Customer Reviews

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

_Huckleberry Finn_ has become, to paraphrase one of Mark Twain's many aphorisms, a classic---one of those imposing literary edifices that many feel they should read but haven't. I struggled with the novel for years, flipping through it at age twelve (expecting another _Tom Sawyer_) and giving up shortly after Jim and Huck amble down the river. Several subsequent efforts failed. It wasn't until I took a college course on American Literature that I finally read _Huck Finn_ the whole way through.

The novel is a masterpiece, a flawed masterpiece but a masterpiece nonetheless. Much of it is instantly memorable, and maybe that's part of the problem, because Huck the character, like Don Quixote and Holden Caulfield and a host of others, has become bigger than the book---this boy is ever present in the collective consciousness, and anything that looms so prominently is bound to deflect the very real rewards and virtues of the book itself.

That is where the Norton critical edition comes in handy. Here, the Huck we've heard about is explained, put into context---the long passage in the heart of the Mississippi is given nuance and analysis, with the text itself complimented by Twain's letters and thoughts on the act of composition. _Huckleberry Finn_ is turned back into book, and a very good book at that, with its leisurely pace, its endless sidetracks, and its puzzling ending all threading together into a sensible, coherent, but still magical structure.

It's a very good novel. It's also a very tough novel, the kind that requires all the help you can get, and the Norton edition certainly gives it to you.

I love Mark Twain! I am currently learning English in China. It is really hard for me to learn it here because there is not an evironment. But I tried to read some books in English and it did affect me a lot! From all the books I like Mr Mark Twain's best. Because his stories are mainly all about the childlife and I am also a kid, in fact. I am 14 years old. This helped me to know what American Children thought and lear my vocabularies. I know I wasn't able to win the contest because my English is poor, but I do think Mark Twain's books are nice. I have learned lots of words from it. I have also learned some in Chinese in our Chinese Text Book. One is called " Electing the State Minister", this passage is really nice and it not only is humor but also let us know what the U.S. Society used to be. In fact, I think he is the greatest author in the States. The book "Huck Finn" however, is a continue of the book "Tom Sawyer Adventure", and it shows us what happens next and also tell us what Huck had experienced. It tell me what the 19th Century boys in America thought and helped me to understand that I should not study all the time, as the Chinese students are hard at studying and I will find time to relax. And this did help my study! May I ever thanked him for giving us such good books. May I ever remeber him for helping me to know many things.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic tale which everyone should read. I would like to recommend the Norton Critical Edition in particular for the additional material at the end of the book. Everyone who likes this story really needs to read the "Raft Episode" which Twain's publisher unfortunately insisted be cut out of the book. The other essays are also insightful and interesting reads.

Mark Twain uses satire throughout HUCKLEBERRY FINN in order to comment on every institution that wielded weight in nineteenth century society: slavery,the family, tradition, the aristocracy, and those who took advantage of others' devotion to these institutions. This employment of satire is subtly woven in and appears in the various shades of hue on the satirical spectrum. Twain's ability to dip into the whole spectrum is usually not fully realized by the reader. Usually, the light satire bears the cheerful name of "humor" and the most deeply hued the beetle-browed visage of "social criticism."

However, Twain, most of the time,mixed his draughts ever so slightly and the most stern passages have humor bubbling out and the most light the undergrowth of serious criticism. When Huck gives Jim lessons on kings and the French language, the obvious intention is that of a funny passage. However,by the end, the reader is hit with the with the lightning realization that Jim has used great arguing skills laced with good common sense to oust the ivy-covered oracles of culture and the Bible.

Twain sharpens this velvet-coated satire when Jim upbraids Huck for pulling the prank on him the night of the fog and treating him as if his feelings were of no account. After the gleeful commencement of the scene, the reader is suddenly awash with the sense of this "joke" from Jim's standpoint as Huck realizes he must apologize.

This device of beguiling the reader by humor and then revealing the implications of that situation and its dehumanizing consequences is frequently used by Twain, This is the very essence of realism for in life there are few characters or institutions which wear an unmistakable, unchangeable face. Twain uses the child as his narrator because the child's perceptions best encapsulate this ambiguity of life and the impossiblity of correlating the surface with the core. The Grangerford's parlor seems to Huck to be a awesome display of extravagant possessions. The reader laughs smugly only to be caught aback with Huck as tradition and family unity move from the parlor to the brutal massacre by the river.

Similarly, the encounter with the King and the Duke is not all it first seems to be. When the con men mangle Shakespeare and don bogus titles, the reader laughs and laughs harder as they don yet more titles in order to bilk the Wilkes girls out of their inheritance. Howver, all of a sudden, the behavior of these humorous buffoons begins to affect people in serious ways. They viciously threaten Huck, sell Jim, and intend to leave the girls penniless without a qualm. The mask is torn away. In just such a way, Tom Sawyer's notions from romance and adventure books abruptly lose their air of good fun when they involve very real danger and Jim's freedom.

Probably, the one time time that Twain does not mix the bitter with the sweet is in the depiction of the Bogg-Sherburn duel. Here is found the purest strain of social criticism. The tone is consistently heavy, and yet the philosophy of the thing is a study in the ambiguity of life yet again. Sherburn shoots a man in cold blood, remorselessly, with the sanction of aristocratic privilege. Yet, when he cows the lynch mob, this coward and murderer tells the truth. He can base his own actions on the most wicked and useless of traditions and still accurately blast the traditions in Southern history and "justice" which bolster the lynch mob.

Thus, Twain uses satire as his unifying force in HUCKLEBERRY FINN. He amuses, informs, preaches and shocks--all in one breath.

There has been a lot of controversy over this book from the time it was first published until the present day. It has been banned in schools and public libraries, but has somehow managed to survive and remains one of the greatest examples of American writing. In it, Twain tells the story of a young boy's journey to maturity, during which he learns more about life than society could ever teach him and takes the first steps toward gaining a freedom of thought that he never had before. Huck is a young man who flees the confining spaces of the Widow Douglas' home and seeks freedom on a raft floating down the Mississippi. (For an account of his previous exploits, see "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.") Along the way, he meets up with Jim, an escaped slave, and together the two fugitives set out trying to find the freedom they so desperately desire. They experience many comic misunderstandings as well as real danger, and emerge from the experiences changed in profound ways. The book is a poignant look at the process of growing up and learning to determine right from wrong. This edition contains critical writing which can help explain some of the more problematic or controversial aspects of the work. As an example of some of the finest writing produced by an American, it has earned its place in both literary history and homes around the world.