Mark Twain

Robert O'Meally

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

A feisty young boy fakes his own death to escape his abusive father and heads off down the Mississippi River with his newfound friend Jim, a runaway slave.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Some thoughts: families are like kind of like cults

Becca M

𝚕𝚒𝚕𝚢

Mat Connor

Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest characters in literature. Mark Twain based him on a real kid he knew called Tom Blankenship. This is from Twain’s Autobiography:
 
"In Huckleberry Finn I have drawn Tom Blankenship exactly as he was. He was ignorant, unwashed, insufficiently fed; but he had as good a heart as ever any boy had. His liberties were totally unrestricted. He was the only really independent person—boy or man—in the community, and by consequence he was tranquilly and continuously happy and envied by the rest of us.”

That quote describes Huck well. He has a tremendous capacity for empathy despite—or maybe because of—his difficult upbringing. He’s curious, self taught, and distrustful of social mores. He’s a true individual in the best sense of that word. 

The scenes of Huck and Jim floating down the river getting to know each other are wonderful. Books don’t get much better than that. Huck likes Jim from the beginning, but he slowly starts to see Jim as a real person—someone capable of experiencing love, ambition, happiness, and sadness—not just a friendly runaway slave. There is a famous scene in the novel where Huck overhears Jim crying silently for his children where Huck realizes that slaves can love their children just as much as white people love theirs. Obvious to us but a breakthrough for Huck.

Huck’s conscience is in constant debate with the social mores of his time. It’s important to remember that in Huck’s society helping a slave escape is seen as a deadly sin that can result in the soul’s eternal damnation. These are literally the stakes Huck’s wrestles with in his mind. The famous “Moral Climax” of the novel is when Huck decides enough is enough and starts writing a letter to Jim’s enslaver to tell her where Jim can be found. After finishing the letter, he holds it in his hands and, after thinking of Jim, makes this decision:

“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.”

That’s one of the best goosebumps moments in any book. We know that Huck is doing the right thing, but he makes that courageous, moral decision even though it could damn his soul to hell. That’s what he believes.

I think people call that the “Moral Climax” of the novel partly because the actual ending is so bad. We want the novel to end with Huck’s decision. This novel’s real ending is famously terrible. Hemingway even argued that people should stop reading at the point Jim gets taken away from Huck and Tom Sawyer. 

I had heard in the Ken Burns Mark Twain documentary that Twain struggled more writing this book than any other. He would stop writing and pick it back up with years in between. I assumed that Twain must have stopped after the “Alright I’ll go to Hell” scene because he didn’t know how to wrap up the plot in a way that did justice to Huck’s decision, but it doesn’t look like that’s the case. It looks like Twain’s 3 year break started earlier in the novel. It’s hard to believe that the same writer could write that scene and the ending soon after, but it’s true.

My favorite theory is that Twain set out to write an entertaining book, but slowly started creating something much more complex and problematic. I picture him like Huck wrestling in his conscience between writing a light entertaining book and one that grapples with real issues. The main difference between entertaining fiction (like the adventure novels Tom Sawyer uses for “heroic” inspiration) and great literature is that literature poses questions and problems. Problems that should be stated but not necessarily answered, at least not by the author.

The problem with the ending is that Mark Twain wrote a work of art but then finished it with a farcical ending from a less complicated book. It’s still one of the best books ever because Huck’s narrative voice is so perfect.

Sarah

This book makes the reader look back at the nasty past, and Mark Twain did readers all across the world the deed of showing how bad and cruel humans can be. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written by Mark Twain was definitely an adventure. It was an adventure for Huck and Jim, who both were looking for their own freedom and looking for a way to survive in this cruel society. They both run away and try to seek their freedom. They learn from each other, and they learn how terrible society could be. During this adventure, Huck is seen to struggle between what he thinks is right and what others have told him is right. He, later on, expresses, "All right, then I’ll go to hell.” From there on he does what he believes is right and he says I will just go to hell for doing what I think is right.

A nineteenth-century boy, floating down the Mississippi River on a raft with a runaway slave, becomes involved with a feuding family, two scoundrels pretending to be royalty, and Tom Sawyer's aunt, who mistakes him for Tom.

Colton Ray

Overall, I still prefer Tom Sawyer. Where TS was light, quick, and fun, HF was heavier and longer, with a meandering plot. Though I prefer TS, this is still a quintessential masterpiece of an American novel that I think everyone should give a chance.

This book started off great with Huck outwitting his father, escaping from town, and sailing off down the magnificent Mississippi before running into Jim. However, the plot then kind of stalls out as he encounters the Grangerford-Sheperdson feuds, the insufferable Duke and Dauphin (seriously, I thought he'd never get away from them), and then trying to free Jim once he's imprisoned again. I feel like there was just so much padding in these sections that crippled the pace of the book, and a sharp editor could have improved it greatly. However, this is a modern judgement, as most readers back in the day had a much higher tolerance for this sort of languid prose. I didn't mind it, but at times I felt like screaming, "Get on with it already, Mark!"

Jim is pretty much the stereotypical slave, with almost no character growth. When Tom shows up near the end, he seems to have lost quite a few brain cells from his last book, and verges on being a childish prick. Huck Finn, though, is a great and relatable character that never feels forced or preachy. He is exactly what you would expect a young boy from Mississippi in the late 1800s to be.

Though I can understand people bristling at a book that contains near 200 instances of n*****, I think most people that get offended by the incessant racial slurs miss the point. I mean, hell, the entire plot is Huck trying to free Jim from slavery, and making comments about how the entire business doesn't sit right with him. There's zero point in trying to sugarcoat it, and Twain doesn't try to. 

For a book that will completely encapsulate you in a time period that we will never see again, you can't beat Huck Finn.

Huck Finn

I enjoyed the social commentary this story had to offer. It was better paced than some of the other English books I’ve read (

Abby

I enjoyed the social commentary this story had to offer. It was better paced than some of the other English books I’ve read (cough cough the scarlet letter).  

Jeannette Ordas

This was a book my husband & I would read together. The first half was definitely enjoyable, but as soon as Huck & Jim pick up the 2 loser actors it all goes downhill. We couldn't finish it was just so awful.

Matthew Rasnake

It is bizarre reading this in 2020 in the context of the protests and Black Lives Matter, but it is illuminating, at least insofar as it regards from where this all has sprung. I don't know that I can recommend the read while all this is so raw.

Lançado em 1885 como sequência de As aventuras de Tom Sawyer (1876), a história de Huck Finn, no entanto, ganhou autonomia: é unanimemente considerada a obra-prima de Mark Twain e mudou para sempre o imaginário dos Estados Unidos. Para se livrar do pai bêbado e violento, Huckleberry Finn se refugia em uma pequena ilha do rio Mississippi, onde se alia com Jim, um escravo fugido. Em busca de liberdade, a inusitada dupla se lança numa viagem pelo leito do rio, às margens da sociedade pré-Guerra Civil. Marco fundador da narrativa estado-unidense, o romance registrou a fala comum da gente simples e inaugurou a tradição – central das artes americanas – do anti-herói jovem e espirituoso que, graças à condição de desajustado, goza de uma visão privilegiada do mundo. Muitas vezes alvo de polêmicas, Huck Finn não cessa de suscitar reflexões sobre o absurdo da humanidade.

As Aventuras de Huckleberry Finn

Nelson Zagalo

Li “As Aventuras de Huckleberry Finn” de Mark Twain numa tradução de Rosaura Eichenberg para a brasileira LPM, e ainda que, e ao contrário das traduções portuguesas, exista um enorme esforço por adaptar a particularidade formal da escrita inglesa de Twain ao português, só se consegue em parte. Huck e Jim funcionam imensamente bem, ao serem transportados para o linguajar do Brasil, para o caso de Jim vem mesmo do sertão, ficando contudo todos os restantes personagens a funcionar como adereços da língua standard. De qualquer modo, o trabalho original do autor merece todo o nosso interesse, dada a sua enorme capacidade para nos envolver, emocionar e fazer sonhar.

Huck e Tom Sawyer fazem parte do meu imaginário de criança como símbolos de liberdade, criatividade, audácia e muito otimismo. O contato foi realizado por via da série de animação “As Aventuras de Tom Sawyer” de 49 episódios da Nippon Animation de 1980, na qual se retrata apenas o primeiro livro de Twain. Desta forma “As Aventuras de Huckleberry Finn” começam onde terminam as “As Aventuras de Tom Sawyer” e leva-nos a novas aventuras, desta vez mais focadas em Huck, ainda que Tom Sawyer volte a aparecer para fazer das suas.

Posso agora dizer que a série refletia plenamente o sentimento de Twain, já que ler "As Aventuras de Huckleberry Finn" funcionou como verdadeira continuação da série, em nenhum momento me senti defraudado quanto ao universo ou personagens, cumprindo plenamente aquilo que ainda restava na minha imaginação, fazendo-me rir e despertando a alegria inocente. Por outro lado, vi de forma mais madura os problemas das relações entre raças no sul dos EUA, e consegui sentir a personagem de Huck como uma das mais bem elaboradas da literatura americana, por toda a enorme profundidade que nos consegue dar através de leves traços comportamentais e questionamentos ingénuos de aparente superficialidade.

“Jim falava alto o tempo todo, enquanto eu tava falando comigo mesmo. Ele tava dizendo que a primeira coisa que ia fazer, quando chegasse num estado livre, era poupar dinheiro sem gastar um centavo e, quando tivesse o bastante, ia comprar a mulher dele, que era propriedade de uma fazenda perto de onde a srta. Watson vivia. Aí os dois iam trabalhar pra comprar os dois filhos, e se o dono não quisesse vender eles iam falar com um abolicionista pra ir roubar as crianças.
Quase gelei quando ouvi essa declaração. Na sua vida de antes, ele nunca ia ter a ousadia de falar desse jeito. É pra ver a diferença que aconteceu nele no minuto que achou que tava quase livre. Tava de acordo com o velho ditado: “Dá a mão prum negro e ele vai pegar o braço”. Pensei, é isso o que dá eu não pensar. Aqui tava aquele negro que eu tinha de certa maneira ajudado a fugir, achegando-se com toda desenvoltura e dizendo que ia roubar os filhos dele – filhos que pertenciam a um homem que eu nem sequer conhecia, um homem que não tinha me feito mal nenhum.”

Aliás, em certa medida o reconhecimento da obra de Twain advirá não só da construção formal, da obsessão pelo linguajar das comunidades americanas do Sul, mas também desta sua capacidade para construir na frente dos nossos olhos, personagens e eventos realistas, ao mesmo tempo que líricos e belos. Ler “As Aventuras de Huckleberry Finn” foi, em certa medida, um retornar à minha infância.

Publicado em: http://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt/2...

The classic boyhood adventure tale, updated with a new introduction by noted Mark Twain scholar R. Kent Rasmussen and a foreword by Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran and The Republic of Imagination

In recent years, neither the persistent effort to “clean up” the racial epithets in Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn nor its consistent use in the classroom have diminished, highlighting the novel’s wide-ranging influence and its continued importance in American society. An incomparable adventure story, it is a vignette of a turbulent, yet hopeful epoch in American history, defining the experience of a nation in voices often satirical, but always authentic.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Source: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/314337/adventures-of-huckleberry-finn-by-mark-twain/9780143107323/

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:
New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
Biographies of the authors
Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
Footnotes and endnotes
Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
Comments by other famous authors
Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
Bibliographies for further reading
Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate
All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works. "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the only one of Mark Twain's various books which can be called a masterpiece. I do not suggest that it is his only book of permanent interest; but it is the only one in which his genius is completely realized, and the only one which creates its own category." T. S. Eliot
Huckleberry Finn, rebel against school and church, casual inheritor of gold treasure, rafter of the Mississippi, and savior of Jim the runaway slave, is the archetypical American maverick.

Fleeing the respectable society that wants to "sivilize" him, Huck Finn shoves off with Jim on a rhapsodic raft journey down the Mississippi River. The two bind themselves to one another, becoming intimate friends and agreeing "there warn't no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft."

As Huck learns about love, responsibility, and morality, the trip becomes a metaphoric voyage through his own soul, culminating in the glorious moment when he decides to "go to hell" rather than return Jim to slavery.

Mark Twain defined classic as "a book which people praise and don't read"; Huckleberry Finn is a happy exception to his own rule. Twain's mastery of dialect, coupled with his famous wit, has made Adventures of Huckleberry Finn one of the most loved and distinctly American classics ever written.

 

Nominated for a Grammy for his work as co-producer of the five-CD box set The Jazz Singers (1998), Robert O'Meally is Zora Neale Hurston Professor of Literature at Columbia University and Director of Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies. He is the principal writer of Seeing Jazz (1997), the catalogue for the Smithsonian's exhibit on jazz and literature, and the co-editor of The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (1996).
Source: https://www.sterlingpublishing.com/9781593081126/

Amanda Jones

I hate this bo0k with every fiber of my being

Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a literary landmark, its ripples felt throughout American fiction. The story's exploration of friendship, freedom, and confronting societal evils like racism resonates deeply, captivating readers with both hilarity and thought-provoking seriousness. While laughter bubbles up through Huck's adventures, the ultimate impact is one of profound reflection, making this a book that deserves a place on everyone's bookshelf.

Liana

Meredith Boster

I read this book for American Literature at my school. I have read this book before and I don't remember enjoying it as much as I did this time around. I appreciated the history lessons it taught and the imagery that Samuel Clemens poured into this book as he told the story of a boy floating his way down the Mississippi River. I liked the adventure and rapscallions that popped up and I liked the friendship part of this book too. I liked that Huckleberry learned a lot about the world while on his raft, and I thoroughly enjoyed the dry sense of humor that the book had throughout.

Jessica Guht

Check out my review for this book here 

http://www.bookscraftsandengineering....

Kaia Mann

Idk, I think more people should read this one, really underground though, not a lot of people would be able to understand it.

The original Great American Novel, an incomparable adventure story and a classic of anarchic humour, Twain's masterpiece sees, Huckleberry Finn and Jim the slave escape their difficult lives by fleeing down the Mississippi on a raft. There, they find steamships, feuding families, an unlikely Duke and King, and vital lessons about the world in which they live.

With its unforgettable cast of characters, Hemingway called this 'the best book we've ever had'.
(back cover)

Maxime van der Wal

** spoiler alert **
           2.5 stars
I think I made the right decision picking this up instead of Tom Sawyer because damn, Mark Twain really thought we wouldn't notice he is the 19th-century version of Don Quixote, huh? (Twain literally referenced it too, lol). What I mean to say is: Tom is annoying and delusional and I did not enjoy the role he played. 

Huckleberry Finn, however, is pretty likeable. I specifically enjoyed the part where Huckleberry and Jim are travelling by themselves and how Twain tried to challenge the blatantly racist ideology of that time through Huckleberry (the racism aspect of this novel is definitely not without its faults and worth criticising though). The duke and king ruined the story for me personally as I thought them to be extremely annoying, but apart from that this was an enjoyable read!

** spoiler alert **
           Alrighty! First book of the semester and I really enjoyed it! I honestly love how smart Huck was, he was very clever and a good kid and I took a liking to both him and Jim. Their friendship was so sweet and all of their crazy adventures were so fun to read about! I also love how the book comes full circle to Aunt Sally’s and Tom Sawyer showing up (while I didn’t read that book) I very much appreciate the development Tom was given and the distinction between the two boys! This book is definitely a classic for a reason!

Huckleberry Finn was a surprising read and I found myself really enjoying so many different aspects of the book from the characterizations to the plot development and writing style. 

Firstly, the character Huck was a very intriguing and complex character. I have read a small handful of books with a male protagonist, so having a male protagonist also as the narrator was something new to me. The constant turmoil between Huck's conscience and the rest of the world was the most interesting part of the story. Every time he claimed to be doing the wrong thing or causing trouble but was correct such as his choice to tear up the note that would give up Jim, I was pleasantly surprised. I grew to really love Huck as a character because of his development and the way he uses his brain to outsmart those around him. No matter how small he felt, he still challenged societal norms and rules at the time while still trying to be "good". I also really enjoyed the other characters in the story, Huck and Jim's friendship was inspiring and heartwarming. I loved their genuine love for each other and the happiness they felt whenever they found each other was one of the highlights of the story. 

I also really enjoyed the writing style Mark Twain chose. First-person narratives are also rare for me and of those I've read, I can think of maybe two I enjoyed, but I thought it was the perfect choice for this story. I thought the flow of the book and the balance between internal thought and action were done nicely. There's so much packed into this book that it would have been easy to get lost or confused but with Huck's constant voice as a guide, I enjoyed it. 

The idea of "right and wrong" and who gets to decide which actions fit under which category was surprisingly well done as well as what do words such as brave and courageous really mean. Also, the ending coming full circle with Huck ending up at Tom Sawyer's aunt's house and finding out Jim was a free man but Tom was using him as some kind of game that also helped distinguish Huck from boys like Tom who don't understand the world and don't really want to. Tom and many others prefer to stay in a reality they understand rather than be brave enough to break out and challenge those in charge.

Lala Shwani

Jeremy Anderberg

I mean, it's fine. I much prefer Twain's non-fic.

Referring to "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, " H. L. Mencken noted that his discovery of this classic American novel was "the most stupendous event of my whole life"; Ernest Hemingway declared that "all modern American literature stems from this one book," while T. S. Eliot called Huck "one of the permanent symbolic figures of fiction, not unworthy to take a place with Ulysses, Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Hamlet." The novel's preeminence derives from its wonderfully imaginative re-creation of boyhood adventures along the mighty Mississippi River, its inspired characterization, the author's remarkable ear for dialogue, and the book's understated development of serious underlying themes: "natural" man versus "civilized" society, the evils of slavery, the innate value and dignity of human beings, the stultifying effects of convention, and other topics. But most of all, "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is a wonderful story filled with high adventure and unforgettable characters (including the great river itself) that no one who has read it will ever forget. Unabridged Dover (1994) republication of the text of the first American edition, published by Charles L. Webster and Company, New York, 1885. New introductory Note."

Dan Denney

I love this. I know a lot of people read it when they were younger, but I’m glad I waited. There’s so much between the lines on humanity, racism, and class. 

Hilariously picaresque, epic in scope, alive with the poetry and vigor of the American people, Mark Twain's story about a young boy and his journey down the Mississippi was the first great novel to speak in a truly American voice. Influencing subsequent generations of writers -- from Sherwood Anderson to Twain's fellow Missourian, T.S. Eliot, from Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner to J.D. Salinger -- "Huckleberry Finn," like the river which flows through its pages, is one of the great sources which nourished and still nourishes the literature of America.
--back cover

Nikki Sojkowski

This isn't going to be a seriously thought-out review but I just want to put some of my thoughts down and see if anyone agrees.

So If anyone's read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, they'll know that it's basically about Tom and Huck being boys, causing trouble, and generally being bad-asses. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is nothing like that. 

The book is about Huck Finn being caught between 2 morals/2 societies. Huck has grown up with Pap being a terrible father and they're basically the 'scum' of their town, but now he's living with The Widow who is really rich and is trying to civilize him. He feels lonely in both societies which he solves by making the town think he's dead and then runs off with the Widow's sister's former slave. So Huck thinks he's being a terrible person by not turning in Jim for being a run away slave. He doesn't ever consider that treating Jim nicely is the right thing to do. Huck thinks that he's doing an awful thing by helping a slave escape to freedom and that buck is going to hell for doing so. Over the course of the book Huck and Jim bond and make a great relationship, but what bothers me is that Huck thinks Jim is an exception to the previously set racial definitions. He thinks that Jim is acting like a white man, and that *only Jim* is a black man capable of worrying about families and having real emotions. Huck clearly starts to care for Jim, but he thinks that Jim is a special case. Later on they meet a slave named Nat, which I think shows the full circle of Jim's character change (Nat is extremely superstitious and has silly logic like Jim did in the beginning). I think that Twain could also be pointing out that Nat could be just as talented as Jim if given the chance. If Jim could change into the person he is at the end of the book, so could any other former slave. Unfortunately, the people I've discussed this book with so far don't really support that idea....

Lastly, I would just like to point out what a little scumbag Tom Sawyer is and how I hate him as much as I hate Victor Frankenstein. They are both just terrible people. Tom Sawyer KNEW that (view spoiler)[ Jim was a free man and that he wasn't really stealing him from slavery, yet he doesn't tell anyone (hide spoiler)]

Hope Lenzen

Lisette Wijkhuijs

it was fun, not great though. Glad it was such a short book otherwise I might not have finished it

Sonia Flores

Me resultó un poco pesado, pero fue una lectura entretenida en general. Los temas que toca, como la esclavitud y el racismo, me parecieron muy interesantes desde el punto de vista de un muchacho; eso le sumó mucho a este libro, y las aventuras que vivió partiendo de los conocimientos sobre la sociedad que tenía al llevar a cabo aquella travesía lo hicieron algo diferente. Se me hizo un poco más insulso que el de Tom Sawyer, pero como no tienen conexión inmediata u obligatoria no he de compararlos.

En el libro de Tom Sawyer lo tomé mucho cariño a Huck, y aunque en esta entrega me fastidió un poco su manera de relatar las cosas, sus aires de inocencia compensaron lo extenso de varias escenas en particular. Este libro no es tan infantil como parece, toca temas profundos, duros de tratar y difíciles de digerir, bastante fuertes si se piensa bien, excepto que se hablan desde el lenguaje de la inocencia, que lo mitiga todo un poco.
Ese final no me lo esperaba en absoluto, pero me dio la tranquilidad que necesitaba y que había perdido en la segunda mitad del libro, que me ocasionó gran desazón y desasosiego.

Raya 

Set in the pre-Civil War era of slavery and narrated by Huck Finn, this book tells the story of a young boy who joins a runaway slave Jim in their shared quest for freedom. Huck wants to escape from the restrictions of respectable society imposed on him and from the physical abuse of his natural father. On the other hand Jim is fleeing away from the ominous danger of being sold which would mean permanent separation from his wife and children. 

🏞

Like all other classics of world literature, Mark Twain's work is not only a celebration of reality and American individualism but a rebellion and a provocation. Perhaps no other children's adventure story invokes quite so many different forms of violence and brutality, imposed not by wild animals, monsters or strange villains, but by ordinary men and women. 
Twain upheld the harsh social realities through the safe hands of dark humor and irony. The three major factors which made these books stand out to me are their mood, the relationship shared between the main characters and the overall spice and liveliness of Twain's storytelling.Tom's relationship with Aunt Polly along with his unbiased and true friendship with Huck and so called "nigger" Jim gives the reader a feeling of comfort and delight. There were episodes which slowed down my speed, but nevertheless, as I reached the last line of the tale, I was overcome with the same good old feeling which casts over me when I read something truly remarkable. 🌎💛

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

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