#16 - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

America has found its place on my list. The next 6 books are entirely comprised of some of American classics, book-ended (you see what I did there?) by the two twin pillars of the American childhood, Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. Strangely enough, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but it ranked higher on the list, so I'm breaking all the rules today. In each of these books, the other is featured as a supporting character, joining them on adventures. In Tom Sawyer, Huck is portrayed as a boy who simply follows, a willing sidekick to Tom Sawyer. In Huckleberry Finn, however, Tom is shifted into a caricature of his former self, playing up the adventure-seeking side of him and making Huck seem a much more level-headed character. That being said, there was hardly any way for a reader to notice that this was a sequel, unless they were otherwise told. Everything was introduced and wrapped up as its own story, and the arcs were very well-handled.

The trick with American classics is that they seem to have trouble dealing with their past lives. Huckleberry Finn is both lauded as a picturesque imagining of the joys of childhood (running away from home on a raft and falling in with various crooks and violent characters notwithstanding) and reviled for containing racist overtones. The latter voice seems to stem mainly from the southern States, many of whom ban the book from schools and libraries. Their main argument stems from their use of the word "nigger". A nigger here, a nigger there, oh look at that pumpkin-heded nigger, niggerniggerdenigger n-i-double guh-err. The book is filled with them, over 200 mentions at least, by both black and white characters alike. There are also mentions of dirty A-rabs, but oddly enough, the South hasn't complained about that yet. The problem is, it's not racist. Huck sits there and struggles with the idea that he is helping a "runaway nigger" escape, deciding that he will tell the first man he sees and give him up. The moment he does, he begins to feel a heavy feeling, which he then tries to pray to God to get rid of. When he can't find the words to pray, he eventually decides that he'll go to Hell if he must, he is going to help his friend. While the book never explicitly advocates abolitionism, as Twain was still living in an era where that was a sensitive subject, the text seems like it was written almost to mock the characters who believed in slavery, doing it to expose the flaws in the thinking.

Aside from that, the book was damn funny. Aside from the brief forays into nautical pontificating, it went from one madcap adventure to the next. Here again, the racist angle was played for laughs. Jim and Huck discuss everything from the French language to the story of Solomon, with Jim's common sense crashing against Huck's Sunday school teachings. But the real laughs were saved for the pair of con men, the King and the Dauphin. A couple of swindlers bonded together by chance, they travel with Huck and Jim for a while, pulling stunt after stunt along the way. Just as every character in the book though, they get the ending they deserve. On the whole the Adventures managed to cast everything in a warm light, from murderous family feuds to alcoholism (which, admittedly, is played for laughs consistently). Some people argue that this book is a parable for childhood innocence against the world (by people, I mean the back of my edition of the book). But I say that any message that is taken out of it is purely invented. Just as Twain says in the opening, persons trying to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted, persons trying to find a moral in it will be banished, and persons trying to find a plot in it will be shot. And really, what could be more American than that?

9/10