The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

After discussing a book about President Grant and Mark Twain with a friend I decided that I should read this book and I soon found out just how much of an adventure I had been missing. Twain's well deserved reputation as a storyteller is on clear display in this book from cover to cover. The reader is drawn into the lives of the characters to the point of being really disturbed when something bad happens to them. Sure, they steal and they lie but you will love them in spite of everything.

The story basically follows the adventures of young Huckleberry Finn and a runaway slave named Jim. Finn is trying to escape has father and the efforts of the townspeople to civilize him while Jim is trying to escape slavery. More to the point, Jim is trying to escape being sold down the river, which was always a worry for slaves in the upper south.

There is a strong moral point to this book as Huck slowly learns to love Jim as a friend and not think of his skin color. Early on Huck is worried about helping a runaway slave and isn't sure what to do. Having been raised in Missouri, Huck has been taught that helping a slave run away is one of the worst sins imaginable and that African-Americans are pretty much worthless except as slaves.... It takes a while for the truth to come to Huck but he finds that he is determined to help his friend get his freedom, no matter what. Huck ends up risking his own life to do just that.

This book is a pure joy to read and I suggest you read it without looking for a political agenda. Just let the story flow and enjoy each word. The dialects used may slow you down a bit at first but they add so much to the flow of the book that they are quite indispensable. This is a wonderful story, full of youthful innocence and backwoods charm. Just one little warning though, once you start reading you won't be able to put this book down. Read more ›

But what is it about Huckleberry Finn that makes it stand out? Most young people reading it will declare that they thought Tom Sawyer was better, and for them, they would be right. It is a difficult novel to teach. The dialect is actually difficult for some inexperienced readers. The satire and ironies are often lost on some readers, and some minorities are offended by what they think is its racist tone. That, however, is an historical irony if ever there was one. Twain's intent was to belittle and make fun of the racist attitudes of most Americans. The very fact that Jim and Huck were able to achieve a fast friendship and to negotiate together the epic journey down the Mississippi with Jim often showing superior wisdom and a right smart common sense did not sit well with some prejudicial mind sets. Today what offends is the language, in particular the use of the "n" word.

But what makes Huckleberry Finn a great novel is first and foremost the indelible character of the often self-effacing Huck Finn himself and his compelling, lyrical, and ever so beautifully observed narrative. There is only one other novel in American literature that can be considered in the same league as far as first person narratives go, and that is Nabokov's Lolita.... Strange to say Humbert Humbert and Huck Finn have one thing in common, an uncommon ability to make their differing worlds extraordinarily vivid through painstakingly clever and absolutely authentic voices. Both Twain and Nabokov achieved this rare veracity because of their command of language, their sense of character, and their fine ear for the nuances of speech.

Sense of character is also what makes Huckleberry Finn a great novel. The characters are so real they practically jump off the page. Even the minor characters are Shakespearean in their psychological verity. It is not exactly a co-incidence that the Duke of "Bilgewater" and the "King of France," those ornery rascals rescued by Huck and Jim, were experts in ersatz Shakespeare and various dodges. Twain knew people, and he knew them well. Too well, one might say, considering his low opinion of humankind.

The effective--even rhapsodic--use of dialect is another thing that makes Huckleberry Finn a great novel. Writing a novel in dialect is a difficult thing to do well. Many have tried it and many have failed. Most writers are well advised to limit their use of dialect to the speech of their characters. But Twain was a master of dialect of many sorts, and was able to have Huck Finn narrate the entire novel in his voice while at the same time employ the various dialects of the other characters. Nabokov--although I don't think he ever acknowledged this--was undoubtedly influenced by Twain's authentic use of dialect; but because his narrator was a transplanted European professor of literature, he had to narrate in standard English; indeed a most eloquent standard English. Yet, one notices that Nabokov through Humbert took some delight in reproducing Lolita's authentic speech, her mid-twentieth century, New England, urban teenaged dialect.

Finally, what makes Huckleberry Finn a great novel is its humor. Twain was a master of all sorts of humor. (He was a great public speaker and story teller.) The language of the novel itself is replete with "malapropisms, puns, misquotations, understatement, exaggeration, incongruities, illiteracies, and absurd spellings," to quote from Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature, p. 259--most done for comedic effect. Additionally, the yarns themselves, the "stretchers," as Huck has it, are wondrous funny, and Huck's commonsensical take on life often contrasted humorously with what he actually saw and experienced.

Here's one of my favorite passages from the book to illustrate the master's humorous style. The ragged "King" is about to divulge "the secret of" his "being" to the supposed Duke of Bridgewater and to Huck and Jim. He says, doing the "Duke" one better:

"Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"
Huck writes, "You bet you Jim and me stared, this time. Then the duke says:
'You are what?'
'Yes, my friend, it is too true--your eyes is lookin' at this very moment on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the Sixteen and Marry Antonette.'
'You! At your age? No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you must be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least.'
'Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brung these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled, trampled-on and sufferin' rightful King of France.'"

It is the sheer density of Twain's artistry that most impresses me. I wish I had room to quote the rest of the page as Huck goes on to describe how they "majestying" him so that it "done him heaps of good." There is so much on practically every page. I know of no other writer except Shakespeare who can reveal so much in so few words, and who could use words so creatively.

This is a great novel and anyone who cares about American literature has read it or will. Read more ›