Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a book inspired by the Antebellum South, where the strange institution of slavery was viciously defended, and whites were taught to view blacks as lesser beings. As many know, it is about the adventures of a boy and an escaped slave on the Mississippi River, and about the mental journey that Huck undergoes to view Jim as an equal. In my opinion, its fame is well deserved, for the book is extremely well written, as well as engaging.
I enjoyed reading Huckleberry Finn because it was well written and engaging. Twain’s writing style is friendly and familiar, although the dialect can be difficult to get through (when I first tried to read Huck Finn in 8th grade, after reading Tom Sawyer, I gave up around when the King and the Duke appeared). Twain has the rare gift of forcing readers to live with the characters, even if the setting and situations are completely different from what the readers have ever experienced themselves. The exact issue at hand, slavery, has ceased to be a central issue to America today, but the struggle between what Huckleberry has been taught is right and what he knows in his heart is right is still very relevant.
Compared to other works of the same time period, Mark Twain’s writing is concise and easier to read, because while he may have been paid by the word, he didn’t write as though trying to get as many words as possible into his book. His word choice is appropriate for his subject matter, and the characters never seem to speak awkwardly – again, Mark Twain is a master of dialect. What really made the book stand out 150 years ago was not his writing style, however fantastic and unique it may be. Instead, it was his ability to take on a very controversial subject without preaching or hateful writing. This subject, although no longer a focal point of politics, is still a tender one in the American eye. Mark Twain’s book was recently re-written (read: censored) to exclude the word “nigger” and replace it with “slave.” The re-write has been the focus of much debate, and shows that Twain’s novel is still controversial; even now that slavery has ended over a century ago.
If readers look to the newly released version of Huck Finn to give them literary swank without needing to brave hate language, they may wish to read Tom Sawyer instead. After all, the book is exactly the same as the original, only missing the “n-word”. As such, Jim is still beaten and chained, treated like a thing rather than a human being, and hunted for like an animal, but he is never called any names (except, of course, for the arguably worse title of “slave”). Huckleberry Finn is a book that will make you angry, and it will make you sad, and it will make you ashamed for what once was. It’s certainly not a book for light reading. It will also make you laugh (Says Jim: Is a Frenchman a dog, or a cow? If he’s a man, why doesn’t he talk like one?), however, and it is a book that everyone ought to read. (If everyone in the world had read the same book, we’d all have something to talk about at those awkward parties. Icebreaker? Huckleberry Finn, of course!) It’s a story that will stir your emotions, which is really the most important thing for a book to do.
Read Huckleberry Finn. It’s a fantastic book that’s somehow managed to remain entertaining, engaging, and relevant for longer than most. The only dissappointment you’ll face is at the end, when you’ll have to wonder if Mark Twain sold out to what I’m sure were the demands of periodical readers that read Tom Sawyer and wanted more of the same. If you pretend that the end is the famous, “Fine – I’ll go to hell!” line, and you still drudge up some discontenment, please tell me what it was and let me argue with you.
