Huckleberry

[LostInTyme]

I juss finish reedin' Huck Finn.
It wuz a powerful gud story,
set down by Huck's own words.

I say to reed dis here book,
cuz itza gudun'.
But, it probly don matter so much,
cuz nobody don reed much here innaways.​

 

[GHT]

View attachment 635242

I juss finish reedin' Huck Finn.
It wuz a powerful gud story,
set down by Huck's own words.

I say to reed dis here book,
cuz itza gudun'.
But, it probly don matter so much,
cuz nobody don reed much here innaways.​

Are you suggesting that our literacy is in question? You should teach us more betterly.

I am Shakespeare read you know. Let me recommend a good Shakespeare read:

 

[Tiki Tom]

Ah, yes. An American classic. Huckleberry Hound by Mark Twain.

 

[tonyb]

We’ve touched on TAOHF before. Some of us, me among them, argue that it’s not a children’s book, and not really for most “young adult” readers, either. I recall a now middle-aged nephew being assigned it in 8th(?) grade. He had difficulty enough deciphering Huck’s vernacular narrative, let alone the underlying theme. It has me wondering if the people assigning it really get it themselves.

 

[rogueclimber]

 

[Tiki Tom]

Hemingway claimed that American literature began with Huckleberry Finn. Twain brilliantly flipped the public morals of the period of which he was writing… and he did it without saying so in so many words. My favorite part was when Huck and Jim were drifting down the Mississippi on a raft. The river became a stand-in for time, eternity, god, and fate. Again, without it ever being said. Too bad Tom Sawyer reappeared and the ending became a little bit of a slapstick mess.

 

[tonyb]

Huck determining that if doing right by Jim was a terrible sin, seeing how Jim was Miss Watson’s property and not returning Jim to her amounted to stealing and stealing is a sin and Huck’s willing complicity in that sin means he’ll be going to Hell, well, he’ll just have to go to Hell, then.

That’s the nut of it. Huck and Jim both are of greater native intelligence and moral depth than all the other characters and the world they travel in.