Customer Reviews

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: 125th Anniversary EditionThe only authoritative text based on the complete, original manuscript. (Mark Twain Library)

5 star:		(330)
4 star:		(164)
3 star:		(47)
2 star:		(26)
1 star:		(45)

 

 

Okay, we all know the plot, so there's no sense in rehashing it; but this book has generated a great deal of heat and very little light lately, it's been banned in some school districts and attacked as racist garbage, so this review will address the question: Is "Huckleberry Finn", in fact, a racist book?

The charge of racism stems from the liberal use of the N word in describing Jim. Some black parents and students have charged that the book is humiliating and demeaning to African-Americans and therefore is unfit to be taught in school. If there has been a racist backlash in the classroom, I think it is the fault of the readers rather than the book.

"Huckleberry Finn" is set in Missouri in the 1830's and it is true to its time. The narrator is a 13 year old, semi-literate boy who refers to blacks by the N-word because he has never heard them called anything else. He's been brought up to see blacks as slaves, as property, as something less than human. He gets to know Jim on their flight to freedom (Jim escaping slavery and Huck escaping his drunken, abusive father), and is transformed. Huck realizes that Jim is just as human as he is, a loving father who misses his children, a warm, sensitive, generous, compassionate individual. Huck's epiphany arrives when he has to make a decision whether or not to rescue Jim when he is captured and held for return to slavery. In the culture he was born into, stealing a slave is the lowest of crimes and the perpetrator is condemned to eternal damnation. By his decision to risk hell to save Jim, he saves his own soul. Huck has risen above his upbringing to see Jim as a friend, a man, and a fellow human being.

Another charge of racism is based on Twain's supposed stereotyping of Jim. As portrayed by Twain, Jim is hardly the ignorant, shuffling Uncle Tom that was so prevalent in "Gone With the Wind" (a book that abundantly deserves the charge of racism). Jim may be uneducated, but he is nobody's fool; and his dignity and nobility in the face of adversity is evident throughout the book.

So -- is "Huckleberry Finn" a racist book? No. It's of its time and for its time and ours as well, portraying a black man with sensitivity, dignity, and sympathy. If shallow, ignorant readers see Jim as a caricature and an object of derision, that's their problem. Hopefully they may mature enough in their lifetime to appreciate this book as one of the greatest classics of American literature.

And for those who might be wondering -- this reviewer is black.

My wife received this copy in order to evaluate it (she's a school teacher), and the timing was great, as I had just finished reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (somehow I missed it when I went through school). After reading the 1st chapter, I was compelled to cross-reference it with the original text. I was appauled to see the free liberty the publisher adopted in this "high-interest adaptation" that supposedly "retains the spirit of the original."

They go as far as removing Huck Finn's mention of wanting to die because he misses his friend Tom Sawyer and totally removing whole sentences for no obvious reason, even when considering their objective. This is beyond censorship (total removal of the word Nigger), and goes into the realm of butchering a great American novel. Do they really expect young readers to be able to identify with the emotions of the characters if the book is sterilized to the point where it is an overall rewrite? Has not one child ever felt like dying because of some incident? How can one identify with the plot and protagonists, thus making the reading experience a dynamic one, if the reasons we can do so are removed?

The overall result is a dumbing-down of what is regarded as THE great American novel. I can't imagine what The Catcher in the Rye would do (or not do) for a young, impressionable reader if the whole work was washed of all impurities (like the prostitute incident) and references to negativity within the "phony" world. Why should we subject a reader to an equivalent disaster with this volume?

In all fairness, I can see how it can be of value to a certain arena, as the other reviewer mentions how special education students can tackle the classics without being overwhelmed by the authentic dialects. But the aforementioned observations need no repetition. Get the original text, man!

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 too 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.

When I first read this book, I was so taken with it, that I read from chapter 18 through the end of the book in one night. I was up until 3:30 in the morning, reading ahead of my 11th grade assignment, and loving every minute along the way. later in college, when I studied the book more, closer, and with a more educated eye (whatever that means) my love for the book increased. Now, as a teacher myself, I look forward to having my students read this book and discussing it in class.

But now as for the title of my review:

I can't help feeling bad for people who think that this is not a good novel because "we don't talk like that anymore." Are we to abandon books that are no longer contemporary to ourselves? I also take issue with people who claim that this book is a racist tirade based upon the use of the word "nigger," or because the escape route Jim took was down the Mississippi instead of up river. While currently offensive, Mark Twain used the term as a literary fact that most, if not all young boys of the south spoke in such a manner. Once more, Jim explained why he was going South before he headed north. the simple fact is that if you are going to criticize a book, then you should read it. mark Twain said as much in his essay, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses."

From reading a number of the reviews of this book, I have come to the opinion that while many read the book, more than a few are refusing to give Twain credit for subtext and the use of allegory. One reviewer down the line says that the book is racist because Twain makes a young boy to be twice as smart as Jim. Upon closer reading, Twain is showing what Huck feels to be true. Huck only thinks that he is smarter. The reader should pick up on the fact that Twain writes Jim as an intuitive father figure for Huck, one who teaches a true morality as opposed to the morality of the South.

Simply put, you get what you put in to the reading of this book. If you think is is going to be a boring read because you "have to" read it for a summer reading list or school assignment, then that's what it will be. If you think it will be a difficult read because you don't want to try and read in dialects other than your own, it will be a hard read. If you are looking to justify the book as racist because of a single word that presentism doesn't excuse, then have at it. This book can be all of those things. However, this book also has the potential to enlighten the reader, give something wonderful to the reader, and teach about the human condition.

Finally, a reading of a classic that is worth the money.

This story's narration covers a total of 9 Cds, and each disc has about 97 tracks (each track is only about 30 to 45 seconds). The good aspect of this is that it is quite easy to find your spot and, then pick up where you left off, if you happen to stop reading in the middle of a chapter. The negative aspect of short tracks is that it is difficult to skip around to particular chapters without "guessing" where a chapter might end (because there is no insert to tell which chapters are contained in each disc).

Overall, Dick Hill does a superb job of reading in this unabridged version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Hill's voice personifies Huck's narrative, and he keeps the Southern flavor of Twain's novel intact. What makes this reading particularly great is that Hill has a great ability to not only take on Huck, but other characters as well. Hill changes his voice for other characters such as Tom Sawyer, Jim, the Duke and the king, Pap and others. For this reason, this CD is a great tool for the reluctant readers in classes, and serves as a great supplement for the study of this novel.

I have found that buying audios to classic to be a gamble because you never really know what you are getting, but this is one of the best I've gotten.

Not only is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a brilliant and funny story of an adolescent boy, it is the story of an adolescent nation: the United States circa 1885. It raises broad, moral questions whose answers still elude us today, as it addresses the question of slavery in terms that are deeply personal, moral, political, social and economic.

Through Huck and the fugitive slave Jim, Twain looks at important issues of marginality, not just for people of color, but for people of all sorts who live outside of social norms, either by accident of race and class, by virtue of fate, or by a choice they have made. Some are outlaws and con men. Others are honest souls whose luck just ran out. Still others are merely independent-minded people who refuse to bend to stereotypes of race, class and gender. All share circumstances that put them outside of the societal norm and onto the road less traveled.

The first great novel that was written in the vernacular, this novel has been criticized for its use of slang and pejoratives, especially for its liberal use of "the n word." For me, it's important to remember that Twain was reflecting the language of the times and of the social class that Huck came from, as it is he who narrates the story. While I understand the objections, in the end, for me, they do not hold up if the choice is between reading or not reading this great American classic.

I adored this book at age 7 and again at age 19 when I read it in college. And I continue to adore it as an adult, for each time I read Huck Finn something different and important is revealed to me. I can't recommend this book highly enough and think that there is no better time to (re)read it than on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of its publication.

It amuses me no end to see so many irate reviews, obviously written by spoiled schoolkids resenting their stoopid 'ol teacher making them read this stoopid 'ol book by some stoopid 'ol dead guy.

There's rich material there for a cynic like Twain, or even more for one the likes of Ambrose Bierce or H. L. Mencken. Tiny, immature, ill formed minds incapable of grasping a truth deeper than Nintendo or Playstation lash out in outrage at a genius who holds up a mirror to expose their ignorance.

The fact is, this is THE American experience of the 19th century, a microcosm of the defining characteristic of our country's beginning and of our national shame and curse. How did a nation, conceived in liberty, holding self evident so many truths about Man's rights, institutionalize the degredation of Black Americans, the utter denial of their very humanity? How could the noble idealistic American eagle ever swallow such a poisonous pill?

Huck's bitter determination to "go to hell" in order to save his friend Jim is to me the most moving and courageous moment in all literature. Huck "knows" that Jim is not really human, that he is mere property, that he has no rights and deserves no consideration, and that Huck's social duty is to return the slave owner's lost property. Yet he knows even more deeply that Jim is his friend, mentor, companion, and in not saving him he will lose his own soul, regardless of what his society holds to be true. Thus Huck makes himself an outcast and outlaw in civilized society, and thus he prefigures the cataclysm of the Civil War, in which this vile contradiction nearly destroyed our nation. All the blood spilled during that war, however, has not expunged our Original Sin, and we have been paying for it ever since, and perhaps always shall.

So try to expand your mind, at least accept the concept that the past is not a Real World episode in period costume, that people of another time did think and talk and act differently, that what "everybody knows" today will surely be as ludicrous a century hence as slavery may seem to us now. Reflect, also, on the courage of those who recognized evil ahead of their time and stood up to it, even though in this case such a hero is a fictionalized semi-literate boy.

The greatest American novel, still. The country it sees is still in front of our eyes. The Americans it shows, we still are, though we live nearer to highways now than rivers. Twain's tale can be read both intellectually (yuck) as symbolic of the American quest for masterlessness (see Studies in Classic American Literature by D.H. Lawrence) and as a kid-on-a-raft-let's-see-what-happens story. Art and fun. Not an easy achievement to tie those two rascals together with one rope. Master of structure and flinger of fun though he be, the most exciting reason to read Twain is the language. The book is a hundred and sixteen years old, the writing ain't --"Steamboat captains is always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and they don't care a cent what a thing costs, you know, long as they want it. Stick a candle in your pocket; I can't rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging. Do you reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing? Not for pie, he wouldn't. He'd call it an adventure-that's what he'd call it; and he'd land on that wreck if it was his last act. And wouldn't he throw style into it?" --One caveat: Be careful the illustrations don't mess up the pictures the author can put in your head with his sentences.

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?

This review isn't to give a review of one of the most studied works of the English language, but rather to detail what makes this edition special and worthy of purchase.

At the most superficial level Huck is the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, which had introduced us to these two icons of the printed word. After Tom Sawyer was a big hit the publisher, perhaps understandably, wanted not only a sequel, but one which logically followed Tom Sawyer. They specifically desired for the two works to sit comfortably on a shelf together. Perhaps there was a time when Mark Twain desired the same thing - more of the same crowd pleasing story telling. But I think that perhaps from the beginning he recognized that he now had the audience that he wanted for his masterpiece, so he began writing it.

Even in the form which was familiar for 100 years Huckleberry Finn was widely hailed as the centerpiece of American Literature. THIS edition reveals that the masterpiece as originally conceived was even more masterly.

Clemens wrote the original manuscript and submitted it to the publisher. I don't know what they thought of the book as it was, but one thing was clear: it was a good deal longer than Tom Sawyer and sitting side by side with Tom Sawyer the two books looked less like a "pair".

So.... the editorial pruning process began and enough was removed from the originally conceived Huckleberry Finn to create both the originally published versions of Huck as well as "Life on the Mississippi".

Now we finally get to see the "complete Huck". The missing text flows along with the "original Huck" as mightily as the Mississippi that Huck and Jim ride along in the book of our dreams.

As if that weren't enough, we also are treated to original illustrations and facsimile reproductions of several of Twain's original text. I found these pages among the most enlightening of all. Almost as if he knew his handwritten pages would be looked at by posterity, Twain used a unique revision technique. Rather than erasing a word or passage he wishes to replace, he would instead line through the words in a single line, leaving the replaced word legible along with the words which would replace the revised word. By examining these hand-written lines we can see how meticulous Twain was in his word selection. In several of the passages he made slight corrections which were plainly intended to make the runaway slave, Jim, as noble as possible. It has long been a curiosity to me that this book, frequently criticized as "racist", has as it's two central characters a runaway slave and the "poor white trash" boy who decides to help him. At one point Huck is memorably torn between what the Southern Society he has been raised in says is right and what gnaws at his conscience. It is obviously an unqualified truth to Huck that Jim is uneducated and so poor that he doesn't even own himself, yet Jim possesses more humanity than any of the "civilized" southerners Huck meets. Seeing Clemens' own scrawl lets us see how diligently Clemens worked to make that distinction clear - that Jim is easily the most noble adult in the book.

I agree with Mr. Hemingway - Huckleberry Finn IS America's greatest novel. Thanks to rediscovering Twain's original text (and an entertaining sequence of events which is detailed in the introduction to this edition) we finally get to read America's greatest Novel the way that the author originally intended.

I cannot recommend this highly enough.