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.

Whether Clemens intended it as such, it is still the quintessential American novel. We still are working on some of the issues he noted and every time I read it, I find something new.

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.

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!

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

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.

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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" Beh, allora, mi sono detto, a che serve imparare a comportarti bene, quando per comportarti bene devi fare tanta fatica e per comportarti male invece no, e il risultato alla fine non cambia?
Mi sono bloccato.
Non riuscivo a rispondermi.
Così ho deciso che non mi ci spaccavo più la testa, e che d’ora in poi facevo come mi veniva.”


Pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1884, “Le avventure di Huckleberry Finn” seguono quelle dell’amico Tom Sawyer che qui, per altro, ritorna.

Costretto alla fuga, Huckleberry si trova ad affrontare un viaggio rocambolesco con una zattera.
Partendo dall’Illinois, attraversando il Kentucky e raggiungendo l’Arkansas dovrà misurarsi con gli uomini ma anche con se stesso costruendo giorno dopo giorno un’amicizia che ha dell’impossibile: quella con lo schiavo fuggiasco Jim.

Da un lato c’è qualcosa di reale, di concreto come lo schiavismo in ogni sua forma disumanizzante ma anche come la povertà e le violenze domestiche che non escludono i bianchi e fanno crescere ragazzini come Huckleberry Finn.
Ragazzini che si ribellano alla morale comune perché hanno avuto altri maestri nella vita e la lezione che ne hanno tratto ha fruttato loro una gran dimestichezza nel cavarsi dai guai inventando bugie e nel sapersi procurare un tetto e del cibo anche in situazioni estreme.
Se, pertanto, si sorride per quanto combina Huckleberry Finn, d'altro canto, si respira quella mefitica aria del Sud che sa di catene e linciaggi.

La voce narrante è quella dello stesso protagonista che si esprime con un linguaggio infantile e sgrammaticato: è l’uso dei dialetti del Sud (per riprodurre il più fedelmente il linguaggio reale) che diventa ancor più palese con le parole pronunciate dallo schiavo Jim.

Tra parentesi, questa del linguaggio è fondamentalmente la pecca del dover leggere una traduzione che non può restituirci questa finezza del lavoro di scrittura (per quanto Giuseppe Culicchia abbia cercato di rimanere fedele alle forme sgrammaticate originarie, come ci dice nella breve introduzione) seppur riesca a darcene un’idea.

Quello che fa Twain è di far sorridere il lettore mentre ridicolizza comportamenti e discorsi razzisti dell’uomo medio americano che proprio nella loro verosimiglianza appaiono in tutta loro assurdità, come ad esempio in questo dialogo tra Finn e la zia Sally:

“Non sono state le secche, quelle ci hanno fatto perdere poco tempo.
È che è saltata in aria la testa di uno stantuffo”.
“Dio santissimo! Si è fatto male qualcuno?”
“No, signora. Ha ucciso solo un negro.”
“Beh, per fortuna, perché a volte c’è chi si fa male (…) “

La fantasia rimane un rifugio a cui ci si aggrappa tanto da farne qualcosa di concreto e reale.
Cosi, ad esempio le avventure raccontate nei libri sembrano essere per Tom Sawyer l’unica legge a cui obbedire perché l’unica e la sola in grado di restituire dignità.

“(…) Ma è così che si fa. L’ho letto nei libri, e perciò è quello che dobbiamo fare anche noi, naturalmente.”
“Ma come facciamo se non sappiamo che cos’è?”
“Preoccuparsi è inutile, tanto dobbiamo farlo. Non ve l’ho detto che nei libri è così?
Volete fare diverso da come sta scritto nei libri, e rovinare tutto quanto?”

Un avventuroso romanzo di formazione che si dipana sul filo di una domanda:
cos'è il male e cos'è il bene?

Scegliere la risposta significa decidere che tipo di esseri umani si vuole diventare.

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.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered one of the “great American novels” if not the “Great American Novel”. Hemingway described it as follows, “All modern American literature comes from Huck Finn. It’s the best book we’ve had. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

William Faulkner wrote of the author – “In my opinion, Mark Twain was the first true American writer, and all of us since are his heirs, we descended from him.”

Having not read this book since I was Huck’s age – thirteen or fourteen – and in all honesty not remembering much of it, I pulled it off the shelf. Two things struck me as I “re-read” the novel – first this is not a sequel to Tom Sawyer, although it is a raucous, no holds barred adventure with hi-jinx and capers. Secondly, it reminded me of a Dickens’ novel, i.e. a multi-layered social commentary cleverly told through the characters’ voices/stories - Which when I read this as an adolescent flew right over my head - and was probably Twain’s goal.

The book’s plot is straightforward. After finding his current situation untenable – Huck’s vagrant drunk of a father is back in town – our hero fakes his death – interestingly Huck and Tom Sawyer pull a similar stunt in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – and hits the road – which in this case is the Mississippi River. Coincidentally, within days Huck meets up with escaped slave Jim – whom he knows - and the two “team up” as they make their way south on the “Big Muddy”.

Along the way our heroes meet up with a host of entertaining characters, including two grifters/con-men claiming to be European royalty; meander into one “situation” after another in one small southern town after another; all the while “pretending” to be anyone but themselves – they are both escapees after all. Huck and Jim also bond, and granted there is more than a little paternalism in Huck’s perspective, he and Jim still “connect”.

If there is a fault with this book, it’s the last 75 pages or so. Tom Sawyer shows up and the story becomes borderline farce as he and Huck concoct schemes to spring Jim who has been captured.

Still worth the (re)read and I’ll leave it to the experts as to exactly where on the “List of Great Novels” this book resides.

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.

Huck Finn is miles weightier than Tom Sawyer, and it's almost the Great American Novel it's called. Tom Sawyer was all fun and games - Don Quixote, as he points out himself, "all adventures and more adventures." Huck Finn's a different person; he's concerned with doing the right thing. He spends most of the novel helping a runaway slave escape, and he brilliantly represents a person judging the morals of society against the morals he's come up with himself, and ending up in the right place. That's why Huck Finn isn't a racist novel: Twain means to show us how a person who approaches life honestly will come out against racism. He's not subtle about it.

And Twain pulls off this wonderful reversal near the end of the book: Sawyer suddenly reappears on the scene, pulling the same hijinks he always has, but now we see it through Huck's and Jim's eyes, and it's maddening. Huck wants to find the most direct solution to the problem of freeing Jim, who's been recaptured. Tom wants to complicate things, as he always does; rather than just pulling a loose board out and making off, Tom insists on digging under the wall, and loosing bugs into Jim's prison so he can be properly prisonerish, and finally warning the family about the impending escape to make the whole thing more dangerous.

While Sawyer did horrible things in his own book - most notably faking his own death so his Aunt Polly could about die of sadness - we forgave him then because the book was a lark, told through his eyes, and we understood that it was all about fun. Twain takes a leap in Huck Finn, showing us an adult world and then showing us what real stakes look like when Tom Sawyer gets a hold of them, and it's devastating to watch Tom toy with Jim's life this way. This radical flip is one of Twain's best moves, and it elevates Huck Finn considerably.

But Jim, for all his humanity, is still problematic. He never drives anything forward himself, and his passivity makes me uncomfortable. He's certainly shown to be kind, and we're allowed to see him weeping for his separated wife and children, and we get to see his heavily allegorical refusal to allow Tom to throw rattlesnakes into his prison to make it more realistic. We're allowed into Jim's humanity, yeah, but he never gets to drive the plot. At the end, when he realizes that he'd been a free man all along, and Huck didn't know it but Tom did and Tom was just playing...I wanted a moment of anger from him. Didn't he deserve it? Shouldn't Jim have had a moment when he said, "What about my wife and children?"

Toni Morrison says that "the brilliance of Huckleberry Finn is that it is the argument it raises." As great as this book is, I'm uncomfortable in parts. In making Jim the co-lead but giving him no action, Twain failed Jim; so while this is an anti-racism book, it's not totally an enlightened one.