 |
| Taken from one of the many film adaptations of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn |
It didn't take me too long to finish reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn last night. Um, this morning. In the wee hours. I'm still having trouble sleeping post-surgery and I really did want to know how the story ended.
But all my rules for rating books on goodreads.com just kind of fly out the window when I think about Huck Finn. First, let me share once again my usual criteria for rating a book.
- If it's pure perfection and the absolute perfect fit for me, I'll assign it 5 stars.
- If something nags at me, it goes down to a 4... which is still a pretty darn good book that I'd highly recommend to anyone who loves to read.
- 3 stars means that I liked the book well enough but I'd only recommend it to certain people.
- 2 stars means that I got through the book just fine but I really didn't like it and I wouldn't recommend it.
- 1 star means that something at the end of the book got me really angry or was a huge disappointment in the end. Otherwise, I drop books after about 100 pages if I don't really get engrossed in anyway. When I last checked my dropped books shelf on Goodreads, I was surprised by how really full it actually was!
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn doesn't fit any of those descriptions. It wasn't pure perfection. I liked it, but I didn't love it. Nothing really nags at me. Yet I'm not sure I'd recommend this book to anyone who loves to read. And it's not like I'd only recommend it to certain people. So 5, 4 and 3 are all out. But I liked it well enough, I would recommend it and the only parts of the book that got me angry were the parts of story that Mark Twain included because he wanted me, over 100 years later, to get angry about. And yes, I really do think Mark Twain wrote this book so long ago hoping that readers would get angry - angry about discrimination and slavery.
Mark Twain also wrote this book because he loved his adventures on the Mississippi River and he wanted those adventures to live on. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn definitely falls into the genre of adventure. The story is a sequel of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which I did read as a young student although other than the themes that most people remember about Tom Sawyer from their childhood, I don't remember more than the basics.
Huck is has been taken in by a widow when his drunk father, Pap, returns to town. Pap has his own selfish reasons for wanting Huck to live with him. Huck is kept as a prisoner while living with Pap. He cleverly figures out a way to escape from his father without anyone coming to look for him. Someone else escapes at about the same time. Jim, the nigger, the slave, escapes as well. It broke Jim's heart to leave his children but he yearned to be free. As expected, Huck and Jim have loads of adventures traveling down the Mississippi on a raft and in a canoe. Huck's thoughtful planning of the journey and quick thinking in response to obstacles that appear on the trip are clever and a pleasure to read about.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is also a strong statement about slavery. At the beginning of the novel, Huck is very accepting of the institution of slavery. It's what he's grown up with and he really struggles with the idea of helping a runaway slave. He wonders about whether he should get in touch with Jim's owner to let her know where he is.
As Huck and Jim get to know one another better, Huck comes to appreciate Jim as a man. There's no way he can let Jim be captured and returned to his owner. Huck and Jim learn many life lessons from each other. I really appreciated the contrast between Pap and Jim. Who was the better role model? Jim, as it turns out. Yes, a runaway slave is a better role model on how to be a kind and caring man than the boy's own father was. Jim's goodness is recognized by others by the end of the novel.
I didn't realize that Tom Sawyer makes a return appearance in the Huckleberry Finn story. I can honestly say that the final part of the novel when Tom and Huck are back together again was my least favorite part. Huck somehow ends up at the home of relatives of Tom Sawyer. The family was expecting Tom to appear, Huck knew enough about Tom to pretend to be him, thereby insuring acceptance by the family. And somehow, Jim was turned over to the family as a runaway. They lock Jim up in a small hut as they try to find his owner and figure what to do.
Imagine this - Tom appears and since Huck is already pretending to be Tom, Tom pretends to be his own brother, Sid. If that's not convoluted enough, Tom and Huck (or Sid and Tom) try to figure out how to break Jim free. It would seem to be very easy to get Jim out of the hut and back on the river. As much as Huck thinks logically, Tom Sawyer is all about the adventure and he has all these rules about how the friends need to help Jim escape. Some of the ideas were so over the top ridiculous and after a bit, I just wanted Jim to be free and back on the river with Huck.
And... they lived happily ever after... or so we are made to believe.
So I liked the book. I didn't love it. I was angry about the proper things. I learned a little bit more about life on the Mississippi, about people's reaction to slaves, it was all okay. BUT... I'm so happy that I read this book and that I'll be able to discuss it intelligently with everyone else who has read and thought about The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Is it a book that I think everyone needs to read? No, I don't think so. But if you decide you'd like to read it, I'll be happy to have a conversation with you after you are done! I also think that anyone should be allowed to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the way Mark Twain wrote it, n-word and all. Think teachable moments.
For the past several days, I've been googling Huck Finn. I'll end this post by sharing another article that I really enjoyed reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment