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Fabian's Reviews > The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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THE Greatest American Novel?
Well...
No wonder the Spanish think themselves intellectually/culturally superior with their Quixote, undoubtedly a blueprint for this mischievous Every Boy! Huck Finn is the full embodiment of THE American Fantasy: mainly that dire misconception that the protagonist of the world is you and that everything gravitates around that essential nucleus. Everyone in town thinks Huck dead, and what does he do but follow the tradition of a plot folding unto itself (as Don Q finds his story become medieval pop culture in Part II of that superior novel) as he disguises himself as a little girl and tries to squeeze information out of some lady about his myth-in-the-making trek. It seems everyone cares for this vagrant, a perpetual Sancho P to Tom Sawyer's Quixote, whose redeemable features include (a pre-transcendental) openmindedness and an inclination to live only in the NOW. But the narrator, a very unreliable one at that, surrounds himself with bad bad men, playing the role of accomplice often, always safe and sound under the dragon's wing. Very American in his lemming mentality & in his misconceptions (though about his hometown and wilderness he knows much indeed).
So: disguise used as an integral plot device several times throughout; brawny men taking a boy hostage; nakedness by the riverbed; costume changes, improvised Shakespearean shows, men almost always described as "beautiful" (and women solely as "lovely")....
***GAY!!***
Yeah, it really is hard to discern the allegory behind all of this hype. The humor is obvious, but I have to admit that this picaresque novel about a boy who avoids "sivilization" at all costs is beaten mercilessly by a more modern, therefore more RELEVANT tale of the South, "Confederacy of Dunces." Although it must be admitted that "Huck Finn" does manage to surpass other often-praised classics, like the droll "Wuthering Heights."
Well...
No wonder the Spanish think themselves intellectually/culturally superior with their Quixote, undoubtedly a blueprint for this mischievous Every Boy! Huck Finn is the full embodiment of THE American Fantasy: mainly that dire misconception that the protagonist of the world is you and that everything gravitates around that essential nucleus. Everyone in town thinks Huck dead, and what does he do but follow the tradition of a plot folding unto itself (as Don Q finds his story become medieval pop culture in Part II of that superior novel) as he disguises himself as a little girl and tries to squeeze information out of some lady about his myth-in-the-making trek. It seems everyone cares for this vagrant, a perpetual Sancho P to Tom Sawyer's Quixote, whose redeemable features include (a pre-transcendental) openmindedness and an inclination to live only in the NOW. But the narrator, a very unreliable one at that, surrounds himself with bad bad men, playing the role of accomplice often, always safe and sound under the dragon's wing. Very American in his lemming mentality & in his misconceptions (though about his hometown and wilderness he knows much indeed).
So: disguise used as an integral plot device several times throughout; brawny men taking a boy hostage; nakedness by the riverbed; costume changes, improvised Shakespearean shows, men almost always described as "beautiful" (and women solely as "lovely")....
***GAY!!***
Yeah, it really is hard to discern the allegory behind all of this hype. The humor is obvious, but I have to admit that this picaresque novel about a boy who avoids "sivilization" at all costs is beaten mercilessly by a more modern, therefore more RELEVANT tale of the South, "Confederacy of Dunces." Although it must be admitted that "Huck Finn" does manage to surpass other often-praised classics, like the droll "Wuthering Heights."
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
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Reading Progress
March 3, 2011
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Started Reading
March 3, 2011
– Shelved
March 8, 2011
–
Finished Reading
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Terri
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Mar 09, 2011 07:56AM
I agree-I was never enamored with it, tho it was in the back of my mind that I was supposed to be. I liked the abridged version I read in the 3rd grade, because I was 8! I read the complete book in college and it was a chore....
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I guess I am a bigger fan of the deep South than I thought! How have you been?
I think of Huck Finn as a half masterpiece. Before Tom shows up, it is pure wonder.
I'm good. How are you? We need to get together and catch up this Spring...
Perhaps WAN, as in Worst American Novel.
Haven't read it in ages, but Twain did write better (especially later on).
Greg Z- ... seriously? No.
About done reading it now, and I'm not sure I actually ever did read it before, or else my opinion has gone up considerably since decades ago. Also, Huck's decision to rescue Jim (well then, I'll be an evil person if that's what saving my friend makes me) _is_ important, as is Tom's characteristic decision that somehow they live in a Dumas novel- but that Jim - a slave, supposedly at the time the lowest rank of their society - is worthy of being the hero of the piece and the rescuee. (As is the logic the author that the author has them get to those places. Whether it's convincing or overcomes suspension of disbelief is another matter. ... It works for me.)
