Customer Reviews

Huckleberry Finn As Idol and Target : The Functions of Criticism in Our Time (Wisconsin Project on American Writers)

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If this book is supposed to provide "a context for fairer, fuller, and better-informed debates" on Huckelberry Finn, then the only people the author must think are doing the debating are cloistered academics. The issue frequently under debate is whether to "ban" Huck Finn from classrooms because of the infamous "N-word." This issue therefore begins and ends with secondary and high school parents and teachers. Academics with PHd's have little to nothing to do with this debate in the real world other than to provide sound-bites for the media. The people who need this type of book, the non-academic parents and students who will end up having do live with the results of the debate need not look to Arac's text except as a sleeping pill. What could have been a very lively reading on a stimulating subject is submerged by the author with the usual academic psycho-babble. Weigh this book against Shelly Fisher-Fishkin's popular and highly accessible "Was Huck Black?" and "Lighting Out for the Territory" and you can see why the pro-Twain faction always comes out looking better even if they lose the debate. Arac's book is inaccessible to the average parent (black or white) who must continually resort to a reactionary mode when faced with the prospect that their child will have to see and hear the word "nigger" when Huck Finn is assigned in class. As a result this is hardly a work of "scholarship in the service of citizenship." It is a work of scholarship in the service of exclusive academia only. I'm not saying that the book should have been "dumbed down" for use by the average reader, but that the text reeks of stereotypical academic snobbery. As Huck Finn himself might have said, "This book puts on airs." It's a pity becasue Arac raises some good points, which are unfortunately lost in ten dollar words and page length sentences.