The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mark TwainEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Published: 2008-08-20
ISBN: 1438245416
Number of pages: 202
Publisher: CreateSpace
Book Reviews of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Book Review: Neither fish (a young adult romp) nor fowl (a coherent serious literary achievement) but entertaining and thought-provoking
Summary: 4 Stars
Like many people growing up in the US, I read THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN as an obligatory assignment at school. No one likes obligatory reading, and it was like water off a duck's back. Regretting that I remembered nothing of the novel, I recently re-read it, and I found it entertaining reading, and also much more for a grown-up audience than I expected. Of course the book was only started as a sequel to Twain's novel for boys THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER before being turned towards much more serious themes, such as child abuse and the conflicts in antebellum southern society. But even much of the novel's humour is intended for older readers, requiring some knowledge of European history and of Shakespeare.
The book's status as one of the Great American Novels is curious when it paints so bleak a picture of America. Any signs of refined culture among these inhabitants of the Mississippi comes not even for the East Coast but from Europe. For all of Twain's love of the land--indeed, the Mississippi River is itself a character--he was clearly a cosmopolitan figure by this point. Or perhaps the praise of America is subtle, as it is a portrait of a land free of aristocracy (the characters who call themselves the "king" and "duke" are scoundrels), and the novel is written in the honest vernacular of country people.
The novel cannot in any way be considered a perfect work of literature when it is an arc that soars towards quality only in the middle. The opening pages are still in the realm of children's literature, while the final section reads as a tiresome parody with far too much serendipity to be believable. For that reason I've rated it four stars.
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