The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
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Book Reviews of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Book Review: ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN by Mark Twain
Summary: 5 Stars
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel by Mark Twain, originally published in 1884. It is the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Ernest Hemingway (and many others) called it the greatest American novel ever. Huck Finn picks up right where Tom Sawyer left off - Huck's abusive father appears to lay claim to Huck's fortune, so Huck fakes his own death and goes down the Mississippi River with Jim, the escaped slave.
Much like Tom Sawyer, there's not a lot of plot going on here most of the time, and that's okay, because Twain's writing is extremely entertaining. Twain has a good old time mocking social conventions, and the novel is gripping almost all the way through. Hemingway was right: the end of Huck Finn is poor. After Jim is abducted and Tom Sawyer reappears, things just get silly, not to mention highly convenient (And Tom Sawyer here is just as immature as he ever was, reinforcing that no real maturation occurred in Tom Sawyer, and that that book really isn't a coming-of-age story in the truest sense).
Twain has made Huck the narrator. On the whole, this works, although it gets tiresome to read Huck's dialect sometimes. Twain-as-narrator is definitely missed here. Nobody could write a clever sentence like Twain, and most of that is lost here, although occasionally Huck will turn one (and by doing so break character, but that's the price you pay).
Huck Finn has been exceedingly controversial because of the extensive use of the n-word. So is the novel racist? Certainly the characters have the racism of the day ingrained in them - in that sense, it is racist. But more important to most people is whether Twain was racist; that is, whether he put his own personal racism in the book. That is harder to determine, especially since Twain has made Huck the narrator. Perhaps the fairest thing to say is that Twain was genuinely criticizing racism, but the way in which he portrayed Jim and the other characters contains some residual racism of its own.
So is Huck Finn America's greatest novel? Well, maybe not. But it's definitely up there.
Book Review: Eli Sashihara writes:
Summary: 5 Stars
Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a timeless classic that lives up to its prestigious name. It takes place in an array of locations along the Mississippi river around the time of 1835-45. The story is about Tom, a free-spirited boy, and his numerous adventures with a run-away slave named Jim.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn proceeds Mark Twain's original novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but within the first page Huck acknowledges this and says reading the first book isn't that important. However, I personally recommend reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer before this book. While it is not essential, it adds a lot to the book and gives an initial understanding Huck's character.
The book starts right where The Adventures of Tom Sawyer ended: Huck is struggling to fit into his new found "civilized" life with the Widow Douglas. Huck is uncomfortably forced to learn to be proper while his fortune is held for him.
It wasn't long till Huck's Pap, the village drunk, came to kidnap Huck for his fortune. After living with his abusive father for a while, Huck decides to escape. One night, Huck feigns a robbery on his Pap's cabin and then feigns his own death. Huck escapes to a nearby island and decides to live there. Soon word spreads through town about Huck's death and the town suspects Huck's father, but then suspicions transfer to a runaway slave named Jim who was living on the same island.
Jim and Huck set off on a raft before people could find them. They embark on a series of adventures, including boarding the ships of robbers, murder mysteries, gunfights, family feuds, great storms, mobs, con artists, and other extravaganzas. During their voyages they also come to deal with a series of topics and realizations, such as the irony and hypocrisy of "civilized" and adult culture, slavery, racism, morality, human nature, and superstition.
Book Review: Huckleberry Finn
Summary: 5 Stars
Huckleberry Finn is a classic. Simple as that. It provides a look into what life was probably like for a 19th century boy. It was different than the life of children today, because today life centers around education. Back then, it was a regular thing to play hooky, even though they got in trouble for it when they were caught. And when they were punished, usually it was with a beating instead of `You're Grounded!'.
The book shows us how badly slaves were treated. They weren't even considered humans! It was like they didn't have feelings, and didn't see things the same way white people did. They way the slaves actually did think was odd. It was sad to see that they could slap a slave for no reason, and the slave would accept it either because they were used to it or they thought that whites were better than them.
Huck Finn is rather unrealistic in the aspect of adventure. I'm guessing most boys back then didn't run off with an escaped slave to Cairo. The way that Mark Twain wrote the book was different than other first/second person books I've seen. The dialogue was very much like the 19th century southern Mississippi talk. Sometimes it got hard to decipher what a paragraph in slave-speak meant because it was so obscure.
All in all, Mark Twain's writing style is different than the traditional Southern book, but that doesn't detract at all from the story. I liked it!
Book Review: Great Novel for All Ages
Summary: 5 Stars
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a book that I remembered fondly from my childhood that actually holds up to another reading as an adult. Twain's wit and humor still carry the story for me as when I was a child, however, this time around, I was better able to appreciate the social and political commentary infused throughout the story. That's the magic of Twain's masterpiece: it's attraction to both young and old for both the same and different facets. For the young, this is a rollicking adventure story of an ornery youth and his escaped slave friend. It's the classic buddy tale infused with humor and narrow escapes. For the adult, There are the deeper layers of Huck's constant struggle with his own inner morality versus the popular opinion of what is considered to be right in the eyes of whites in the pre-civil war Mississippi River area.
For a great escape and a look into the culture of the central United States just prior to the Civil War, I highly recommend Huckleberry Finn for all audiences.
Book Review: Well it made me a happy boy
Summary: 5 Stars
I was down in the dumps I was. Wonderin' when my Huck Finn would come, and wonderin' if it would be righ' on time. But it was, I tell you, it was.
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