Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Cover and spine of the first US printing.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United States in February 1885. It is the second book in the Tom Sawyer series.

The story follows Huckleberry Finn, a character from the previous book, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, as he tries to escape from his violent drunken father who has been locking him in a shack in an attempt to steal the boy's money. He gets mixed up with a slave named Jim who is trying to escape to the free states, and the two float down the Mississippi River toward Caro at the Southern end of Illinois where Jim can make his way into the free states. The two find themselves caught up in many adventures along the way.

Personal

I am reading this book to better-familiarize myself with older American fiction. While reading it, I certainly see why there has been so much contention about making this book available to children. Twain himself said that neither this book, nor Adventures of Tom Sawyer were written for children and he was surprised parents let their children read it (though this may have been said sarcastically).

Status

This book is in the public domain. I do not own a physical copy, but I'm listening to the audio book read by Patrick Fraley (which has the cut chapter about Dick Allbright's Baby).

Review

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• There is a wide variety of adventures that Huck and Jim find themselves in.
• I like that, when Huck gaslights Jim after their separation in the fog, Jim says how disappointed he is in Huck, and Huck begs forgiveness from him, and isn't ashamed for begging forgiveness from a slave (unfortunately, his begging isn't described, merely stated, a lost attempt).
• I appreciate that Twain made an attempt to describe how awful it is to separate slave families, though, I think he could have done it better. Saying that the sale won't go through it little consolation to the families who think they've lost each other forever.
• The King and the Duke are both enjoyable rapscallions for awhile, though they began to tire on me near the end.

Bad

• It's nice that Huck has a crisis of conscience when he first goes to turn in Jim, but, rather than empathize with the plight of another person and learn some morality, he decides he should just do whatever is easiest.
• Several times Twain misses an opportunity to make a scene more suspenseful and instead draws it out slowly.
• Just like with Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain lists dozens of ridiculous superstitions. I don't know if he does this to make his characters seem weak-minded, or because he thinks there is something to them, but, either way, it's annoying when authors add in superstition just for fun without actually having their characters learn some skepticism.
• Huck's encounter with the old woman who quickly identifies him as a boy, despite his dress, is not even remotely organic. Twain felt the need to explain how each of Huck's actions were how a boy would do things rather than a girl instead of relying on the reader's own observations.

Ugly

• The book is ripe with overt racism. I'm not sure how racist Mark Twain was, but pretty much all of the characters in this book are extremely racist, and Twain makes little attempt at pointing out the failures and evils of racism. Instead, in many instances, he reinforces them. Jim is frequently depicted as credulous and trusting to white men, whom he's also supposed to distrust. I do not see this book as a useful tool for pointing out the evils of slavery or racism.
• The original illustrated edition makes heavy use of racist blackface tropes in the drawings of Jim.
• I didn't really find the book all that enjoyable. The only character that really interested me was Jim, but he wasn't present for most of the book. Huck was interesting when his father was around, but, after he escaped, I didn't really care what happened to him anymore.
• Twain uses the phrase "by and by" 85 times throughout the book. It becomes really annoying.

Media

Covers

• 

  Very first printing, UK hardcover.

• 

  First American printing, hardcover.

Quotes

• "Having faith is believing in something you just know ain't true."
• "That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it."
• "I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: 'All right, then, I'll GO to hell' -- and tore it up."
• "A feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man's brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in -- and by and by everybody's killed off, and there ain't no more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time."
• "If you tell the truth you do not need a good memory!"

Adaptions

The only adaption I'm familiar with is the 1993 film, The Adventures of Huck Finn, which I liked and think does a much better job of portraying the horrors of slavery.

Links