Customer Reviews

Was Huck Black?: Mark Twain and African-American Voices (Oxford Paperbacks)

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There is probably no book in American literature more loved and hated than "Huckleberry Finn". Twain's masterpiece has been reviled as a racist rant; parents have tried to get it banned from school libraries, and people have claimed that not only is the book racist, so is its author. But Twain was hardly a racist; Jim is presented as one of the few characters in the book who has real dignity, humanity and common goodness; and Huck learns to see Jim as a friend and a fellowman. But how does Huck reach this epiphany and who did Twain base his character on? In a solidly researched and fascinating book, Shelly Fishkin posits that Huck was based on two young African-Americans Twain knew personally, one a ten year old boy named Jimmy and the other a young slave in Missouri named Jerry.

Jimmy was described in Twain's newspaper article "Sociable Jimmy", which was published in The New York Times in November of 1874. Jimmy's family was employed in a village inn where Twain was staying, and Twain was clearly fascinated by "the most artless, sociable and exhaustless talker I ever came across... I listened as one who receives a revelation." Twain invited Jimmy to sit and chat, and Jimmy planked himself down in an easy chair and proceeded to regale Twain with stories about his family in the inn; in particular, their aversion to having cats around. "When dey ketches a cat bummin' aroun' heah... dey snake him into de cistern -- dey's been cats drownded in dat water dat's in yo' pitcher. I seed a cat in dare yistiddy -- all swelled up like a pudd'n." (Imagine the look on Twains face as Jimmy fed him this tidbit.) As Fishkin shows, Jimmy and Huck share some key characteristics. They both launch into long family narratives to hold their listener's attention. They both have a visceral loathing of violence and cruelty, and they speak with a remarkable similarity. The are both "unpretentious, uninhibited, easily impressed and unusually loquacious." When we close our eyes and listen to Jimmy, we can easily hear Huck in Jimmy's voice.

Jerry was young black man in the 1850's who Twain idolized when he was himself a teenager, much to the dismay and disgust of Twain's mother. Actually, Mom could be a stand-in for Tom Sawyer's Aunt Polly, who didn't want Tom associating with Huck because he was unwashed, uncouth, and the envy of every boy in the neighborhood of good family who admired him and wished they dared to be like him. Here we see Huck as Jerry. Jerry was a master at "signifying", or indirectly satirizing whatever he held in contempt. There is a lot of Jerry in the characters of both Huck and Jim, who compensate for their lack of formal education with a large store of mother-wit and down to earth common sense.

We don't know if Twain directly based Huck on Jimmy and/or Jerry, and it may be impossible to determine for certain. But there are enough similarities in all three characters to make the point that Twain thoroughly liked and respected both Jimmy and Jerry, and turned some of the best qualities of each of them into one of the most endearing and enduring people in all of American fiction.

The high-toned wording of the Kirkus Review might just turn you off of the this book before having given it a chance... and that would be a great loss. I've read the review three times now and I still can't tell if it is praising the book or condemning it. Ms. Fisher-Fishkin's prose is very readable and this book can be enjoyed by plain ol' Twain fans and academia alike.

Well packaged, on time. Book referred by Author in online Book club. excellent read.

That Twain had intimate psychic connections to African-Americans is not particularly relevatory; biographers long before Fishkin had psychologized over the question of Twain's relationship to African-Americans. Fishkin's book is clearly inspired by these biographers and their speculations; she is not the originator of the notion of Twain's profoundly intimate and anxious connection to black people. That being said, her thesis that 'Little Jimmy' and Jerry are noteworthy influences on Huck Finn's voice are Fishkin's own.

The title risks ridiculousness for some snappy provocation: Huck Finn is clearly not 'black' but the son of a stereotypical poor Irish alchoholic.

Fishkin's textual sleuthing is interesting, usually convincing and, most of all, thorough. It also seems to finally skirt the question of whether or not Mark Twain was a racist by focusing on Huck as a kind of composite figure, one whose language is profoundly informed by black people (Little Jimmy and Jerry); of whose voices, Twain, by his own accounts, was a professed admirer.

But here's the problem: the degree to which the things Twain reports seeing (or hearing) in 'Little Jimmy' and Jerry are actually Jimmy and Jerry themselves-- and not Twain's own projections and warped perceptions or just plain fabrications (remember that Twain was a professional liar), or how much all this exonerates Twain from charges of racism, if it even intends to, isn't entirely clear.

Again: Mark Twain is the author of Jimmy and Jerry, characters who Fishkin argues have real voices in their own right. Twain claimed that to get Jim 'right' in HF he would speak what he thought Jim should say out loud. Was Twain imitating what he heard or was he perfecting something else? (A weirder but more profound question is one that addresses the notion of how much Twain affected others' speech to him, which Twain took for reality.) At any rate, the accuracy of Twain's reporting (if it is reporting and not just fiction, even if Twain talks about 'Little Jimmy' in a letter to a colleague as if Jimmy were indeed a real person) makes or breaks Fishkin's particular theory, as she seems to know.

Like all academic books worth reading, it is worth reading. Fishkin is clearly a valuable personality; the book is not dry; the style is not typical 'academic writing' unintentionally free of any ghost of a valuable human being behind the keyboard, one ticking off similarities that fit into said academician's methodological framework. Her work is creative and deep and makes pleasant reading-- enough to almost make me forgive her for the title.

Fishkin is a premier Twain scholar, in charge of the Mark Twain papers at the University of Texas.

Anyone with a serious interest in Huck should read this book, indeed keeping in mind what Twain saw in others was usually himself, and that that was his-- and perhaps America's-- tragedy

After carefully reviewing Huck Finn and working to understand all aspects of it for both black and white Americans, I understand why it is a requirement in schools today. To criticize with any real justification, one must read the entire book. Twain uses a large amount of satire to show that the black people, thought of as nothings, actually do have feelings, and are human. Before criticizing, be sure you read and understand the book in its entirity. Then decide how you feel.

This book and her book "Lighting Out For The Territory", have made me reconsider a lot more than Mark Twain's Huck Finn. No teacher of literature or American History should get a degree without reading these books.

I just finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and find the relationship between Huck and Jim to be a blessing for them both. To think that a black man was treated as though he had no feelings I suppose we all knew happened, but to actually read it in a novel such as this is so sad that I couldn't even begin to express how I feel. I was never raised to see color, only to love all of God's creatures for who they are not what they are. I have not really ever been a literary buff, but I do intend to read more of Mark Twain's books. I don't believe that Samuel Clemens was prejudice, I do believe that he was writing what he was "raised" and was able to see the tragedy in it all. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to express myself. I have been truly moved by this book.