect that isn't often mentioned, but that really struck me, is that Huck and Jim hoped to "go way up the Ohio amongst the free states, and then be out of trouble." Well, DUH --Illinois was a free state, and they were on Illinois soil more than once. Heading for, say, Chicago would have made more sense than floating downstream in a southerly direction with slave states on the west bank; but the latter was what suited Twayne's plot outline. :-( ) Tom Sawyer's role in the book reminds me of why I commented in my review of the previous book that I didn't particularly like him, and I have to agree with at least a couple of reviewers that he'd have benefited from a good spanking. (Some of that content, though, serves to remind us that neither Tom nor Huck are adults, though we want to think of them that way; they're tween or young teen kids, and they can at times display all of the juvenile immaturity that can go with that age.) But in deference to the serious moral decisions that get made here, I can't rate this at anything less than five stars.

After reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I realized that I had absolutely nothing to say about it. And yet here, as you see, I have elected to say it anyway, and at great length.

Reading this novel now, at the age of mumble-mumble, is a bit like arriving at the circus after the tents have been packed, the bearded lady has been depilated, and the funnel cake trailers have been hitched to pick-up trucks and captained, like a formidable vending armada, toward the auburn sunset. All the fun has already been used up, and I’m left behind circumnavigating the islands of elephant dung and getting drunk on Robitussin®. Same story, different day.

How exactly did I make it through eight total years of high school and undergraduate studies in English without having read any Mark Twain but a brief (and forgotten) excerpt from Life on the Mississippi? Isn’t this illegal by now? I mean, isn’t there a clause in the Patriot Act... an eleventh commandment... a dictate from Xenu? Isn’t Huckleberry Finn, like Romeo and Juliet and To Kill a Mockingbird, now an unavoidable teenage road bump between rainbow parties and huffing spray paint? Isn’t it the role of tedious classic literature to add color and texture to the pettiness of an adolescence circumscribed by status updates, muff shaving, and shooting each other? Or am I old-fashioned?

Let’s face it. In the greater social consciousness, there are two stars of this book: (1) the word 'nigger' and (2) the Sherwood Schwartz-style ending in which Tom Sawyer reappears and makes even the most casual reader wonder whether he might not be retarded.

Huckleberry Finn, for all his white trash pedigree, is actually a pretty smart kid -- the kind of dirty-faced boy you see, in his younger years, in a shopping cart at Wal-Mart, being barked at by a monstrously obese mother in wedgied sweatpants and a stalagmite of a father who sweats tobacco juice and thinks the word 'coloreds' is too P.C. Orbiting the cart, filled with generic cigarette cartons, tabloids, and canned meats, are a half-dozen kids, glazed with spittle and howling like Helen Keller over the water pump, but your eyes return to the small, sad boy sitting in the cart. His gaze, imploring, suggestive of a caged intellect, breaks your heart, so you turn and comparison-shop for chewing gum or breath mints. He is condemned to a very dim horizon, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it, so you might as well buy some Altoids and forget about it...

That boy is the spiritual descendant of Huckleberry Finn.

The 'nigger' controversy -- is there still one? -- is terribly inconsequential. It almost seems too obvious to point out that this is (a) firstly a 'period novel,' meaning it that occurs at a very specific historical moment at a specific location and (b) secondly a first-person narrative, which is therefore saddled with the language, perspective, and nascent ideologies of its narrator. Should we expect a mostly uneducated, abused adolescent son of a racist alcoholic who is living in the South before the Civil War to have a respectful, intellectually-enlightened perspective toward black people? Should the character of Huck Finn, in other words, be ahistorical, anachronistic? Certainly not, if we expect any semblance of honesty from our national literature.

Far more troubling to many critics is the ending of Huckleberry Finn, when -- by a freakishly literary coincidence -- Huck Finn is mistaken for Tom Sawyer by Tom’s relatives, who happen to be holding Jim (the slave on the run) in hopes of collecting a reward from his owners. There are all sorts of contrivances in this scenario -- the likes of which haven’t been seen since the golden age of Three’s Company -- which ends with Tom arriving and devising a ridiculously elaborate scheme for rescuing Jim.

All in all, the ending didn’t bother me as much as it bothered some essayists I’ve read. That is, it didn’t strike me as especially conspicuous in a novel which relies a great deal on narrative implausibility and coincidence. Sure, Tom Sawyer is something of an idiot, as we discover, but in a novel that includes faked deaths and absurd con jobs, his idiocy seems well-placed.

In the end, I suppose the greatest thing I can say about this novel is that it left me wondering what happened to Huck Finn. Would his intellect and compassion escape from his circumstances or would he become yet another bigoted, abusive father squiring another brood of dirty, doomed children around a fluorescently-lit Wal-Mart?

My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a hard piece of corn-crust started down my throat after it and got met on the road with a cough and was shot across the table and took one of the children on the eye and curled him up like a fishing worm . . . says Huck.

Funny, I have piles and piles of books “to read” here in my SheCave, but what do I do -I pick up Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn to reread! So, after rereading? Oh, no regrets at all! You talk about escapism - yes, these classics are the definition of true escapism! And, as I have said many times before - about 99% of the books I reread - I did not recognize the story one iota from my last reading many, many years ago. So, I am unapologetically content of the hours spent rereading these great classics again!

Frolicking around Missouri and the Mississippi River- smoking corncob pipes, lying on the raft, at night, staring at the stars!

Parts of Huckleberry Finn reminded me of The Old Curiosity Shop. I guess it was Nellie and her grandfather also traversing around the country with adventures of their own that made me reminisce.

Good bits of history intertwined into these adventures! Excellent for kids to explore while reading. Shakespeare- Hamlet’s soliloquy, Kings of the past (Henry the VIII specifically). Much mixed up in this story which makes you laugh, but maybe kids reading this would research more into Kings and Dukes. Speaking of Kings and Dukes - what rapscallions these two fellows were. My goodness.

You talk about a page turner. Not one dull moment in this book! I held my breath through several spots!

One of my favorites was when Huck put on a dress as a disguise to get into town. Oh my gosh, that was the most hilarious episode cleverly scripted by Mr. Clemons.

Another adventure - Huck meets a family on the river and the descriptions are absolutely beautiful. The details of the house, the tenants, oh, you are in another world with this adventure. In a reverie just from the descriptions- but don’t get too comfortable- the surprises at the end of this adventure are a bit shocking.

Huck did not like the constraints of society and Jim did not want to be sold to New Orleans. Perfect pair to escape together! Within their conversations I had some difficulty following Jim’s speech at first, but caught on quickly. And, you cannot help falling in love with Jim!

Oh, some sad parts in here to read. Animal mistreatments; “chile” mistreatments. Made me sad and sick. Part of life, albeit, in those days, (and now-a-days too) but still ugly to read.

Hilarious - leg-slapping funny, heartwarming, sad, and in parts, abominable.

I don’t know why I wanted to revisit these two classics at this time, but I do not regret it for a second!

Although a sort of sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, this is a much better novel. I first read it in translation as a pre-teen; then had to study it in the ninth grade. I remember that this was the only text that whole class (well, the boys, anyway) enjoyed: most of time we were roaring with laughter. (There was one boy who came from a broken home and was permanently on the run from his tyrant of a father - he was immediately dubbed Huck Finn.)

While "Tom Sawyer" is a Young Adult novel (though the name was not coined then), "Huckleberry Finn" is fully adult, even though it features a boy as the protagonist. Huck's journey down the Mississippi in the company of the escaped slave Jim - from an unbearable present to a supposedly glorious future - mirrors a lot of journeys in literature, and is fascinating in its own right. Mark Twain's love of the Mississippi (a legacy of his steamboating days) shines through the narrative. The characters Huck and Jim meet on the river are a fascinating window on to a distant America.

A true classic.

"That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it."

What makes a classic? A question I have had to ask myself repeatedly over the last few days, after students in Grade 8 received the task to come to the library and "check out a classic to read". There was a list with the usual suggestions, but students ventured out and started to explore shelves, and then came to me with a wide range of books, repeating the question:

"Is this a classic?"

Why did I turn down the diary of a wimpy kid, they wanted to know, and accept Huckleberry Finn, even though it was so much harder to understand, and also, they had heard it was racist?

All good questions, and I was careful not to give a too categorical answer. The last thing I wanted was for them to make the connotation that a classic is a boring must, while a "good book" is what the teachers and librarians would refuse.

Difficult.

I found myself talking about the Count of Monte Cristo and Voldemort, about Tom Sawyer and Oliver Twist in comparison to Harry Potter, and I made a case for trying to get through parts of Huckleberry Finn even though the language is challenging, mainly because it contains exactly the message that people become unfair "when they don't know nothing about it".

I found myself talking about discovering other times, other societies, other ideas of justice and hierarchy, and I talked about living in the mind of someone other than oneself. Imagine Huckleberry on that raft on the Mississippi, I said. Imagine him being in a conflict between the values he was taught and the humanity he discovered together with his fellow human, who happened to be a black man in distress. Which concept of life would be stronger?

Imagine a situation in which you would have to make a choice between what you are taught and what you perceive?

"That's interesting", a student said.

Another one replied:

"Yeah, but it really is racist too!"

And I thought:

"That makes a classic. A book that can still inspire discussions in a school library some 135 years after its initial publication."

So, dear Harry, I hope that in the year 2133, some librarian will tell students that you are a classic hero, still worthy of their attention, even though your worldview may seem a bit dated and out of touch with their perception of reality! And just imagine all the Voldemorts we will have had to fight to make sure there are still school libraries and reading kids by then!

To Huck and Harry!