كله يدلع نفسه..بالعقل و بالاصول اوعى تدلعها زيادة
دايما بتفكرني هذه الأغنية ب هاكلبيري فين ذلك الصبي الأشقر المطالب للابد بحق الانسان في ان يكون ملكا لنفسه مهما كلفه ذلك من مشاق و صراعات

صبي افاق شريد.. يكره العمل المنتظم و الذهاب للمدرسة او الكنيسة !! لا يبغى سوى : حرية منفلتة بلا حساب او عقاب..فيه لمحات من بيتر بان الصبي الابدي
نصيبه من العلم محدود..و من التربية معدوم♨
..ترق له ارملة و تتبناه ..و لكنه يتبطر على حياة الدعة و الشبع المصحوب بالادب و النظام بالطبع..و يهرب مع عبد اسمر هارب. .ليلعبا لعبة الحياة الكبرى ..الصراع لنيل حريتك

و عبر رحلتهما في الميسيسيبي⛵
..يسخر توين بقلم لاذع لا يضاهى من تقاليد المجتمع الأمريكي بطبقاته. من الكذب و الخرافات ..الجهل و التعليم..الثار و العبودية

قيمة الرواية تأتي من انها تفرق بين المبادىء الانسانية الصحيحة و القيم الزائفة التي تستمد بقاءها من تقاليد بالية تتسلط على الجموع و العقول و تصبح لها قوة قاهرة لأي تفكير فردي حر

يحتفي الأمريكيون بهذه الرواية بشكل لايصدق⭐
. . فهي الرواية الوحيدة التي تصلح ليقرأها المرء في العاشرة..ثم يقرأها سنويا و تمنحه شيئا جديدا

Having never so much as fingertipped a Twain until this moment, in the last rattle of my twenties, this caustic racial satire packaged as a rootin’-tootin’ Boys Own romp proved a pleasant surprise, rather like some other late-in-the-game experiences in my life, such as listening to Tom Waits for the first time, discovering the movies of Werner Herzog, and having a proper relationship with a woman who turned out not to be an asexual narcissist. [I include the last bit to shock regular viewers used to a steady diet of impersonal MJ sumuppagge]. Ah, the pleasures of reading classics untethered from schools and syllabi!

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.

I didn’t expect to love this story so much! Like every American high school student I was assigned this, and like everyone else I did not willfully engage with/read it/take it seriously. That was a terrible mistake because this is one of the greatest novels I’ve read.

This is an American picaresque novel. The picaresque genre is generally about a male protagonist who goes on a series of episodic adventures. This is my favorite genre, Candide being another of my favorites. It is described in French as a “roman fleuve” which means the novel as a river, or river novel (on account of the story kind of meandering). It’s a good description of this story in particular because so much of it takes place on the Mississippi River and its tributaries. What makes this type of novel so compelling to me is it’s ability to explore a wide variety of cultures and sub cultures, ideologies/religions, characters and caricatures. You get a great survey of the diversity of a society, the many types of people that inhabit the world, you see the real human dimension. And by creating caricatures of the relevant ideologies/religions/cultures the author can set up a series of epic manichaean dramas that unfold in a few chapters each as the protagonist goes along on their journey. By setting up a series of dialectical struggles the author encourages the reader to critically examine the costs and benefits of various systems. The conclusions the author tries to lead their audience too are generally stupid and Mark Twain is no exception, though that can be excused.

I generally hate reading books and read as a form of self-harm/punishment. Because of the huge amount of useless garbage available this isn’t difficult. However, reading this type of book isn't so bad. It is the literary equivalent of short form content. It satisfies my desire for novelty, keeps me engaged, and because there is a compelling young male character I can self insert and become invested in their outcome.

The culture described in the book is still alive. Its not the same, but by no means a memory. Particularly the way people talk. I grew up surrounded by folks that talked like that. All of them were lower-class, what you would call rednecks. Because that vernacular is associated with being lower-class and stupid, most people teach their kids to speak mid-atlantic English now. It’s refreshing and humanizing to read it, and see it used as a literary language. While reading I was reminded of my travels in the South because of the cultural continuity. They are/were friendly, hospitable, open and warm. There isn’t terrible social anxiety. People are generally happier and smile more. They do not fear, and actually welcome, strangers. They are relaxed and leave their possessions and trash all over the place, and don’t get in a hurry over much. They aren’t very neurotic, and when they do get in a fuss it’s over sin or going to hell or religion or gossip. In other words they participate in social/community neurosis which binds people together, rather than a personal obsessive neurosis which is generally alienating and destructive.

I wont write extensively about the con-men or the blood feud or religious revivals, but will say that they are all great parts of the story that fill out the society and make it feel alive and real. The story is a library of archaic sub-cultures that no longer exist in the US. It is hard to believe that the story takes place in this country and not some ancient wild land.

The story gives you a personal understanding of American slavery, and I would imagine slavery in general. You might wonder why many people didn’t simply run away from their owners. Most were living on farms and plantations and outnumbered their owners considerably, and the country was sparsely populated so if you stayed out of sight you could get away if you were careful enough. So why didn’t they run? You come to understand why it was so hard to escape because of the considerable trouble it causes Jim’s conscious throughout the book. His escape from slavery was a selfish act. If he ever hoped to become free he had to abandon his wife and child, who he will likely never see again and will be punished for his escape. He endangers his only friend Hucks life, who could probably manage just fine without all the trouble he causes the both of them. His escape causes a stir in the area that could get someone killed, his own family or another slave. On top of all of this his owner is an old woman that relies on his help to get by. From Jim’s perspective she hasn’t done him any wrong and is quite generous.

It’s easy to imagine yourself running away, until you read about the reality and day to day life of being a slave. If you had relationships and responsibilities to the people around you running away would seem foolish. That might be why Jim doesn’t seem so smart, it would take someone who isn’t to bright to get that idea. A lot of people imagine slavery was a master beating their slaves all day with a whip. This is a pornographic fantasy. The reality was less physically brutal but much more pernicious because it was integrated into the cultural landscape. The whole story Huck feels bad for helping Jim, and even lowers his opinion of others when they help him on his journey to free Jim. In other words he is deeply conflicted about helping Jim and seems to only do it because Jim is a traveling companion and friend, and knows his secret. A couple of times he considers turning him in.

As I read I had the honest realization with myself that I would live and die as a slave if I was born under the same circumstances. I wouldn’t leave my family, friends, and responsibilities for a slim chance at freedom and risk hurting people. I think that makes me more or less equivalent to a slave, or at least I have the same psychology as one. And I think most people if they are honest with themselves are the same way, if they have a conscious.

I can also see myself owning slaves. If little old ladies could own multiple slaves without risking their life surely it didn’t require constant brutality from the owner. If it did it probably wouldn’t have been worth the trouble. From the owners perspective it is quite benevolent. What are these people going to do otherwise, if you don’t take care of them? The owners offer shelter, food, clothing, a job, a family, friends, connections, community, a sense of belonging, meaning. This is more than can be said for an employer. Any normal person would get Stockholm syndrome and probably be thankful for such an arrangement, especially if that’s all you know about and the only thing that’s available to you. Because the day to day life of owning slaves wasn’t so violent or brutal most people were probably okay with it. Historically the most fervent opposition to slavery in America did not come from slaveholders or even former slaves(people who had first hand experience with it), but rather from people who had no experience with it and opposed a mythologized version of it.

I wrote a paper a while ago about the memoirs of union soldiers and they all said when slaves were freed they wondered what they were going to do with themselves. Most basically went back to their previous lives and when asked why they didn’t want more from life they didn’t understand the question. It’s just to say that their lot in life isn’t so alien from how most folks live today. You aren’t allowed to travel too far away from your home just like a slave because you probably have a job and your boss will get angry at you and fire you and then you won’t have money to pay for food and shelter. So being a slave and being a wage worker isn’t so dissimilar. You are probably only technically free.

My edition of the novel came with an afterward essay written by Alfred Kazin. It was phenomenal, really well written and worth reading. I would highly recommend spending extra time after finishing the story to complete that as well. The story was great, the prose was great, the ideas were great. But my favorite part of the book was the familiarity I felt while reading, like a part of this world still exists and is alive today, that I can still step into and experience this otherwise lost world, which makes it very magical.

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.

129th book of 2020.

It All Starts Here

Hemingway famously said, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called 'Huckleberry Finn, It's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before.” It is not Hemingway’s best quote in my opinion, that, unrelatedly, goes to, “I drink to make other people more interesting.” But that’s beside the point – but does lead us into the beginning of Huckleberry Finn with his escape from his alcoholic father.

Though it is not my favourite quote of Hemingway, it could, quite possibly, be true. In Twain’s words I saw a number of other writers: Kerouac, Passos, Steinbeck, indeed, Hemingway himself. The book is American. In my annotated version it gives me information sourced from a letter of Twain’s to a friend, stating that Huckleberry Finn was imagined at 14 years old. So, instead of a young boy and a 450 pound Bengal tiger on a boat, we have a 14 year old American bohemian boy with “slave-runaway”, Jim. Race is the biggest theme in the novel, one that doesn’t ebb and flow, but one that pulses throughout, in every scene. I’ve seen people call this novel racist: they are wrong. Huck is, with lack of better word, a free-spirit – but being a young boy, his social understanding is that of his world (this world being 19th century Illinois), a world that is rightly scorned now. And despite having to balk often at the pages with the excessive use of derogatory terminology for Jim and the other slaves, there is a surprising amount of heart in the novel. Huck’s emotional journey, alongside his physical odyssey with Jim, is that of greater understanding and empathy. It is clear to see that he cares for Jim; even if he does so self-consciously, he is a product of his time – we can scorn that now, but we cannot understand what it is like to be brought up in 19th century Illinois. Tom Sawyer’s philosophies are slightly less pure. Huck’s opinions on Jim are centred around his mental journey and discussion into good and evil, right and wrong. One of the few poignant moments in the novel (without spoiling too much) is when Huck is given the chance to give up Jim’s position for a reward, and he chooses not to; his actions bring him inner conflict: They went off, and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn’t no use for me to try to learn to do right. In the end he decides on this:

n  Then I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on - s'pose you'd a done right and give Jim up; would you felt better than what you do now? No, then, says I, what's the use you learning to do right, when it's troublesome to do right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? I was stuck. I couldn't answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at the time.n

Later in the novel Huck reflects, Human beings can be awful cruel to one another. Lift the shroud of race and what’s hidden beneath, quite simply, is the beauty of friendship and good.

Not Waving, But Drowning

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was a true adventure story – pranks, good-humour, boys living free and happy, and famously, gate-crashing their own funeral. My review descended into reminiscing of my years in the Scouts (Memory-Heavy Review Here), for that is where the novel took me. Though I expected the same from Huckleberry Finn’s tale – I was wrong. Twain was a humourist, which is ironically a funny term in itself. When reading this, one can remind themselves of that and smile, while they can. In fact, this novel echoed in my head to another brilliant American novel, Catch-22. Similarly to Heller’s satire on war, this tale made one laugh, before it made one stop. The most fitting example is the family Huck stays with briefly when he is separated from Jim. The family explain that they are in a feud with another family, though when it started and why have been long forgotten. As a boy I heard similar stories about countries, or old tribes, fighting but they couldn’t remember why – there’s something oddly funny about the idea of fighting about something you cannot remember. It is only funny for so long; a boy in the family explains that that year, two had died, one being a fourteen-year-old boy (Huck’s age, we now know) being shot off of his horse. The episode descends further into darkness. There were a surprising amount of murders and deaths in the novel, which made me realise that Tom Sawyer’s tale is for the young, and Huckleberry’s Finn’s tale is for the young who are rising from their youth.

Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn?

Tom is full of adventure; he is rash, arrogant (the way a child can be, without realising), well-read and brought up well too (in this sense, into a good family, with plenty of slaves and a more nurtured view compared to Huck’s). Is Twain saying, then, that it is by our nurture that defines our beliefs? We quite readily accept that in today’s world. In Golding’s world, boys are left long enough that they kill one another – and in Twain’s world, a boy is left long enough with a runaway slave that he starts to look closer.

nWhen I waked up, just at day-break, he [Jim] was setting there with his head betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. I didn’t take notice, nor let on. I knowed what it was about. He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick; because he hadn’t ever been away from home before in his life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n.

A moment of empathy strikes Huck. And though some of the things Huck says seem hypocritical, with the word choice especially, one must remember how normal it was to speak so – and that Huck’s views were actually breaking through that.

Huck’s tale is filled with disgust for the world. There are murderers, thieves, frauds… And there’s Huck and Jim on their raft, drifting through the ether, caught in the middle of Twain’s wildly humorous but terrifying America. Like the old saying, “We laugh so we don’t cry.” In this sense, Huck’s journey echoes again, to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. And I start to sense the novels coming out of Huckleberry Finn like branches from a tree – and from those branches, even more: from Lee’s novel, another branch spawns with Tartt’s The Little Friend, from Catch-22 comes Vonnegut novels like Slaughterhouse-Five. And as I have said, even Hemingway himself, Nick Adams bursting from the tree, like a modern Huckleberry Finn (which is to say, is it, that Hemingway is like a modern Huckleberry Finn?). I start to wonder. Could it honestly be that American fiction has bloomed from this novel? That they all stand on the shoulders of this fourteen-year-old boy, lying on his back on the raft, smoking or snoozing, thinking how You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft. That the whole of American literature is sat on that raft with him – and Huckleberry Finn adores it.

HUCK IL SELVAGGIO


Il film più recente è del 1993 diretto da Stephen “La Mummia” Sommers. Huck è un giovanissimo Elijah Wood, otto anni prima della Trilogia dell’Anello, e suo padre nella foto è Ron Perlman.

Romanzo d’avventure, romanzo di formazione, Huckleberry Finn è forse il Grande Romanzo Americano, come e più di Moby Dick.
È così almeno per Hemingway che del libro di Twain scrisse:
Tutta la letteratura moderna americana deriva da un libro di Mark Twain intitolato Huckleberry Finn. La scrittura americana arriva da lì. Non c’era mai stato niente del genere prima. E non c’è più stato più niente del genere dopo.
Viene infatti da dire che è così almeno nella lingua: ben più ‘sporca’, ben più quotidiana, ‘moderna’ e impregnata della terra di quella di Melville.


Huck e lo schiavo in fuga Jim.

L’avventura c’è eccome, la formazione non saprei, forse no: perché Huck fugge per essere libero, per vivere come vuole, e alla fine è costretto a tornare indietro e rientrare in quella civiltà che rifiuta, dalla quale voleva allontanarsi e separarsi. Alla fine è sconfitto, ma non domo.

Me ne stavo all’aria tutto il giorno, felice e contento, fumavo e pescavo e non studiavo mai. Così sono passati un paio di mesi e i miei vestiti sono tornati gli stracci sozzi di sempre, e io non riuscivo più a capire come mai m’era piaciuto dalla vedova, dove bisognava lavarsi, mangiare nel piatto, pettinarsi, andare a letto e alzarsi regolare e starsene sempre con un libro in mano con Miss Watson che rompeva tutto il tempo. Non volevo più tornarci. Avevo smesso di dire parolacce perché alla vedova non gli piaceva, ma adesso avevo ricominciato perché papà non aveva niente in contrario. Lassù nei boschi, tutto sommato, me la spassavo proprio.


La versione di Michael “Casablanca” Curtiz del 1960. Sulla zattera insiem a Huck e Jim il Duca e il Re.

Nella sua fuga il ragazzino naviga per il grande fiume Mississippi ed è istintivo pensare al fiume Congo, a Conrad e il suo Marlow, a quel cuore di tenebra che sembra riverberare in questo lungo e maestoso fiume americano dove anche Huck incontra gente ben selvaggia, più selvaggia di lui stesso.
Fa poca differenza se il viaggio di uno è a risalire il corso d’acqua verso la sorgente e il suo cuore nero, quello dell’altro è invece a scendere verso la foce.

E quando sull’isola deserta del fiume incontra lo schiavo nero Jim, che è fuggito alle catene, e lo porta con sé sulla zattera, come non pensare a Robinson Crusoe e Venerdì?
In un mondo di adulti da evitare, sorta di feccia umana, violenti truffaldini lestofanti oppure bigotti e oppressivi, l’unico adulto che si salva è proprio lo schiavo nero Jim.
Nella violenza del padre ubriacone che tiene chiuso e sequestrato il figlio come non ritrovare le figure di padri e tutori e maschi adulti che mettevano i brividi nei romanzi di Dickens?


Nel film di Michael Curtiz del 1960 Buster Keaton nella parte di Lion Tamer.

Romanzo d’avventura e (forse) di formazione, dicevo: ma anche romanzo picaresco per ragazzi e per adulti, pagine che parlano a grandi e piccini. Romanzo sulla fuga. Sulla libertà.
Tom Sawyer, l’amico di sempre e delle altre avventure negli altri romanzi, uno prima e uno dopo questo, è un monello che alla fine accetta la civiltà e impara le regole: non così Huck, che rimane selvaggio – il suo viaggio nella civiltà è in realtà un viaggio attraverso la moderna inciviltà.


Nell’edizione originale del 1884 ecco l’incontro tra Huck e Jim.

Ci sono ovviamente altri livelli di lettura, meno diretti ai ragazzi e più agli adulti, come si addice a un grande romanzo: Huck mette in scena la sua morte, rinuncia alla sua identità per essere libero, dalla morte nasce la sua vita. E quindi una partenza ben nera.
Come nero è Jim, nero il fiume percorso soprattutto di notte sotto le stelle, nero il mondo degli adulti (bianchi), nera la civiltà da cui è meglio tenersi alla larga, fuggire, nera la modernità, a cominciare proprio dagli Stati Uniti. Nera è la morale e nere sono le regole di questi adulti, del loro mondo ‘civile’ e ‘moderno’…


Huckleberry Finn in un disegno di E.W. Kemble dell'edizione originale 1884 del libro.

È bello vivere su una zattera. Il cielo, lassù, era tutto tempestato di stelle, e noi ci sdraiavamo sulla schiena a guardarle e discutevamo se le aveva fatte qualcuno o se erano capitate lì per caso: Jim pensava che le aveva fatte qualcuno, io invece che erano capitate lì per caso – ci voleva troppo tempo per fare tutte quelle stelle. Jim ha detto che forse le aveva covate la luna, e a me mi sembrava sensato, così non ho detto niente anche perché avevo visto una rana covare altrettanti ranocchi e perciò era possibile. Guardavamo anche le stelle cadenti e le scie che si lasciavano dietro. Jim diceva che erano guaste e così le buttavano fuori dal nido.


Huck e Jim sulla zattera, illustrazione dell'edizione del 1884.

I didn’t consciously think about this until I finished the book and put it aside for a few hours and pulled up the book’s Goodreads page (which seems to have been shadowbanned or something - you ever tried looking it up?). I now know who Huck Finn reminds me of. When I was in middle school, I had a friend that made school worth it. My classes had been shuffled around from the previous year, and a lot of my close mates had been separated from me (a turn of events which I thought was an unfortunate coincidence, only for one of the teachers to later tell me that this had been a deliberate move on behalf of them all – we were delinquents). This was difficult, as not having a seatmate in the seventh grade is the end of the world – believe me. Anyway, this friend – he needs a name, doesn’t he? Let’s say Paul. Paul was the underrated class clown. He wouldn’t toss out clangers into the middle of the lesson, but he knew how to make a fart joke here, hand out a purple nurple there. He got assigned the seat next to me. Fuck. The end of the world once again, and nothing could be worse. I didn’t talk to him for all of two periods. After lunch, we were fast friends. Why? When we were filing in from lunch, he came up to me and asked me for 50 cents (lots of money for a seventh grader without an income, I’ll have you know). Okay, why do you want 50 cents? I asked. I don’t know, but will you give it to me if I slam my head into that locker over there? That was his reply. I told him that he can just have 50 cents, no need to slam his head into the locker. He did it anyway.

That’s the kind of guy Paul was. He was already much shorter than me and I hadn’t even hit my growth spurt. He would weasel around, begging change off of the kids for the daredevil tasks that, honest to god, no one wanted him to go through with. He loved the early, skull-crushing days of the UFC and wouldn’t shut up about it. Parents were aware of him, as were the teachers. Already, he carried around him the exact reputation that Huck Finn did around St. Petersburg, Missouri. Everything was handed in late. Common was the occurrence of him wearing the same shirt to school more than two days in a row, though strangely enough, he never reeked. He just looked like he would, is all. I liked him a lot. One of the first times I had bonded over music with someone to an insane extent was with Paul. We were sat in music class, learning about the history of the four lads from Liverpool, when he leaned over and struck up a conversation about Green Day’s Nimrod, which I was obsessed with at the time. Then he talked about the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That was (and has remained) one of the surefire ways to get on my good side. We talked everything Stadium Arcadium, which had been out for a couple of years at the time. We bonded over the hits, sure, but the ones that people were ignoring, how crazy was that?? How could people not know about Wet Sand, Readymade, and Especially in Michigan? In class, he would lean over and whisper the funniest shit at the exact worst moment. Something about the teacher’s potbelly, perhaps, as he strolled around the room, silently boring holes into our faces and reprimanding us for having been so horrible to the supply teacher the previous day. I would turn red from suppressed laughter and get in shit. But it’s the thrill we do it for, isn’t it?

Of course, the dark side of this is lurking all around the fond memories I described. I never really thought about his hesitation to go home after school. He preferred to stay on the field with everyone else, though he never played football. He would bum a skateboard off of someone and try his hand at it. If we all played for a few hours, he was there. Never part of the game, never completely outside of the premises. When we were cleaning up, he would linger. I wasn’t exactly sheltered, but I remember seeing weed for the first time when he opened up a tin of Altoids and showed me some dried up nuggets. Whoah. Thunder strike, and for me, ever the nerd, a slight warning in the back of my mind to watch it. Watch it with him. How would his parents have reacted if they had found out? I had a pretty good idea - they wouldn’t have. They were “hands off”, which is a diplomatic way to say negligent and abusive. Alcohol issues, emotional trauma, and plenty rich. Money certainly did not buy happiness in this case.

I guess that’s why I thought of Paul while reading this book. The school grounds were for him what the Mississippi River was to Huck – a place outside of time and outside of all the putrid structures in his life. It was a new chance at life, a second life, a chance for him to role play what spiritual calm would be. Now, looking back to the 8th grade and graduation and the final days in middle school, I don’t remember anything about how it all ended. I could not tell you about Paul in those final days if I tried. Surely there must have been some sort of a goodbye to mark the occasion? Surely a symbol of some kind to mark this rite of passage? It all faded. All gone. We lost touch.

A couple of years ago, I found out Paul had died. I was scrolling through Instagram and saw an obituary notice from a distant acquaintance. I had it confirmed and sat there in shock. I’m horrified to say that the shock didn’t come from his death, though it always kills you to see the young go. No. It sucks, but I will keep it honest here. The shock came at my own sudden confrontation with time, realizing that one day, we crossed paths on the school field for the last time and we had no idea. I was shocked because I realized that I had had it good and someone else hadn’t, and that I had only thought of him as an extension of my own image and my own story, as if he was a tertiary character in a drama. I realized that I couldn’t muster up a tear, though I desperately wanted to. I realized how sad it was that this is how things had come to an end, because this was most certainly not a picture perfect story or novel. This was life.

I never got to say or do anything about it, and Huck stirred all these things up in me. So I thought, why not dedicate a few Anthony Kiedis lines to Paul. These lines brought us close all those years back, and this was his favourite song off of the album:

Life is my friend, rake it up to take it in
Wrap me in your cinnamon, especially in Michigan
Well, I could be your friend

White clouds, I’m in a mitten full of fishermen
Come on Huckleberry Finn, show me how to make her grin
Well, I’m in Michigan

Cry me a future where the revelations run amok
Ladies and gentlemen

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 read this book as a senior in high school. My favorite part of it was the gothic fighting families because it reminded me of Romeo and Juliet! I also remember that we watched a interesting PBS documentary about if it should or should not be taught in school. I forget what the title of the film was. I also remember that I got a horrible grade on the paper I wrote about the book. High school was not one of the best times it was more like the worst times (pun intended).

Goodreads may indicate this was only my second reading of Huckleberry Finn, but what does Goodreads know? Umpteen is more like it.

And the more I reread it, the more I like it. Especially now. Better than reading to match the times (dystopian) or to pretend the times don't exist (escapist), this was like meeting an old friend.

Man. I look at Twain's vast lifetime writings and wonder why he didn't do more like this one. I especially loved the descriptions of nature. Spot on. Here are four excerpts of his poetic prose featuring Huck describing nature, if you're inclined to revisit them.

Hemingway, who loved this book, had it right, however. The wheels came off when Tom Sawyer reappeared for the last 80 pages or so, pretending he was the expert on Romanticism or detective fiction. Taking every simple thing and making it complex because that's the way the books do it (as if he were some Don Quixote or something, when he most assuredly isn't). The book lapses into almost 90% dialogue entirely, sagging badly.

But really. After the wonderful work he did until that point (nothing short of "The Great American Novel"), there's not much to complain about.

Perfect pandemic reread (and those are words I never thought I'd type).

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


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