حتی فکر اینکه این کتاب رو برای بچه‌ها بخونید یا بهشون هدیه بدید از سرتون بیرون کنید!ا

ماجراهای "هاکلبری‌فین" سرجمع بدک نیست و می‌تونه سرگرم کننده باشه. اما مالامال از نژادپرستیه که خوب بیانگر زمانه خودشه. کتاب از این نظر که چطور ایده "کاکا سیاه"، خریدن و فروختنش، و پست‌تر بودنش نسبت به سفید‌ها اینقدر در ذهن یک بچه جا افتاده و عادی هست، برای من بیشتر جالب توجه بود تا اینکه خود ماجراجویی‌ها.

بعلاوه، یک سری کارهای احمقانه هم می‌کنن این هاکلبری و "تام‌ سایر" که واقعا بدآموزی محضه! :)) خلاصه اینکه بیشتر بنظرم خوندنش برای آدم‌های بالغ می‌تونه لذت‌بخش باشه. خصوصا که بعضی قسمت‌هاش واقعا درس‌ها و کنایه‌هایی داشت که بیشتر به درد آدم‌های بزرگسال می‌خورد تا بچه‌ها.


پ.ن: صوتیش رو گوش دادم با صدای عاطفه حیدری. خوب بود.

The ugly face of slavery and racism

Described in detail by one of the big storytellers
Twain just had the intuition and talent to create a milestone of enlightening literature, showing humankind its worst flaws by not moralizing, proselytizing, and thereby boring the audience. Instead, all the atrocities are shown in the actions, mentalities, and especially dialogues of the

Bigoted and primitive people of that time
That deem themselves superior, smart, and just sheer Übermensch. Many works against slavery, fascism, extremism, and faith use that storytelling trick of making the hatemongering trolls, the stupid, uneducated antagonistic people of that time, ridiculous in contrast to the progressive, sophisticated protagonists. In the case of Huckleberry Finn

Everyone except the protagonist is evil
Because the norms, rules, and laws of the time allow them to be. That´s the subject Twain isn´t directly pointing his finger at, but the underlying core of the tale, that opportunity makes thieves. And a society based on exploitation and brutality creates inhuman, full citizen status subjects with all democratic human rights that treat anyone inferior like an animal and worse than their dogs. That´s

A scheme as old as history
And Twain digs deeper into it in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
He goes above the average evil citizen and describes the ones, kings, god emperors, and faith fueled fanatics, who want this mess to better rule the mad masses. One of the, subjective, main reasons why Huckleberry is so much more successful than the Yankee is that it´s easier to read about bad people doing unfriendly things without directly attacking the system itself. The Yankee does this in a satiric way and is even today just too uncomfortable for people who believe that everything is fine. This

Humor and irony are the final ingredients
Other great works against slavery are mind opening and well written too, but come with a depressing and hopeless undertone. Twain doesn´t just deliver the important messages, but he does it in combination with creating hilarious dialogues, motivations, and character evolutions that combine deep thoughts and giggles. When first reading Twain as a teenager I didn´t get that, I didn´t see the ingenuity of the whole plot that permanently delivers deep and cynical, postmodern social satire with tons of dark comedy elements.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

THE Greatest American Novel?

Well...

No wonder the Spanish think themselves intellectually/culturally superior with their Quixote, undoubtedly a blueprint for this mischievous Every Boy! Huck Finn is the full embodiment of THE American Fantasy: mainly that dire misconception that the protagonist of the world is you and that everything gravitates around that essential nucleus. Everyone in town thinks Huck dead, and what does he do but follow the tradition of a plot folding unto itself (as Don Q finds his story become medieval pop culture in Part II of that superior novel) as he disguises himself as a little girl and tries to squeeze information out of some lady about his myth-in-the-making trek. It seems everyone cares for this vagrant, a perpetual Sancho P to Tom Sawyer's Quixote, whose redeemable features include (a pre-transcendental) openmindedness and an inclination to live only in the NOW. But the narrator, a very unreliable one at that, surrounds himself with bad bad men, playing the role of accomplice often, always safe and sound under the dragon's wing. Very American in his lemming mentality & in his misconceptions (though about his hometown and wilderness he knows much indeed).

So: disguise used as an integral plot device several times throughout; brawny men taking a boy hostage; nakedness by the riverbed; costume changes, improvised Shakespearean shows, men almost always described as "beautiful" (and women solely as "lovely")....

***GAY!!***

Yeah, it really is hard to discern the allegory behind all of this hype. The humor is obvious, but I have to admit that this picaresque novel about a boy who avoids "sivilization" at all costs is beaten mercilessly by a more modern, therefore more RELEVANT tale of the South, "Confederacy of Dunces." Although it must be admitted that "Huck Finn" does manage to surpass other often-praised classics, like the droll "Wuthering Heights."

Nachtrag/ca. 2001 gelesen.

Eines meiner Lieblingsbücher, das jetzt aber von "James" getoppt wurde.

Müsste es eigentlich nochmal zum Vergleich aktuell lesen, aber....na, ihr kennt ja das Gejammer mit dem SUB und der fehlenden Zeit schon.

Very funny children's book with great lessons. Great being an understatement.

My earliest memory of this book was when I was in third year high school. My eldest brother who was already in college was vacationing at home. One day, he asked my other older brother who was in fourth year high school to read this book aloud to him. I think this was to coach my other older brother on his accent because he was to enter college in the city and join my eldest brother. People in our province pronounce words differently, oftentimes interchanging the “e” and the “i” and “o” and “u” and with difficulty pronouncing the sounds of “f”, “p” “v”, “b.”

I remember that our copy of this book was thicker than this Oxford edition that I just finished reading. Thicker but the fonts were bigger and with illustrations. It must be an abridged edition. Curious of what the book was also about, I tried reading it and when I realized that it was about American boys traversing the stretch of Mississippi river on a raft, I dropped the book and read komiks again. Why should I spend time to learn about two boys with a colored man (I based this only on some of the illustrations) when I reading fantasy komiks heroes was then my idea of good literature. If Huckleberry was a children’s book and my favorite komiks were also for children, then hands down, my choice was the latter.

When I joined Goodreads in 2009 and vowed on my quest to read all the books included in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die I saw Huckleberry in it. This being a children’s book, I thought I should postpone reading this as this should be a light easy read remembering our old (and now lost) copy in the province. Last December, my good friend Shiela and I decided to read this as buddies. We were about to start when we caught up a “storm” so I decided to postpone my reading and this should explain one of the reasons why it took me almost 3 months to finish this book. I only decided to continue when I felt that the storm was over. Then also of course, I found that this edition (should be the unabridged version) quite difficult to understand especially because of the way the people in the South (of America) used to speak. I read in the introduction that there were at least 6 types of Southern accents that were spoken during time that Mark Twain tried to capture in this book’s dialogues.

Prior to finishing this book, I thought that those two real incidents – my two brothers enjoying this book and the storm my friend Shiela and I found us in - would just be the only things that I would remember when I hear people talk about this book. Wrong. The book itself is memorable. For me, overall, it is still a children’s book. However, it is multilayered and can be read by adults if only those adults would focus on its underlying theme: the evil of racism. I think Mark Twain designed the book to appeal to children in his desire to contribute, no matter how small, in opening the eyes of the American people and even the whole world on the flight of discriminated races. He definitely shied away from on-your-face preachy tone and instead opted for a funny and light mood that was what one would feel at the beginning and the end of the book. The realization of the important and critical theme – the seriousness of the book - is sandwiched in the middle when Huck and Jim are on the raft and encountering all those people and situations that definitely opened the eyes of the young white boy Huck. There are arguments that the childish ending, when Tom and Huck revert back to their playful adventures puts doubt to Huck’s transformation or awakening. I disagree. I know that those earth-shattering experiences will forever stay in Huck’s memories and will turn him to a fair and honest man. For the meantime, Huck and Tom are still boys at the end of the story and they still need some time to play and grow up.

I read in one of the blogs that there is a proposal to replace all the “N” word with “slave.” I am against this. The use of the “N” word was a common practice during that time and Mark Twain used it to realistically capture that time in American history. I think that teachers in school, will just have to be strict in clearly explaining that the word is now derogatory and should never be uttered anymore – whether in school, at home, in public or even in private. But doing the replacement? It’s like tampering a masterpiece and who would like to read a tampered piece of art?

The use of the first-person narration is very appropriate. It felt like you are witnessing the racial prejudices by yourself. Mark Twain’s handle of his milieu is one for the books. Reading it is like riding on a raft where you could see the green trees, feel the cold water of Mississippi and hear the wsloshing of water as your raft passes the riverbank.

This is a funny book. I laughed out loud at least three times particularly those attempts of Huck to conceal his true identity.

This is a great book. One whose message will last forever: that men are created equal despite their many differences.

Funny and great. But one thing is certain: one of my unforgettable reads this year.

Un clásico muy fácil de leer, y que es aparentemente infantil; pues, a través de esta historia exploramos la vida de un niño que no solo no tiene a ningún adulto para cuidarlo, sino que a nadie parece importarle que no lo tenga.

1- That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace.
2- It don't make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.
3- Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.
4- 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.
This was quite the masterpiece, I just hated Tom Sawyer, I struggled through the last pages for real.

I've read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn many times: first as a teenager, then as a young man in college and until last week, as a thirty-something adult. Each reading brought new insights about Twain's take on the American experience. He created unforgettable and timeless characters, the likes of which still exist from sea to shining sea. Drifting down the Mississippi River with Huck and Jim is a sublime experience. Twain captures the majesty and serenity of the river and uses it as a powerful metaphor for their troubled lives. Both are fleeing civilization because it represents an intolerable set of rules; Huck's life has been shaped by poverty, cruelty and neglect and Jim is an escaped slave. Huck, though still a boy, is an astute observer and Jim becomes the first and only adult who deserves his respect and loves him unconditionally.
n  n
Twain published this at the close of Reconstruction and the birth of Jim Crow. For all his minstrel show characteristics, Jim is morally superior to all the scoundrels they encounter, particularly the King and the Duke, two grifters who hijack the raft to save their own necks. In Huck's increasingly radical voice, Twain skewers all kinds of injustices: not just the inhumanity of slavery, but also, false piety and vigilantism. Masquerading as an adventure story, it is a celebration of the glories of the Mississippi, a comic tour de force and a ringing indictment of American malfeasance and hypocrisy. This is arguably the Great American Novel. Just imagine what Twain would have to say about our current state of affairs.

2/5/15 Update

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/boo...

Updated 3/22/14

Becoming Mark Twain:

http://www.salon.com/2014/03/22/how_m...

n   “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.” n

Like many, I’ve read this book when I was a kid (twice actually, as a kid and a teen), and this was the first time I revisited it as a (hopefully) fully functional adult. And this time my reactions to it were quite magnified. The parts I liked before I loved now, and the parts that irked me in childhood now irritated the living daylights out of me.

Huckleberry Finn is a classic, and about half of it deserves that designation. Those are the parts where Twain shines — the parts with the mesmerizing and majestic Mississippi river, the ability to write injustice and abuse without proselytizing and falling into “misery porn” trap, and the sharp observation of the folks of the rural American South.

n “We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed – only a little kind of a low chuckle.”

And then there are the parts when severe tonal dissonance kicks in and the whiplash of being in another book sets in. It first starts with a bit of annoyance in those endless “king” and “duke” chapters, but peaks at impressive rate once Tom Sawyer and his hijinks pop up. Tom Sawyer, who belongs in a kids book at best, whose overactive imagination in this situation is no longer cute but dangerous and cruel and incredibly thoughtless — and almost physically painful. (Yes, I know Tom Sawyer is supposed to come across as ridiculous here, but it went on for way too long).

Oh, and how bleak and pointlessly violent was the world of rural American South of the 1830? Sometimes I wonder if humanity really deserves to continue on. Yes, there are quite a few funny parts (Huck’s rant about Henry VIII many “achievements” - from Domesday book to malmsey wine drowning to Boston Tea Party comes to mind*), but my overall take this time is of resolutely grim life. Slavery, violence, alcoholism, cruelty, ignorance, disregard for rights of others - I need to stare at the wall for a little while now.

* My favorite rant here, under spoiler tag for brevity sake:

“My, you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in bloom. He was a blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was ordering up eggs. 'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,' he says. They fetch her up. Next morning, 'Chop off her head!' And they chop it off. 'Fetch up Jane Shore,' he says; and up she comes, Next morning, 'Chop off her head'—and they chop it off. 'Ring up Fair Rosamun.' Fair Rosamun answers the bell. Next morning, 'Chop off her head.' And he made every one of them tell him a tale every night; and he kept that up till he had hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a book, and called it Domesday Book—which was a good name and stated the case. You don't know kings, Jim, but I know them; and this old rip of ourn is one of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry he takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How does he go at it—give notice?—give the country a show? No. All of a sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks out a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was his style—he never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask him to show up? No—drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. S'pose people left money laying around where he was—what did he do? He collared it. S'pose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn't set down there and see that he done it—what did he do? He always done the other thing. S'pose he opened his mouth—what then? If he didn't shut it up powerful quick he'd lose a lie every time. That's the kind of a bug Henry was; and if we'd a had him along 'stead of our kings he'd a fooled that town a heap worse than ourn done. I don't say that ourn is lambs, because they ain't, when you come right down to the cold facts; but they ain't nothing to that old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings is kings, and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty ornery lot. It's the way they're raised.” n

Being a novel of its time it doesn’t go where I wish it did, but even classics belong to their time, and this one is not an exception. And people needed to start like Huck — deciding that ”All right, then, I'll GO to hell” — because you have to start somewhere.

3.5 stars, and my brain is busily editing Tom Sawyer out of this story).

————
Buddy read with Nastya.

——————

Also posted on my blog.

I'm awfully afraid about reviewing this here book. The pooooolice might be coming up here to give me my what-fors because I done be talking about plot and meaning like as such the author promised me there be none.

Woooooo-weeeee

I ain't never had the authorities after me and don't feel like startin none now.

So, apoligeezies, fair folk, and ooooh! Lookie there! It's a naked man running! Did you ever see such a thing!?

*scrambles out the back side of this review, never to be seen again*

الجزء التاني من توم سوير
أنا سعيدة جدا و الله :)
برميل الذكريات دا


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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Hilarious, colourful, refreshingly simple, chaotic mess that life throws at you, ...splat in the face.