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.....

What sort of a book is Huckleberry Finn? It’s often been marketed as a “boy’s book,” a juvenile adventure. Though it opens that way, it’s content soon reveals something much darker. The book is full of grim realities. Huck is abused by his drunken father, who goes so far as trying to kill him in a drunken fit. There are several casual murders (the book has a surprisingly high body count), deadly feuds, attempted lynchings, and dangerous and unscrupulous confidence men. That’s all on top of what the book reveals of the casual cruelty and inhumanity in the everyday functioning of slavery.

Huckleberry Finn is America’s Candide, a brutal satire of the American South, all cloaked in innocence. Mark Twain was the cleverest, subversive wit this side of Voltaire. From the mouth of his young narrator he casually dismembered the religious, social, and political conventions of the slave holding South, all seemingly without Huck being aware of what he said. Many of its most wicked burns are delivered as throw away lines, as when Huck said, “He never charged nothin’ for his preachin’, and it was worth it to.” With an ah shucks grin, Twain eviscerated his native culture with his satirist pen.

Unfortunately, Tom Sawyer ruined the satire. Early in the book Tom served a useful purpose. Huckleberry used him in introducing himself to the reader, and he served as an effective means of misdirection, lolling the reader into the expectation that this is just another silly entertainment rather than the dark satire it really is. Throughout the story references to Tom Sawyer provide a sort of running irony — Huck credits Tom as the mastermind of dangerous adventure, despite the fact that Huck is cleverly dealing with real life dangers, while Tom’s wild schemes are all a boy’s play acting imagined fantasies. It’s the equivalent of Voltaire repeating that this is the best of all possible worlds. Yet, when Twain came to end his book, he lost his nerve, and Tom Sawyer became his cheat. The dark satire he had been writing had no possible happy ending. Happy endings didn’t come to run away slaves who failed to escape the South, nor to those who aided them. So, Twain pulled in Tom Sawyer to take charge of the final twenty percent of the tale. He abandoned his dark satire, and used Tom to end the book as a silly farce.

Huckleberry Finn would have been a much different book had Twain not lost his nerve. But as written, it is still a flawed masterpiece of American letters. Ernest Hemingway said that “All American literature comes from [it]…There was nothing before.” I agree. Huckleberry Finn is where real American literature began.

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.

Part of me wonders if you get your book lover card taken away from you if you end up disliking a literary classic? I really loathed this book from beginning to end.

Truth be told, I am not really a Mark Twain fan at all. Every time we had a choice between reading one of his stories in English class I always chose any other author I could if the teacher gave us options.

The only story of his that I did love from beginning to end was The Diary of Adam and Eve.

I will say that it's a little odd that Amazon has this story ahead of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer since it would make sense to read that book before this one. I of course knew the gist of both stories (I mean I may avoid Twain, but I at least know what the subject matter is about) so I can't say I went in unaware of how the language was going to be.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is told in the first person by Huckleberry Finn. We find out that after he and Tom Sawyer's escapades in the first book (which again I am going to say is weird that this book is ahead of that one in the list) that Huckleberry is living with the Widow Douglas who is doing her best to make him into a little gentleman (or in Huck's words, civilize him).

This entire book just continues on in fits and starts. Initially, we get to read about Huck's sadness to be locked indoors all of the time, and his sneaking away with Tom Sawyer when he can. Then we move onto Huck's father returning who locks him up in order to get his hands on Huck's money. Then we have Huck escaping his father and runs into a runaway slave named Jim. Eventually Huck and Jim have further adventures sailing on their raft and we get introduced to even more characters.

I am guessing that Huck is a pre-teen or almost a teenager in this book based on his description and how he acts. So there are some things that I think as a reader you can make allowances for. For example, you can understand at Huck's age why he was so reluctant to be abetting Jim in his goal to escape being sold by his owner. Eventually though, Huck starts to consider Jim his friend and feels responsible for keeping him safe from harm. But honestly after a while I was just kind of done with Huck and Jim.

The plot moves so slowly. Seriously, this story feels like it was a million years old since I felt like for every page I finished, three more were born. The story goes on and on (past the point of mine even caring) until we get to an ending that just made me roll my eyes. For all the mess that Mark Twain talked about Jane Austen, I would say that he should have definitely not have been throwing stones at anyone.

I know during school our teacher went on and on about the brilliance of this book since Mark Twain wrote it in vernacular English (i.e. he wrote it how people spoke by then) which just was not done that time in the U.S.

I am realizing that it may make it a more interesting book for some, I completely hate it when a book is written that way, see my Gone With the Wind updates and reviews if you want to know why. Reading how people speak is painful. I stayed up all night just because I wanted to finally be done with this book today. I was tired of trying to decipher everything that someone said. At least when Huck "spoke" I could understand it easier than when "N" Jim "spoke". After a while I started to just skim what he said because I could barely make out what was being said.

Combining the vernacular English with the "N" word thrown out constantly I was pretty done with this book at the 50 percent point.

The setting of the Missouri did feel real. You can tell that Mark Twain had experience with that part of the U.S. and the rivers and embankments running along it. But that alone was not enough to save this book for me at all.

The ending when it comes I found to be simply ridiculous. I won't get into it here for the overall review, but I can say if I was Huck Finn I would have smacked Tom Sawyer a good one. At this point I am not looking forward to reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Finally got to this after about 50 years. A fun read and continuation of the Tom Sawyer story. Not politically correct for our times. But who cares. It's Mark Twain, by golly.

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 kind of low chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ~~~  Mark Twain



Selected by Me for August 2021 Big Book Read (In August I am reading the entire Tom & Huck Series as well as Life on the Mississippi & Huck Out West)

Buddy Read with Aesaan

Random thought: The more I read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the more I believe this is my very favorite book. I grow to love it more with each repeated reading.



In 1876,  Mark Twain began writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the sequel to his widely popular novel n   The Adventures of Tom Sawyern. After eight years of reworking ~~ and sometimes destroying ~~ the manuscript, the novel was published. Fans of its predecessor were surprised to find that Huck Finn was not the romantic depiction of southern boyhood that Tom Sawyer was. Instead, the novel was a realistic look at the hypocrisy and senselessness of southern society. Huck Finn tells the story of a young boy searching for freedom and identity in this backwards society.

It’s hard for many Americans to accept a simple truth ~~ American history is not always pretty. There are atrocities we don’t like to be reminded of. For over 135 years, Mark Twain’s n   The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnn has held up that mirror and challenged us to examine our souls. When Huck Finn was first introduced in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, he was Tom’s untamed friend, the one who was always ready to play hooky and look for pirate treasure; the friend Tom could always trust to follow him without question. In his own story, Huck takes over as narrator with his distinctive voice, sharing with the reader not only his escapades since fleeing his abusive father, but also his growing philosophy about slavery and the changing country around him.

In many ways Huckleberry Finn is the story of Jim, the runaway slave who accompanies Huck on his adventures, as much as it is Huck’s story. A complicated character, Jim goes from silly to tragic, sometimes even within the same paragraph. He dreams of freedom, not just for himself but for his wife and children, sharing with Huck his desire to purchase each of them back ~~ and if he can’t buy them back, he’ll steal them. To help emphasize the heartbreak of Jim’s plight, Huck witnesses a family split up by a slave auction. Those around Huck are upset by it too, and their inaction speaks volumes.



n   The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnn has been one of the most banned books in America. From complaints about its use of foul language and stereotypes, to being a bad influence on children, this book has never escaped controversy. While re-reading it again this go around, I wondered who exactly did Twain picture as his audience. Sometimes it feels like a young boy’s adventure, others it reads as a dour tale for adults. Yes, Huck dresses up like a girl and gets in comic misadventures, but this is more a novel about slavery, beatings, child abuse, alcoholism and murder. Huck’s America, much like 45’s America, is not a friendly one.

Viewing the novel as merely a contemporary tale of Twain’s time, it is masterful how he handles Jim for that reader. Twain begins by hitting all of the stereotypes Americans of that period would have expected, then he builds on the character until he emerges as a hero, sacrificing his freedom to carry an injured white boy to safety. It is a subtle and brilliant statement against racism and for equality.



Lastly, Huckleberry Finn is a book about transitions. These transitions can be seen in the intermediate setting between transitions in which the novel takes place, Huck’s disenchantment with society over the course of the novel, and Huck’s moral maturation.

n   The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnn is filled with all sorts of transitions for Huck. Throughout the entire novel, Huck is in a state of Limbo. He’s fourteen years old, an awkward stage after childhood and before adulthood ~~ in the throes of puberty, while he’s floating down the Mississippi River, the boundary between individual freedom and an immature civilization. Huck transitions from a boy being civilized in St. Petersburg, Missouri, to a young man completely disenchanted with society. Finally, he transitions from being indoctrinated by southern morality to accepting his own individual morals and heading off to free Jim. Huck is constantly changing over the course of the novel. He starts out as the immature Missouri boy playing jokes on slaves, but by the end he is an enlightened young man ready to head west to a better tomorrow. Huckleberry Finn is the future of America.



n  Update 2022: I just completed my annual reading. I love the character of Huck so much.n  
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n  Update 2023: It's amazing all the little things I picked up with this read. Twain is so good.n

For some reason, I've delayed reading this book for many years. Actually, I started it a few times but couldn't get past the language-the use of the n-word and the dialect. This time I stuck it out and I'm so glad I did.

Huck Finn is a combination boy's adventure story and biting social critique. Huck is an abused child who runs away with Jim, a slave. The outline of the story is probably known to everyone but the writing is vivid and the anxiety about Jim's getting to freedom intense. And Huck is struggling hard with his ideas of what it means to be good, which would be turning a runaway slave in, and his own conscience, that tells him Jim is a good human being and a loyal friend that he needs to help.

Once I got the rhythm of the book, I was able to enjoy the writing. Twain creates scenes so real you can almost see them. There are comic interludes, as when they pick up two con artists who get themselves into deeper and deeper trouble while trying to hoodwink others. The humor is mixed with drama and all along there's commentary on how cruel people can be. Poor Huck thinks he's a hopeless case but it becomes clear he's a very decent human being who is an outcast, like Jim.

There's a good reason this book is a classic of American literature and I'm glad to have finally read it.

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*

I remember being terribly bored by this book. I also remember having a very incompetent teacher in 10th grade English. Maybe if I re-read it I'd find it better. I doubt I'll re-read it though.

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.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer opened the door to this book, my favorite of the two. I’ve never been a fan of the leader of the pack, I’ve always been drawn to the quieter buddy. Not the buddy that blindly follows but the thinking man, the one that sits back to watch and learn from the things he sees before him.

I adore Huck for how he handles the life lessons that have been dealt to him and those around him. At first he is afraid to stand on his own two feet, quick to yes sir and do what isn’t always in his best interest. As the story develops his backbone gets stronger and he starts coming into his own. Standing up for not only himself but others.

I should knock Tom down a star and let Huck have all the glory but without Tom I wouldn’t have found Huck, so five starts to two of my all time favs.

Da muss man eigentlich nichts dazu sagen,
diese Geschichte ist einfach Cult, habe ich als Kind sicher mehr als zehn mal gelesen.