The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

I read it every year to start things off right and it never gets old. Mark Twain was a genius.

I love this book and narrator he is the best!!!

Huckleberry Finn

I've been eager to read Percival Everett's James, but since it's been decades since I read Huckleberry Finn, I knew I'd need a refresher to catch all the references in the newer book. Some takeaways:

- I was truly shocked by the frequency of what's become our society's Least Utterable Word--and I was surprised by my shock. The word was considered eminently utterable (although not without self-consciousness and a certain amount of care or daring) by white people well into my young adulthood. It appeared promninently on Patti Smith's best-selling album, in a story on racism in rock by Lester Bangs, and of course in 1994's biggest movie Pulp Fiction. It's a measure of how much things have changed that reading it in print now felt like a blow.

- Once you get over that, you have to deal with the portrayal of Jim. Jim is, as everybody knows, the moral center of the book. (Huck has a conscience, but it's still in formation. Tom Sawyer, whose appearances in this book annoy me, appears to have little or none.) Jim is also portrayed as ludicrously superstitious and, although high in common sense, of generally low intelligence. It's disturbing to see how often Jim's superstition and inability to grasp various concepts is played for laughs, and it undercuts his decency and heroism, which far exceeds that of any other character.

- Twain uses phonetic spelling to try to render the various accents and dialects of characters of differing backgrounds and regions. It's been a few generations since this was often done in literature, so it demands some patience and trust on the part of the reader. One reason the practice fell away is because dialectical rendering seemed to some readers to be a mockery of the character, a portrayal of their speech as "incorrect." I read one reference to Jim's speech as "minstrel dialect." I don't think this was Twain's intention at all. To me, the offensiveness in minstrel portrayals is in the exaggerated, childlike gestures and expressions on the actors' parts: the wide eyes, the exaggerations of surprise and alarm in the tone of speech. No pronunciation is inherently more right or more wrong, so an accurate rendering of pronunciation can't in itself be considered a mockery.

Twain does this for almost all of the characters, but most of all for Jim, whose speech is so far from what was considered the standard that, when rendered phonetically, it looks almost like a foreign language. But although modern authors are well advised to avoid writing dialect phonetically, I actually think Twain did a good job of it. In the Paramount series about the Oregon Trail, 1883, the actor LaMonica Garrett gave a restrained and dignified performance as Thomas, a former Union Army sergeant once enslaved. He spoke in a low, growly monotone, not the exaggerated tones of a minstrel, and if you had to render his pronunciation using standard English letters, it would come out a lot like Jim's.

So: Issues of language, dialect, and a problematic portrayal of one of its two major characters aside, how was the book? Brilliant in parts (the episode of the feuding families; Huck's incisive stray observations; vivid portrayals of the Mississippi). But oddly paced: it took several chapters to get started, was exciting for several more, and then settled for way too long (nearly half the book!) with the Duke and the Dauphin, contemptible characters not worth the investment. And poorly ended: as some critics have noted, the book might better have wrapped up at or not long after the point where the Duke and Dauphin turn Jim in as a runaway slave. The episodes after that, with Huck (now rejoined with the awful Tom) living at Tom's Aunt Sally's house, have no adventure or irony to them, and only involve Tom drawing out a rather stupid scheme to free Jim so that he can have the pleasure of a fantasy adventure while Jim rots in a locked hut. As Huck might say, I cain't hardly stand it.

I recommend a reread to those, like me, about to tackle Everett's James. Even if it's not strictly necessary, it can't help but shed useful light on what Everett is trying to do.

I had read this in my teens, but didn't remember much about the story. So I re-read this in advance of reading James by Percival Everett.

It was an okay read, but it didn't grip me that much. Huck Finn has a brutal , alcoholic father he is trying to escape. He is taken in by the Widow Douglas, and his life improves. Soon Huck finds he can't abide the strictures of this life and strikes out on his own. He escapes the situation by heading out on the Mississippi River, where he meets Jim, a runaway plantation slave. The two become friends, and further adventures follow.

A story of poverty, the brutality of parents, slave owners, racism, class and morality. There were some humourous moments.

Rereading since its been years since I last read it and I want to read James next.
Quite the story!

Struggled to get to the end

In the words of one of my students, "Sometimes I forget that Huck isn't real."

I've read a number of Twain's other works, but never got around to this one because what I knew of the characters of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn told me they were the obnoxious sort that would rub me the wrong way. Well, this book was chosen for a book club read for February 2024. Time to read it and check it off the list.

Twain is excellent at creating voice. The book is powerful in that way--you get a sense of how people talked and acted, in a very immersive form. As I suspected, though, Huck Finn irritated me from the start. He does everything in the most difficult way possible. Situations drag out endlessly because people don't engage in the simplest of discussions. It is exasperating.

Just reread. Loved every bit until they ran into the duke and the king. Then it felt like a bit of a caper. Loved the river and rafting descriptions again though. First half is 4.5 stars maybe.

This is a wonderful book. Huckleberry Finn is a charming narrator and a sympathetic protagonist. Although the plot and the events described are preposterous, the prose carries the reader through as the pages sizzle with wit, outrage and irony. There are many coincidences which stretch the credulity of the reader, but they entirely make sense within the universe of the book. It's interesting that Twain claimed that it was set 50 years or so before it was published, as I think this gave him the ironic distance he needed to ignore realism and ensure that the story was accountable only to its own logic.

I found the opening really dark, with Huck's father brutally neglectful and spiteful. In a way, the story doesn't lighten up much, but once Huck gets some agency over his own life it becomes compelling. The supporting characters are sometimes annoying, but Huck's reactions to them are always endearing and instructive. The sections I found most moving were when Huck is berating himself over his moral weakness in not returning a runaway slave. The irony is laid on rather heavy, I guess, but it has a shattering heft to it because of Twain's disgust at the intellectual laziness that allowed slavery to continue.

I really didn't enjoy the final section, which was disappointing. It seemed to have a totally different tone to the rest of the book and lacked the incisive wit or sharpness. It's like the difference between satire and pranks - as it loses its meaning, it stops being funny (I'm not a prank person). I devoured most of the book, but then toward the end found myself skimming a long monologue from a the town gossip as Twain lost control of his pacing, his characters and his plot. I think the problem is that the final section is too predictable. After all that Huck and Tom do to Jim, and after so many opportunities to escape, there was no way that Twain could allow Jim to end the novel still not free, because it would cast Huck and Tom in too negative a light.

I tend to struggle with books that are written in dialect - I find it distancing because it constantly reminds me that I'm reading. However, this is written in Huck Finn's voice and it's such a strong, unique voice that is so tied to his southern heritage that the dialect works. If he were telling the story of course he would do a different voice for each character, and that's what he does here.

This book was fantastic in the beginning, with the adventures along the Mississippi, and the moral dilemmas between helping a slave gain his freedom (ironically deemed "immoral") vs turning him in. The second half of the book was honestly pretty bad though. The hijinx with the Duke and the King were pretty pointless. The plan with Tom and Huck to bust out Jim from captivity was downright stupid. I understand that was the intent, but it was cruel, and not enjoyable to read at all.

Book title and author: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) by Mark Twain. Published in America, 1885 reviewed 4-30-23

Why I picked this book up: This was the second book in the The Banned Books Compendium: 32 Classic Forbidden Books that I won in the April 2023 LibraryThing early review.

Thoughts: This novel is about a young boy, “Huck,” from a first-person narrative along the Mississippi River in the 1840’s told from the main character in this story, and it begins in his youthful imagination. He then goes through adventure, struggle, racial situations, and the forming of friendships. He dealt with many struggles faced with several situations, travels with an escaped slave. There are different characters, two con men, developed a friend, Jim, and others. This books uses the N-word many many times which has been outlawed in speech since I was a kid so I have never used it. In the United States various states banned this book particularly for the N-word use and also for the lack of language in general. In the review of the book “Many Twain scholars have argued that the book, by humanizing Jim and exposing the fallacies of the racist assumptions of slavery, is an attack on racism. Others have argued that the book falls short on this score, especially in its depiction of Jim.”

From rinews website talking about why this book was banned. we read, “However, readers should be aware of two major points that Mark Twain was making. One source states it perfectly: “First, the novel is a satire; that is, irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit are used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity. Second, the novel is first person narrative (told from Huck’s point of view). Confusing either of these issues can lead the unsophisticated reader to drastic misinterpretations. The feelings and interpretations of situations, issues, and events advanced by Huck are not necessarily those the author is advocating.”

Why I finished this read: IMO, this books started interestingly with the clear child imagination then it slowed then started to drag a little to dragging a lot. I continued, I forced myself actually and it thankfully picked up. This is why I finished.

Stars rating: I do like parts, dislike others but because this novel
dragged for a long portion, I wanted to rate it at a 1 or 2 stars but because the positives were good and the end finishes more positively I am rating it at 3 out I’d 5 stars.

Although I have seen several dramatizations of this, I hadn't read it since high school. It was better than I remembered, but my favorite parts were the ones with Tom Sawyer (which confirms my long-held opinion that I like Tom Sawyer more than Huck Finn). Elijiah Wood was good narrating, and the various dialects were distinct without being overwhelming.

Fantastic somewhat comical adventures of boy who goes off with an escaped slave on a raft. Pokes fun at mankind. This was my second reading of it.

Yeah, I wasn't terribly impressed by this book. It started out good enough, but by the middle it was just like pulling teeth. All that stuff with the Duke and the King and all that stupid stuff just bored me tears. It was all I could do to read ten pages a night. And then I absolutely hated the end of it, it just seemed so stupid, and entirely heartless to make such a game of helping a man escape from slavery. I didn't find it funny at all...rather I found it pretty disgusting.

And even though I knew that the language was accurate according to the dialect of the time, I'm a 21st century girl, and couldn't help but feel disgusted and actually offended by the attitudes and language. It's just constant, and Twain entirely embraces just about every negative stereotype possible to use in this book. I can completely understand why this book has been banned, even if the greater themes of it are not racist at all. I think it's just one of those books that it's hard to see past what's on the surface, especially by those of us raised to the greater sensitivity of the 21st century.

Things I liked:

The characters voice and train of thought frequently made me smile. The way his mind came up against big moral issues like slavery and murder and things like that were provocative, making me wonder about my own rational for strongly held beliefs.

Things I thought could be improved:

The section at the end when Tom Sawyer was doing all manner of ridiculous rituals as part of the attempt to free Jim I thought stretched credibility of Huck or Jim going along with him. Even with the reveal at the end that Jim was really free anyway I found it tiresome after a while. While I don't mind the idea of Tom trying to add some romance to the escape, I think it definitely could be have been edited down to about a third of what it was.

Highlight: When Jim finds Huck again after being lost on the raft. Huck plays a trick on him to convince him it was all a dream. Jim falls for it but then catches on and shames Huck for playing with his emotions. That made both the character of Jim and Huck sing for me.

Might want to read it again sometime. Took me a while to get into it, but by the last third I was hooked.

Very funny, as well as very interesting.

Hard to think of a better book with a teenage main character - Treasure Island, perhaps ?

Dissected this one for English class. Sometimes, discussion takes all the charm out of a book. So do angry yet subtle attacks at Romanticism.

The way the language is portrayed, the stylized dialogues, and the underlying condemnation of slavery makes this Twain classic one that everyone should read. In some ways, Twain reminds me of Charles Dickens...Some scenes, particularly towards the end with Tom seem to stretch on and on, long after the humor is gone.

Still this novel is an immovable object in American Lit. You just have to read it.

Wonderful language, wonderful dialog, full of my childhood.

I love, love, love this book. The humor, the sincerity, the narrative voice. Exceptional. That being said, I struggled with that fifth star. Something about the word "nigger," no matter how eloquent and well-executed its context, leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Intellectually, though, I can appreciate some of what Twain is doing, here. He doesn't patronize his reader by creating in Huck Finn an overly sympathetic character infused with the author's own socio-political pathos. Huck isn't the poster-child for abolitionist propaganda, but a still-burgeoning personality trying to define its own moral good. In fact, it is simply brilliant that Twain ironically reverses Huck's ethical conflict, depicting his reluctance to STEAL a slave from slavery because theft is a sin, and his ultimate decision to toss himself entirely into "wickedness." We love Huck precisely because he wants so badly to do the right thing, whatever that might be.

The scene in which Jim laments his estranged wife and children is particularly moving, for Twain takes care to depict his humanity, though Huck himself is ambivalent about his friend's grief; that's very clever writing.

Michiko Kakutani wrote a very interesting piece in the New York Times about some politically correct editions of the text; the word "nigger" has been replaced with something more palatable for contemporary readers, but with all due respect, completely unrealistic for the novel's characters. Kakutani explains that "'Huckleberry Finn' actually stands as a powerful indictment of slavery (with Nigger Jim its most noble character)" and that censoring the original removes the possibility "of using its contested language as an opportunity to explore the painful complexities of race relations in this country. To censor or redact books on school reading lists is a form of denial: shutting the door on harsh historical realities — whitewashing them or pretending they do not exist." I am a fierce opponent of censorship and could not agree more. Hence, that inexorable little fifth star.

Eh. It's certainly entertaining. It's undeniably a classic. I'm not sure if I had any major lessons learned from it. Not super high on my list of 'must read' titles.

I "reread" this book on audio, narrated by Elijah Wood.

I haven't read this since high school and I thought it would be fun to listen to, and it was. Elijah's voices were true to the story, and brought an additional level to the depth of this tale.

I'm happy to report that this book held up to my memory of it, and then surpassed it.

I first read this book in elementary school. Reading it again as an adult has allowed me to appreciate it on a new level.

As Twain states at the start of the book, "persons attempting to find a plot in [this book] will be shot." It's simply a compilation of a number of adventures that Finn has with his friend Jim, who happens to be an escaped slave, as they travel down the Mississippi River. Jim is seeking his freedom and Huck is along for the ride.

Each vignette presents us with a sample of Twain's sense of satire and the outlandish. He portrays caricature stereotypes of his time, for example, the feuding families of the Appalachian regions, pervasive racism and a constant clash between religion and superstition. The tales also become increasingly extravagant and show Huck's skill in twisting truth to manipulate others.

What strikes the modern reader most is the conflicted morality of the narrative. While Huck doesn't think twice about outright lying, cheating and defrauding others, he believes he'll go to hell because he's helping a slave escape to freedom. He acknowledges that Jim is a good and caring man, yet he still treats him as something less than fully human. Parts of the dialogue were, frankly, very difficult to read.

This novel needs to be read with the historical framework within which it was written in mind. Also, this particular volume is uncensored so it makes liberal use of "the N word" with the deepest of derogatory intent. While thought provoking, this book should be discussed with young readers so they understand the racist context.

Such a hard book to review. Great storytelling, satire, America, funny, etc. The final saga of Jim escaping just makes me hate Tom Sawyer, though.

Re-reading since high school. Good classic!

This book is quite humourous and satirical, and for the most part, it's quite fun to read. I did zone out for a bit in the middle there, losing interest when it wasn't about Huck's tomfoolery, but I greatly enjoyed the parts with Tom. The relationship between Huck and Tom is quite interesting and captivating, and really elevates the story itself.

Many rate Huckleberry Finn better than Tom Sawyer better but I like the latter better. Huckleberry Finn can be rambling at times, taking too much time on particular episodes, for example, the rescue of Jim, which became tiresome. What is touching about the story is the relationship between Finn and Jim i.e. the genuine kindness they show towards each other regardless of race.

(Original Review, 1981-03-18)



I guess “Ulysses” pushes the envelope of “Literature was made for man, not man for literature” but I like to give the benefit of the doubt to books especially if not only do they have a sustained critical reputation, but if people whose opinions I respect think the book is great stuff. When I was venting some of my frustration about “Ulysses” and “Finnegans Wake” to a well-read musician friend, she just gently suggested that if I let myself listen to the music of the language it might change my perception. When it comes to ”Finnegans Wake” I couldn’t do it…I’m still deaf.

I guess Huck is a little trying as a voice, especially in the beginning, but I think it is one of the greatest books ever written, or I ever read. Tom Sawyer is OK, but HF is brilliant. In the most direct way possible Huck learns about the absolute humanity of Jim but also Huck feels guilty because Jim is property and in the South, being property trumped being human. In its quiet, folksy way it presents us with something intensely evil face to face with something just as intensely familiar and homey. All those people, many of them, are such fine nice people so vividly portrayed as such, except that the vilest evil that they live with every day, and have created and sustain, is totally invisible to them. As a really human document, a damning one, it has never been done so well and so quietly. Freud drew attention to the uncanny in his short but influential essay, as having just that quality of being so homey and yet being alien, so human but so inhuman.

Not totally sure about the ending though; it was contrived in a way, BUT I was very impressed by the late chapter scene where the doctor, clearly a good and fine man, will not go seek help for a sick child because he was afraid that Jim might run off. Again that MONSTRUOUS blindness vs the child. And the scene where the men, the good folks of the town, were talking about what to do with Jim, some wanting to lynch him, not for running away, but because of his ingratitude!!! And then deciding not to kill him because after all he is someone's property and they might be held liable for his dollars’ worth!!! Nevertheless Huck comes of age.

I would agree more with the idea that all American fiction is a response to Huck Finn if it hadn't been Hemingway who said it, but I will not accept that anyone else could possibly admire the book more than I do. Still, the ending is the weakest part. I don't know who could have written a better ending but facts are facts and by the time we get to the last few chapters the really astonishing novelties have already been spent where they'd do the most good.