Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Author: Mark Twain
First Published: 1884
Edition I read: Project Gutenberg ebook
Pages: ~360
My summary: To cut things very short, Huckleberry Finn, a boy living in poverty in Missouri runs away from his father. He is shortly joined by a runaway slave, Jim, and the two have various adventures whilst sailing up and down the Mississippi River.
What to say about the Great American Novel? Well, firstly, I really liked the edition I read - the Project Gutenberg ebook which had the original line drawings scanned in. I had heard of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn before I was assigned it, but I had never read it before. My impression is that if I had been educated in the US, I would have been nearly unable to avoid it at some point. I would be interested in fact to hear what some Americans think of it, as it clearly an important book in the literary history of that country.
My impressions were generally positive. It was a good romp of a story - Huckleberry Finn is a lively character and you definitely find yourself rooting for him through his adventures. I thought I wouldn't like him at first but he grew on me throughout the novel. This was partially due to his ingenious ways of getting out of tough situations (for example, faking his own death to escape his abusive, alcoholic father) and partially because his morals clearly improved as the story went on. He and Jim, the runaway slave, fall in with two conmen and Huck gradually moves to a growing distaste for their activities, which Twain depicts well. In addition, the arrival of Tom Sawyer at the end of the novel, and his subsequent actions, throw Huck's behaviour into a better light (I haven't read the Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but apparently this one is more adult and looks at darker subject matter than that book - certainly, Tom's character here doesn't leave the reader with a favourable impression) but I won't say any more about that to avoid ruining the denouement for anyone who hasn't read it.
The book is set in the Deep South before the Civil War and I think that Twain's descriptions of the hardships of life are very interesting. His use of regional dialects also helps to further push the location home. One of my favourite bits was when Huck fetches up at the large house of a rich family who are at war with their neighbours. He is taken under the wing of the son of the house, who is about his age (i.e. about 12) and who shows off his shotgun for shooting the neighbours. This episode ends with a massacre, as you would expect, and seems, from a modern perspective, a very archaic event. However, the book was published in 1884, so the author's depiction of antebellum Mississippi is an historical one.
Twain does, however, tackle the issue of racism in a way that was pretty new for the time period. Twain’s character, Jim, is shown as feeling emotions, having a desire to be free and a love for his wife and children. In general, he is depicted as a human. This was a step forward for literature at the time despite the controversy now surrounding the language Twain chose to use in describing him. However, although Jim is portrayed as kindly and protective of Huck, I have to say he was, to me, one of the flattest characters in the novel, rarely showing passion about anything, including his wife and children who are still trapped in slavery and mainly following Huck around as the leader of their pair.
So, should it be on the 1001 books list? Despite the controversies (which I think you have to accept in a novel written in a time of different sensibilities), I think my answer to that would be yes. It is clearly a book which touches on some important subjects and examines the sort of characters who had rarely been tackled in literature before that time. It definitely goes deeper than the children’s adventure story I initially imagined the book to be.