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5 Comments The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (A Modern Library E-Book)
‘All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn,’ Ernest Hemingway wrote. ‘It’s the best book we’ve had.’ A complex masterpiece that has spawned volumes of scholarly exegesis and interpretative theories, it is at heart a compelling adventure story. Huck, in flight from his murderous father, and Nigger Jim, in flight from slavery, pilot their raft thrillingly through treacherous waters, surviving a crash with a steamboat, betrayal by rogues, and the final threat from the bourgeoisie. Informing all this is the presence of the River, described in palpable detail by Mark Twain, the former steamboat pilot, who transforms it into a richly metaphoric entity. Twain’s other great innovation was the language of the book itself, which is expressive in a completely original way. ‘The invention of this language, with all its implications, gave a new dimension to our literature,’ Robert Penn Warren noted. ‘It is a language capable of poetry.’A seminal work of American literature that still commands deep praise and elicits controversy, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is essential to the understanding of the American soul. The recent discovery of the first half of Twain’s manuscript, long thought to be lost, made front-page news. And this unprecedented edition, which contains for the first time omitted episodes and other variations present in the first half of the handwritten manuscript, as well as facsimile reproductions of thirty manuscript pages, is indispensable to a fuller understanding of the novel. The changes, deletions and additions made in the first half of the manuscript indicate that Mark Twain frequently checked his impulse to write an even darker, more confrontational book than the one he finally published.
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(out of 32 reviews)
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Review by Dennis Phillips for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (A Modern Library E-Book)
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Back during my school days this was still not a book that was considered to be politically incorrect and so I was supposed to read it. As was far to often the case, I got by on little more than watching the movie version and never bothered to read this masterpiece. A few months ago I picked up a copy to put in my library for my grandson to use when he got old enough to go to school. Unfortunately this has been classified as a children’s book and so I had little intention of reading it when I bought it.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.
Review by Professor Donald Mitchell for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (A Modern Library E-Book)
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Until something better comes along, The Annotated Huckleberry Finn will be the preferred way to journey with Mark Twain through The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. When you get an outstanding illustrated, annotated, and introduced version of an American classic, how could anyone view the result as less than five stars? The book is massive. The introduction alone is almost full-book length. There are over 175 delightful original illustrations, supplemented by dozens of photographs (including the “obscene” one), drawings, cartoons, maps, memorabilia reproductions, and prints. The annotations often overwhelm the text in their extensiveness. I found the introduction to be a joy. Although massive compared to most, the introduction is done in an interesting, illustrated style which added much to my enjoyment of the story by covering a lot of background. The introduction begins with the personal habits of Mark Twain and goes on to provide a mini-biography of him and a history of the book’s creation, editing, publication, reviewer and reader reactions, bans on the book, promotion, and subsequent history. In this section, I was pleased to read what prominent African-Americans have had to say about the racist and anti-racist elements that are present here, and how the story affects young African-Americans. Most people will be amused by the attempts by Mrs. Clemens, his editors, and Mark Twain himself to eliminate his tendency to make his stories a little too colorful in their references to religion and use of swearing. These changes are well documented in both the introduction and in the annotations. Those who love to read about the process of writing will find this section to be a joy.For the average reader, the illustrations will be the most valuable addition to their enjoyment of the book. I especially liked seeing how the original Huckleberry Finn illustrations compared to the ones for Tom Sawyer. I liked the Huckleberry Finn ones much more. They have a lightness and originality that add pleasure to the reading.The annotations seemed overdone to me. But annotations should probably better be overdone than underdone. Those who are familiar with the vernacular of the mid-19th century in the United States won’t need many of the explanations. Understanding how the prose was cleaned-up so as to not shock as many church-goers of that day is more of sociological interest than of literary importance. I did find several annotations that I enjoyed. I really had no idea what a huckleberry was, and that knowledge adds meaning to the choice of Huck’s name. For young people who do not know this version of the vernacular well, I suspect that the annotations can make understanding the story easier in several places. The writing style of the annotations is simple, concrete, and accessible . . . rather than literary and abstract like the annotations of many European novels.For such a simple story, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn often proves to be elusive for its readers. Here are some guideposts to look out for: This story is told by Huck, and is not in the classic shape of a novel. Rather it is a precursor to Ulysses and Remembrance of Things Past, where other great writers attempted to capture the essence of our internal dialogue. Huck is also hiding a lot from himself. You as the reader can quickly see through him, though. He is trying to put a brave and positive face on a very dangerous situation. We all do that. Huck also has to face himself before the book ends. What really is important? We can all spout a lot of moral talk, but what we do is critical. If we lived in Huck’s times, we would also see that there was an enormous moral dilemma. The rules of humanity were often not applied to enslaved and free African-Americans. You could choose to go along and feel like a hypocrite (if you thought about what you were doing), or you could do the right thing. Sensitive people of that day often found it hard to do the right thing. If your neighbors were open-minded and you lived in the North, you might do one thing. If your neighbors were slaveholders and lived in the South, you might do another. Also, think about the trip down the river as an analogy for going through life. How will it turn out if you just let your direction go with the current? Who in our society is being treated like Jim today? How can you help?Donald Mitchell…
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Huckleberry Finn is illustrative of the world, not only in the cosmopolitan characters entering and leaving the story, but also in the way people react to it. One reaction is that it is a racist novel, mentioning the word nigger 121 times. The people who interpret the novel in this way seem only glance at the surface and delve no deeper. They probably do this in all other aspects of their life. The second type of person will look deeper, as though delving into the depths of the Mississippi River setting. They will see past the racism of Huckleberry Finn himself as Huck comments on the definite signs of humanity and equality in Jim. They will see the underlying message, of how he is the product of a terrible system and look into the other messages encountered in the journey of the book. To this type of person no other novel can be so fascinating, yet remain humorous all the while.
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and my brother (aged 10). We thought it was very funny and all the adventures Huck had were really cool. I liked the part where he said: “Telling the truth is like sitting on a keg of gunpowder and lighting it just to see where you’ll go”. It made us laugh a lot. We learnt a lot about superstitions, like touching a snakeskin brings bad luck, and a hairy chest makes you rich. But it wasn’t funny to find out about how people used to think about slaves.
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My mum read this to me (aged
Review by Daniel Jolley for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (A Modern Library E-Book)
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If there’s any book out there that needs no introduction (or review, to be honest), it’s Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Yet here I am reviewing it, anyway. I must admit (not without a fair share of embarrassment) that I just now got around to reading this American classic for the first time. I never had to read it in school, and to some degree I felt pretty familiar with the novel even without having read it – that’s just how popular and important Huckleberry Finn is to the social fabric of America.
Nowadays, with all the politically correct liberals having escaped their Berkeley zoo and run amuck all over the nation, many of our young people are told not to read this novel. In fact, legions of voices cry out for poor little Huck Finn, that beloved rascal of literature, to be banned from schools and libraries – for the crime of using the n-word, a word commonly used by both blacks and whites up and down the Mississippi during Huck’s time (not to mention numerous hip-hop artists of today). Turning a blind eye to the fact that Twain made the slave Jim a noble, human, easy-going fellow with his heart always in the right place (unlike Huck’s other companions), the literary fascists contend that this novel is poison to the minds of youngsters. One can only imagine the reaction Mark Twain would have to the hysteria his book incites in liberals today (although he would certainly not be surprised, as he had to fight censorship of this book from the date of its publication).
One of the great ironies of the “Ban Huck Finn” brouhaha is the fact that young people will surely find this novel much more entertaining than the vast majority of other literary classics they are asked to read. This is a very funny book, especially once “the duke and the dauphin” arrive on the scene and, later, when Tom Sawyer meticulously plans out Jim’s rescue from captivity (no thanks to the captors, who didn’t even try to make it as difficult as Tom says it should be). Young readers will also relate to and understand this book, a fact which should give rise to spirited discussion of it in class. Don’t we want our kids to be excited about books and reading?
The more outrageous the hissy fits thrown by liberal critics over the “dangers” of Huck Finn, the more important it is for everyone, young and old alike, to go out and read Twain’s novel. Whenever someone tells you not to read something, it’s important that you go out there and read it – and discover whatever it is the book banning loonies don’t want you to know. Prove to them that you are intelligent enough to know the difference between the social values of the past and present, fiction and reality, right and wrong, etc. Think for yourself. Read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.