Why I chose to listen to this audiobook:
1. earlier this month, I listened to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and wanted to learn more about his friend, Huckleberry Finn; and,
2. February 2024 is my "Classics" Month!

Praises:
1. Huck's adventures are quite entertaining! From his escape from his abusive Pap to joining forces with Jim, a runaway slave, while they traverse the Mississippi, these events were at times anxiety-ridden, yet other times, hilarious;
2. loved the introduction of various characters which made this story so much fun to follow. Some of my favorites included Huck's visit to Mrs. Judith Loftus while dressed up as a girl, and the shenanigans of those rapscallion frauds, the Duke and the King. I was; however, pleasantly surprised by the arrival of Tom Sawyer himself! His wildly complicated ideas to free Jim, and the actions he and Huck undertook, all the while tempered by Jim's patient demeanor, had me laughing so hard that I had to pause the audiobook from time to time;
3. Huck himself is such a loveable character. He is "quick on his feet" as he maneuvers himself (and Jim) out of sticky situations. Most importantly, I appreciated his conscience when it came to Jim's freedom; and,
4. narrator Eric G. Dove does an excellent job with his fluency using various dialects.

Overall Thoughts:
I cringed with the frequent use of the "n" word, but being published in 1884, this story is historically accurate and reflects the times.
Personally, I enjoyed The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but I loved The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn!

I knows I's gywne teh like tis book
A delightfully funny and nostalgic piece of writing. This is my first Mark Twain and it will most certainly not be my last.

Secondhand Nostalgia
Although my grandfather grew up in the 1940s and not 1840s, there is an undeniable similarity in their childhoods. Both by grandfather and Huck are masterful storytellers who convey a tenable sense of freedom - stories that elicit nostalgia in me although I have not experienced them myself. Both convey a time that was simpler, and yet in many ways infinitely more complex than our own.

Mark's a funny guy
I believe that the relationship between Huck and Jim is very well executed. It is not simple. A major theme of the novel is that Huck's religious and societal beliefs (going to hell for helping an escaped slave) and his moral beliefs (that helping a slave is the right thing to do) clash. The way in which Twain portrays this clash is not only masterful, but shrouded in humour as Twain is wont to do. What I adore about Twain's humour is that it is still relevant and funny more than 100 years later.

Old kids on the Block
I also feel that Twain writes children very well. I could immediately relate to Huck's out-of-the-box thinking and Tom's outrageous answers to solving problems. Twain reminds us that although Huck is faced with immense challenges that question his moral fibre and very place in society, he is just a kid. Mark has a penchant for writing child characters as well as Stephen King.

Hobbit's got a voice
The conversations between Jim and Huck had me crying with laughter. This was enhanced by Elijah Woods' narration of the audio book. His intonation, emphasis and accents were all well-timed and well-executed. This hobbit did good.

Racism and Huck Finn
What I find interesting about this book is that it was initially banned for being too liberal and pro-black. Several decades later, it is considered racist and slandering. I will not comment on this - only that it reveals a lot about how a society develops. Always take a classic with a grain of salt. Misogyny and racism are an inevitability in many classics and should be taken as a period piece and not a criticism for social justice. Jim's also the result of the times - he may seem a caricature, but I feel that we won't do Jim justice if we don't look at his situation as well as his deep meanderings on life that are often masked as humour and satire.

The only reason I did not give Huck Finn 5 stars is that the book degraded in quality by the last quarter. I felt that it was being drawn out and forced by then.

All round, Huck Finn is a solid classic and I'll be happy to return to Huck's world when I read Tom Sawyer.

Now, I'm not normally a fan of dialect, but I tell you, Mark Twain has given a fine example of the right way to do it. He is consistent in the spellings of the different words he uses and shows different ways of speaking for each of the characters. That is, they don't all sound alike. So it feels authentic. I really like that aspect. The language that Twain uses for Huck Finn's voice is absolutely delicious. It's so rich and wonderful you can cut it with a knife. He keeps up the quality of his main character's voice throughout the entire novel, staying consistent and making the story so much more sweet than it would be otherwise.

One thing I noticed is that though Huck's grammar leaves something to be desired, he actually has quite a good vocabulary. I wonder how that worked out? I suppose it had something to do with the fact that he lived a lot of his life "uneducated" then went to school once he was living with the widow. He used a word like "frivolous"--which you wouldn't think a kid who uses "weren't" instead of "wasn't" would know.

I wish I'd read through Huck Finn with a highlighter in hand, because there are so many amazing passages that are supremely wise and/or are worded in such a way as to express some simple, great truth or lesson through Huck's incredible narration. One of the bits that stands out in my mind is this one. Huck is having dinner with a big group, and the women who cooked are talking about the food:

Mary Jane she set at the head of the table, with Susan alongside her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chicken was--and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out compliments; and all the people all knowed everything was tiptop, and said so--said, "How DO you get biscuits so brown and nice?" and "Where, for land's sake, did you get these amaz'n pickles?" and all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you know.

Just writing that out makes me hunger for more. This is definitely one to re-read in the future, if only just to savor the taste of it once again.

n  "I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest because Aunt Sally says she's going to adopt me and sivilise me, and I can't stand it. I been there before."n

I thought I should start the year with another classic and what better book to choose than Huckleberry Finn which the author, "Mark Twain", had vowed to "pigeon hole, or burn", prior to its publication!

I located the audio which is in the public domain: Huckleberry Finn Chapter 1. I hadn't realised it was 43 CHAPTERS, though, and that listening to the audio would end up being a painfully slow way of getting through this book. Although the first few chapters were entertaining, I found myself drifting off and thinking about other things. Forcing myself to PAY ATTENTION TO THIS VERY IMPORTANT CLASSIC, I managed to make it to around chapter 20 before I gave up. The lazy voice of the narrator fits the book and its pace, but unfortunately there wasn't much hope of me getting anywhere near the end of this....as I was lulled to sleep by the monotony. (Note to self: this would be a good book to listen to on a long lone car journey when there aren't many distractions.)

I was curious about why this is a classic and as I only made it less than halfway through the book and can't say that I was paying that much attention when I was listening, I went searching for a simpler way of learning about it.

I was pleased to find this crash course: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Part 1: and The Raft, the River, and The Weird Ending of Huckleberry Finn:  This explains everything you need to know in less than thirty minutes! The most interesting comment the guy makes, after saying that Huck sees the river as a god, is that we all worship something and if it hadn't been the river, it would've been something else. That's because God created us to worship Him if only more people would realise it!

For those that can't cope with that level of academia or the frantic pace of the speaker, try this alternative: Huck and Tom's Mississippi Adventure Full Movie . (I thought you'd appreciate this.)

I'm not going to summarise the plot as I'm sure most readers know it. It was amusing to note that most of the people commenting on the Youtube Crash Course were students desperately trying to complete essays on the book prior to deadlines. They were all very grateful for the summary. I'm not sure how many people would choose to read this book from cover to cover.

I wouldn't read this again and won't probably be bothering with the prequel Tom Sawyer.

More mature and longer than its cousin, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn remains an incredible kid's story of initiation and adventure. Yes, there is some racial stereotypes in the depiction of Jim, but let's give Mark Twain the benefit of the doubt that he is trying to tell a good story and is sympathetic to the anti-slavery movement. An amazing tale that has not aged a bit!

I re-read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn after reading a review copy of James by Percival Everett. You know, this book shouldn’t be taught in high schools. The infantilization of Jim is the problem, the terrible problem with this book, more than the “n” word argument everyone gets hung up on. No Black student should be forced to read this novel in high school for an exam at the end of the quarter. Ok I can imagine a high school exists somewhere with a teacher that has all the time in the world to discuss the subtextual and overt diminishment of the agency of Jim, and to shed a light on how US history, as taught in schools for generations, has continuously treated people of color as side characters, just as they are treated here. But the fact is we’re living in an era where this discussion would get a teacher fired in any number of states.

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 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 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer 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.

I never had plans to read this novel. I knew it was a great American classic, I heard about controversies, and I thought it was a childish story. And then I saw that Percival Everett is retelling this story from Jim’s point of view, so this was my impetus to finally read it. What a frustrating book.


While it started out as childish exploits of a bunch of kids, the tone shifts considerably with the arrival of Huck’s daddy, meeting Jim and morphing into a sad heartbreaking story of loneliness and being an outcast. Huck and Jim are a fantastic duo and their relationship has many beautiful scenes. The scene where Huck was messing with Jim when Jim was so worried that the boy disappeared and then him realizing that Huck was making fun of him and the hurt of it, I felt Jim’s fatherly love for the boy. And at the same time Jim and his love for Huck and his own child is juxtaposed with Huck’s real father, that abusive maniac who only sees Huck as a tool to get money for drink and abuse him for fun. Did I wish Twain went further in writing Jim, not falling to some unfortunate stereotyping, did I wish he would’ve written a father son relationship? I very much did. Can there be even a father-son relationship considering how unequal they were because of the race in those times? I don’t think it can be, they are no equals in the eyes of society and in their own eyes that internalized racism of the day. God, how angry I was when Jim had to prove he was one of “the good ones” staying with stupid Tom and forfeiting his freedom, while I was mentally shouting “run you fool”. I wish Tom died to be honest.


I know it’s a cliche to say, but the Mississippi river is a third main character, I loved the beauty and dangers of it, the freedom it promised.
This is a book with a beautiful first part, about the loss of innocence and love, the only time Huck felt peaceful and happy was sailing that river with Jim.

I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in the middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, and judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn’t had a bite to eat since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage and greens—there ain’t nothing in the world so good when it’s cooked right—and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.

And then the things I didn’t like at all: I think I developed an allergy for duke/king shenanigans pretty quickly, damn those chapters lasted eternity. And then there’s the ending with Tom Sawyer that I would argue is very important, that makes me so annoyed, frustrated and tired that I wanted to leave this god forsaken society by the end of it and move west, and never be civilized by these disgusting adults. The revelation that both Huck and Jim were both unknowingly free for the most of the book just adds to my confusion. Twain keeps throwing the hypocrisies of the white "civilized" southern society right back at them, right till the end, I loved that part. And now I can't wait to read James

Why have I never read Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn before? Was it Twain’s copious use of the N word? (I vaguely recall a primary school teacher abruptly halting a class read-aloud session, perhaps because of that.) Was it the air of earnest solemnity that surrounds so-called classics? Sheer laziness?

No matter. I’ve read it now, and I’ll never be the same again. Hemingway was right when he said (and I’m paraphrasing) all American literature comes from Huck Finn. While it’d be entertaining to read as a kid, it’s even more rewarding to approach as an adult.

Savour that wonderful opening paragraph (and tell me you can't hear Holden Caulfield in the cadences):

n  You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly – Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is – and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.n

Everything to come is in those opening lines, penned in that distinct, nearly illiterate yet crudely poetic voice. You get a sense of Huck’s humility (compared to Tom Sawyer’s braggadocio); his intelligence; a cute postmodern nod to the author; the idea that storytelling contains “stretchers” but can also tell “the truth”; and the fact that everyone lies, including Huck. Especially Huck. He gets into so many tight spots that part of the joy is wondering how he’ll get out of them.

The outlines of the plot should be familiar: Huck, a scrappy, barely literate boy, flees his abusive, alcoholic father by faking his death and travelling the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers with Jim, an escaped slave, on a raft.

Huck's gradual awakening to Jim's plight is subtle and touching, never sentimental. In a sense the book chronicles his growing conscience. And the colourful characters he and Jim meet and the adventures they have add up to a fascinating, at times disturbing look at a conflicted, pre-Civil War nation.

We meet a Hatfields vs. McCoys type situation; a group of rapscallions who put on a vaudeville-style act and try to fleece rubes; a scene of desperation and danger on a collapsed boat. We witness greed, anger and most of the other deadly sins – all from a little raft on the Mississipi. And before the midway point, we see the toll that a cruel joke can have on someone’s feelings.

To a contemporary reader, some of the humour can feel a little forced, and the gags do get repetitive, particularly when Huck’s savvier, better-read friend Tom enters the scene.

And then comes a passage like this:

n  

When I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and sun-shiny; the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of faint dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and like everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along and quivers the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it's spirits whispering – spirits that's been dead ever so many years – and you always think they're talking about YOU.

n

Wow. You can see, hear and feel what he's describing. Hard to believe this was written more than 150 years ago.

In the book's closing pages, Huck tells us this:

n  

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.

n

Well, gosh, Huck, it war worth all yer trouble. We’re darn glad you dunnit. Yessir.

With this, completing 6 of 339 from The Rory Gilmore Reading List.

4.5/5 stars

Although, it might look as if this The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, it is not the same. Apart from the names, there is no other similarity between the two.

I was baffled by the style of writing. It was different. The tone was different too. I enjoyed reading about Huckleberry Finn more than Tom Sawyer.

If you happen to be one who's always in the hunt of character development while picking a book. Sadly, this one might not be the one for you. I for one couldn't find any difference in Huckleberry Finn from start to end, as far as character is concerned. He remains the same throughout the story.

This book has racism, misogyny and bad parenting behaviour. So look out for those while you decide to read it.

Review Posted: 21 May 2022.

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Typical mini-review for classics...reread's got me pulling it down a star.

I've got to admit it: I skipped huge swaths of this the second time around. Even though I was reading it for a class. Even though said class is participation-based. I honestly just winged it. It worked out, whatever.

ANYWAY, this book was so. Much. Worse. This time.

Here's how I looked the first time I read it:



versus this time:



Dear Mr. Twain, did you think it took a lot of balls to write an anti-slavery book two decades after slavery was abolished? Were your uses of the N-word and offensive stereotypes in the name of modernity?

And how about your female "characters"? Were they boring sexual objects because you're just that progressive? The only halfway interesting one is f*cking dead.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is so, so much better than this. I don't even want to dwell on this anymore.

Bottom line: the only reason I'm not giving it 1 star (& instead am lowering it to 2) is that I feel I didn't even read enough of it. In other words - f*ck this.

Hemingway said American fiction begins and ends with Huck Finn, and he's right. Twain's most famous novel is a tour de force. He delves into issues such as racism, friendship, war, religion, and freedom with an uncanny combination of lightheartedness and gravitas. There are several moments in the book that are hilarious, but when I finished the book, I knew I had read something profound. This is a book that everyone should read.