The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Timeless Classics

Twain’s travel narrative is quite beautiful. The characterization of the river will strike anyone but especially those who grew up near water. It is also an excellent example of the social struggles present at the time.

Had to read this long long ago as a high school assignment. Rereading it is much more meaningful now than then.

I really do love this book but those final chapters really make me angry at Mark Twain. Here we have Huck's big revelation that he'll go to hell to save his friend Jim from slavery after the duke and the king sell him out for a bit of whiskey money then who takes over the book but good ol' Tom Sawyer. All of Huck's progress as a character is thrown out the window for Tom Sawyer's crazy schemes for Adventure. Huck has lived the adventure while Tom is merely pretending, having no idea what horrific scenarios Huck has seen that came with the price of said adventure. To free Jim would be a straight forward plan in Huck's mind but Tom has to romanticize it that puts Jim, Huck, and himself in danger. Then Huck and the reader finds out due to Miss. Watson freeing Jim in her will that all of it was for nothing. Does Huck get angry at his friend Tom Sawyer over this fact like a older boy would after seeing people kill each other for reasons they can't remember, a man kill a innocent drunkard in cold blood, two crooks swindle people out of their hard earn money, and grown to see a person who society says isn't a person become a friend and a father figure? Nope, Huck just accepts this as everything is resolved nicely. Thus the failure of those final chapters of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Yes, yes…this is another instance of not having yet read a book virtually everyone in the English speaking world had read when they were young. Yet it is true…I had never before this past week read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

In this case I am glad I hadn’t read it before. Having grown up with the Disney-ification of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer I am convinced had I read this as a youth, it would not have made any more an impression on me than any other book of adventure. Having now read it as an adult I can appreciate the biting social and political commentary contained within the story. Themes of slavery and freedom, gender roles, the role of religious worship, class and regional distinctions, and competing economic systems are all contained in the prose….wrapped within a humorous, and exciting adventure story.

I would absolutely love it if a movie were made of this that was actually true to the book; one that explored all of these themes and didn’t shy away from the ugliness Huck and Jim encounter on their adventure. Coen brothers…are you listening? :)

Check. That's how I feel about this book -- I've read it now, so can cross it off the list.Not sure why I found this one hard going compared to Tom Sawyer. I had expected them to be about the same in terms of difficulty, but Huck Finn has so many plot twists -- might I even dare suggest it sags in the middle? Were huge coincidences more accepted in fiction back in the day, or were huge coincidences actually more likely in a smaller population? I'm talking about the coincidence of Huck meeting up with Jim, and the even bigger coincidence later of Huck turning up at Tom Sawyer's auntie and uncle's house. Then there's the coincidence of meeting up with a whole string of baddies. Were there really that many bad people around to be met?I don't know. All of this is background noise, to a story written by a man with progressive politics. Now I really don't understand all that fuss about the frequent use of 'nigger'. Better instead to turn our aggravation towards stories such as Dead Wood, in which the language is all wrong for the time period. Nothing wrong with 'fuck', but no one talked like that back then, so why insert it? If the word 'nigger' was the word for Huck Finn's time period, then we are obliged to use it. If I never read this as a kid I can see why, despite its always adorning our bookshelves -- the phonetically reproduced dialogue is quite tough to understand for a child of the antipodes. Then there's the different word usage. Not sure I would've known enough about American history or what 'vittles' meant. Honestly, I loved Little House On The Prairie but at no stage did I have an education on how white people entered the American West. Likewise, nothing was ever said at school about American slavery. So I guess it's no wonder I only just got around to reading books like this.

Published, 1885, first published in UK, 1884I listened to the audio read by B. J. HarrisonI thought I had read this before, but now that I have reread it (or not), I can’t say that I remember a thing. This is an adventure, a quest, of Huckleberry Finn, a poor motherless boy with a drunken father who beats him and his adventure on the Mississippi River with the runaway slave, Jim. Jim is running away from slavery because he fears being sold south but ironically Jim and Huck head off, going further and further into slave country as they go down the river. OPENING LINE: You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but that ain't no matter.QUOTES: "All right, then, I'll go to hell"- and tore it up.”CLOSING LINE: I been there before.The importance of this book is that it is the first American novel written in the vernacular of the characters living in the area along the river. It is a story about slavery but was written after slavery was abolished. It is a satire of entrenched racism. This book has been banned and may even still be banned because of its language and use of the racial slur “nigger” or more politely said, “the n word”. The book really is antiracist. Huckleberry Finn spends time on the raft with Jim who he promises not to turn in. Huck feels he is sinning by not turning in the runaway and finally reconciles by saying “all right, then, I’ll go to hell”. While on the raft, Huck gets to know a black man. MY REACTION: as I said in the beginning, I was surprised not to remember anything about this book. I must have only read Tom Sawyer. so glad I decided to reread. I think it is definitely a young person’s novel. I liked the first part best, the trip with Jim down the river and I liked the part least where Tom joins Huck and play the prank on Tom’s relatives. The use of the “n” word is so frequent and with our current awareness that this word is distasteful, it was distracting. Because it is a classic adventure story that occurs on the Mississippi River, I do think it holds a special place in American literature. What I liked best was the River, the Mississippi River is such a great river character in literature. I rated it 3 stars, mostly for enjoyment factor, I think it just didn’t work as well as it would have would I have been reading it in sixth grade.

This book adapts the story of Huckleberry Finn’s journey down the river for low-level readers, while keeping intact the characters and themes that have made the story a classic. Greatly simplified, the book would be a useful tool for teaching basic reading skills, while exposing the reader to cultural reference points and preparing them to tackle the original novel once their reading level has improved. The adapted story progresses much more quickly than the original, decreasing the chance that struggling readers’ interest will be overshadowed by the effort of reading the text. The quicker pacing can feel awkward at times, but so much that it would confuse or distract the reader. A few black and white illustrations throughout provide breaks from the text, alleviating readers’ fatigue. Chapters are a few pages long, and each page contains about fifteen large-print lines. Paragraphs are composed of several short sentences, which usually have only one or two simple clauses. Because of its clear storytelling and simplified language and structure, this adaptation is a useful introduction to classic literature for readers who are not ready for the original novel. It is a solid educational tool for remedial older readers as well as precocious younger ones. Table of contents. Recommended. Grades 5-12.

Probably my number one book of all time. The language, the voice, the stories, the sense of what it means to be an American.

I liked this book a lot. The experience of encapsulating every chapter into a poem was a fun but challenging experience. Twain had a lot more than just a kids book in mind when he wrote this book. He was writing to all people who were caught up in the political question of the time: "Should one leave slavery alone, or do something about this issue?"

I however, did grow tired of Tom and felt like grabbing him by the lapels and screaming, "Grow up Kid!" But it was merely a book, and Tom Sawyers merely a fictional character, so I restrained myself.

This book is an astute answer to the political cross hairs of the nineteenth century.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Lots of humor. The travels of Huck Finn and the free slave, Jim down the Mississippi River and they hook up with Tom Sawyer at his aunts and uncles house.

Author Mark TwainTitle Adventures of Huck FinnIllustrator nonePublisher Dover PublicationsDate 1994Page numbers 224Short Summary: This book is about Huck he is not thrilled with his new life of cleanliness manners church or even going to school. Tom Sawyer tells him in order to take part in Tom's new robber gang Huck must stay respectable. All is good until Huck's drunk of a father Pap repapers in town and wants Huck's money. The Judge judge Thatcher tries to get custody of Huck. Huck father beats him takes him out to the woods and beats him. Huck fakes his death by killing a pig and leaving the blood all over the place he is on this island and after a few days of being on this island he comes across Jim who is black. These two become friends throughout this while book.Tags and subject headings would be friendship and not judging people.My Response: I liked this book I thought it did a very good job of how people shouldn't judge people just because of the color of their skin. This book shows loyal friendship throughout.

In seinem berühmtesten Werk lässt Mark Twain die bereits aus seinem Roman "Tom Sawyers Abenteuer" bekannten Figuren erneut auftreten. Diesmal ist die Geschichte in der Ich-Perspektive aus Sicht des ungebildeten, am Rande der Gesellschaft lebenden Huckleberry Finn verfasst. Dieser reisst von zu Hause vor seinem alkoholkranken und prügelnden Vater aus und reist gemeinsam mit dem entlaufenen Negersklaven Jim auf einem Floß den Mississippi flußabwärts. Dabei bestehen die beiden zahlreiche Abenteuer und werden in diverse Gaunereien verwickelt anlässlich derer Huckleberry Finn immer wieder Gelegenheit bekommt, sein grundgutes Wesen zu offenbaren.Sprachlich bemerkenswert ist,dass sämtliche Protagonisten nicht in der Hochsprache sondern in ihren eigenen Dialekten, quasi so wie ihnen der Schnabel gewachsen ist, sprechen. Twain sorgt so für Authenzität zu Lasten der Lesbarkeit. Die aus Sicht eines die (Erwachsenen)-Welt gerade erst entdeckenden, staunenden Kindes gezogenen Rückschlüsse sowie satirische Seitenhiebe des Autors bringen den Leser immer wieder zum Schmunzeln. Trotzdem hat mich das Werk nicht überzeugt, zu hanebüchen sind die geschilderten Abenteuer und Wendungen.

I grew up just a few miles south of Hannibal, Missouri, one of the many towns in the US that calls itself Mark Twain's hometown. In third grade, our class trip was to Mark Twain Cave, where the tour tells about Tom Sawyer's fictional adventures in the cave. In college, I got a summer job as a tour guide in Hannibal, MO, riding on a trolley and telling stories about Mark Twain, the cave, the river, and other interesting points of interest. As a result, I know a bit about Tom Sawyer. However, Huck Finn didn't figure into the tour much. After all, Huck leaves Hannibal near the beginning of his book, taking off down the Mississippi River with an escaped slave named Jim. So it was fun to revisit this book. I remembered very few of the details of Huck's adventures, but fell right back into Mark Twain's comic and observant writing style. Huck is a resourceful boy, which is good because he is always getting into trouble. I found myself wishing that Huck would learn from his previous adventures occasionally because he always seemed to be getting into the same scrapes. But his relationship with Jim develops as they go down the river on a raft together with Jim looking out for Huck even when Huck doesn't realize it. This made me want to revisit Tom Sawyer, which I have read in years, and maybe branch out into some of Mark Twain's other stories.