Publisher: Bantam Classics
Authors: Mark Twain
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Reviews:
Summary: In case anyone over age seven doesn't know the story...
If I had only one Twain short story to recommend, it wouldn't be Jumping Frog- it would be "The Literary Offenses of James Fennimore Cooper". If I had only one Twain novel to recommend it would far and away have to be Huckleberry Finn. If it's not the greatest American Novel by the greatest American author, it doesn't miss it far. It has humor, satire, insight, adventure, romance, travel, tragedy, family, racial commentary, and on and on. It hits just about any and every issue that an author could hit, all without preaching, and all while maintaining a high level of enjoyment.
The story is so well known that I won't waste much time describing it, but young Huck, sort of raised by an alcoholic and abusive father, sets out for adventure on the Mississippi River with his boyhood friend Tom Sawyer and their runaway slave friend, Jim. Twain uses their voices to make some powerful observations about human nature, and much like a modern day Christopher Guest would do through movies, Twain through books builds up overly earnest characters who wear their hearts on their sleeves but are still people we care about. Again, if you have just one Twain book to read, let it be Huck Finn. And track down "The Literary Offenses of James Fennimore Cooper" if you ever want to read the most sarcastic short story in the history of the English language.
Summary: Old fashioned fun...in a book
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a wonderful novel that is adventurous, humorous, and fun. The characters are believeable (one reason why is that Mark Twain writes in the character's dialects). The book really transports the reader into a differant time period.
The story revolves around Huck Finn. Huck is an easy going young teenager who is the son of a town drunkard. He recently made a large fortune. Because of this Huck is confined by schooling, shoes, and ,worst of all, manners. Huck had enough of this so he runs away. His small town assumes that he is dead, so he enjoy's the life on Jackson's island. When Jim, an escaped slave, runs away to the island. Huck decides to go down the Mississippi River.
Going down the river, Huck interacts with a variety of people, small towns, and adventures. The story is outrageous, but it doesn't matter. Huck more then makes up for it in his view of the world.
I would recommend this to most people because it is a very easy read and is entertaining.
Summary: The American novel
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is considered by many to be the American novel; the work that most closely represents the America experience. What then makes this such a great book to read, and such an embodiment of America? Many things.
First, this book addresses the issue of color racism thoroughly and subtly from multiple viewpoints. The latter includes the naive reluctant racist (Huck), the naive apathetic racist (Tom), those discriminated against (Jim), and of course the active, enthusiastic racists (most everyone else we meet in the book). Racism is examined from both the mental viewpoints; how individuals consider others of the same and different race, and from the social viewpoint; how individuals of different races interact in public and private. This emphasis on race points to the heart of American history; few other countries have struggled with skin color bias as long and as deeply as the US.
The second major point examined in this book is slavery; an issue strongly related to the first. Slavery as existed in other countries was rarely as delineated along color lines as it was in the USA. And rarely was it defined as a feature of different skin colors. For example, slavery throughout Europe was used as a form of criminal punishment. Likewise, slavery in the Middle East was a side effect of military conquest of one group of people by another. Not so in America. Here it was an inherent feature of how two races dealt with each other.
The third theme of this book that strongly embodies the American experience is the fractured / divided family. Walk through any neighborhood in China, India, Japan, Mexico, Egypt, Ireland or most any other country, and most of the children you encounter live with their parents, and most of the parents you meet live with their children. Unique among nations is America where many children do not live with both their biological parents. True now, this was true in the mid-1800s when this book's story takes place. Jim is searching for his family and Huck has left his. At the end of the book, they meet Tom, another boy who is not being raised by his parents. In fact, the two most stable families nuclear families encountered in this book are the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons.
This leads of course to a fourth feature of this book that is reflective of America; the family feud. For a country where everyone has so much, both back then and now in the early 21st century; Americans seem to have problems with neighbors. Nowadays, everyone wants a house with big yards to maximize separation between them and their neighbors, and neighbors rat on each other to their homeowners assocation. Back then, they had feuds.
The fifth topic dealt with in this book is the con. Unique to America is the role of the con artist in our history and culture. Consider Jim and Tammy Fay Baker, Robert Millikan and Charles Keating of modern times, and Ponzi of the early 1900s. In this book the reader encounters numerous cons and con artists. Huck himself cons Jim at the end of the book whereby he concocts a series of escape plans that puts Jim thru a series of ordeals, all for the naive amusement of Huck.
Having read several versions of Twain's classic by different publishers; this reviewer has only praise for this version. The book itself is a great classic and worthy of anyones time and effort in reading it.
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