Where to begin in my review of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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.

10 Facts About The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

You May Be Wondering What I'm Reading Now

It's been nearly 3 weeks since I last posted anything here. I have been reading. I am reading. But nothing that necessitates writing a review. I had parathyroid surgery on Monday so a lot of my reading has been about other people's experiences with parathyroid disease and parathyroid surgery. It's not the most common condition around (although much more common than I'd imagined) so I really had to dig to find things to satisfy my desire to learn more. Based on some of what I read, I expected to dance out of the hospital, stop for lunch on the way home and by evening be living a more energetic, healthier life. It's now Thursday. I can't comfortable to sleep through the night, my throat hurts... and I'm waiting. Waiting to feel great. Waiting for my healthy life to start.

My concentration is probably even worse than it's been in previous weeks and months. (Better concentration is supposed to be a result of the surgery. I'll wait for that, too.) As a result, I'm reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain in fits and starts. It's my Books and Beer Club title for September. I know that I'd never read Huck Finn before. I tried to read it with a fifth grade student about 15 years ago but we were "too bored." I do believe that I read Tom Sawyer back in the day. The dialect isn't as difficult to read as I thought it would be. And when I get bogged down, I just skim. I think I'm getting a full enough idea of what the book is about. Here's another book where I think the discussion is going to really add to my experience with the novel. I can't say I am loving this book, but it is a classic and like many other classics I've read recently, I'm already really glad that I'm reading it.

Just yesterday, someone asked on our book club Facebook page which Huck Finn book are we supposed to be reading. That made me wonder if there were several different Huck Finn stories. I learned that there was a "sequel" called Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians that Mark Twain started... and dropped... and over a hundred years later, that novel was completed by an Author named Lee Nelson. Apparently the writing is seamless and it's hard to tell where Twain left off and Nelson picked up. But that was the only other Huck Finn book that I could find.

Yes, there are several books with the name Huck Finn in them. But all those books are written by other authors and I imagine they are reviews of the original Mark Twain book.

During my searching, I found what I consider a great article about an updated edition of Huckleberry Finn. It's definitely worth a read. It ties in to the fact that The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been a banned book. (Books and Beer Club always reads a banned book during September, Banned Books Month.)

I'm glad that I'm reading an "original" edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I think as long as we take the language into the context of the time period in which the story is set, we're okay. When I was teaching, whenever I was reading a novel aloud to the class... if the novel had bad language, I often had to consider how I was going to deal with that. I taught about Civil Rights and Social Injustice so the "n-word" is one that appeared in some of the books I wanted to read to my class. Rather than change the words, I'd dedicate a lesson prior to the start of reading the book to discuss that particular term, why it's not appropriate for any of us to use now but why it was written into the book and why the book needs to read as it was written. My colleagues and I would often discuss this particular "dilemma" but I don't think we ever came to an agreement on how it should be handled.

I'm 85% finished with the e-book and will certainly finish it over the weekend.

What will I read next? My community book club is reading A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. It was published in 2012 so we, as a club, didn't think it would be that difficult to find in the library. Of the many libraries I have online access to, only one library system has the e-book. When I got on the waitlist nearly 2 months ago, I was #32 on the list. I am now #16. Even though I really don't have time for audio books these days, I've requested the audiobook, but it's doubtful I'll get that in time. I'm also waitlisted for the print copy at our local library. I'm number 20 in that queue. I think I might need to come up with something else to read. I'm toying with the idea with picking up Outlander again. I left off last fall after completing the fifth book. It might be time to read book six, A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Yes... off to request that one!