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Summary: A great critical analysis accompanies this wonderful story
Review: There has been a lot of controversy over this book from the time it was first published until the present day. It has been banned in schools and public libraries, but has somehow managed to survive and remains one of the greatest examples of American writing. In it, Twain tells the story of a young boy's journey to maturity, during which he learns more about life than society could ever teach him and takes the first steps toward gaining a freedom of thought that he never had before. Huck is a young man who flees the confining spaces of the Widow Douglas' home and seeks freedom on a raft floating down the Mississippi. (For an account of his previous exploits, see "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.") Along the way, he meets up with Jim, an escaped slave, and together the two fugitives set out trying to find the freedom they so desperately desire. They experience many comic misunderstandings as well as real danger, and emerge from the experiences changed in profound ways. The book is a poignant look at the process of growing up and learning to determine right from wrong. This edition contains critical writing which can help explain some of the more problematic or controversial aspects of the work. As an example of some of the finest writing produced by an American, it has earned its place in both literary history and homes around the world.
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Summary: Mark Twain's Satirical Masterwork
Review: Mark Twain uses satire throughout HUCKLEBERRY FINN in order to comment on every institution that wielded weight in nineteenth century society: slavery,the family, tradition, the aristocracy, and those who took advantage of others' devotion to these institutions. This employment of satire is subtly woven in and appears in the various shades of hue on the satirical spectrum. Twain's ability to dip into the whole spectrum is usually not fully realized by the reader. Usually, the light satire bears the cheerful name of "humor" and the most deeply hued the beetle-browed visage of "social criticism." However, Twain, most of the time,mixed his draughts ever so slightly and the most stern passages have humor bubbling out and the most light the undergrowth of serious criticism. When Huck gives Jim lessons on kings and the French language, the obvious intention is that of a funny passage. However,by the end, the reader is hit with the with the lightning realization that Jim has used great arguing skills laced with good common sense to oust the ivy-covered oracles of culture and the Bible. Twain sharpens this velvet-coated satire when Jim upbraids Huck for pulling the prank on him the night of the fog and treating him as if his feelings were of no account. After the gleeful commencement of the scene, the reader is suddenly awash with the sense of this "joke" from Jim's standpoint as Huck realizes he must apologize. This device of beguiling the reader by humor and then revealing the implications of that situation and its dehumanizing consequences is frequently used by Twain, This is the very essence of realism for in life there are few characters or institutions which wear an unmistakable, unchangeable face. Twain uses the child as his narrator because the child's perceptions best encapsulate this ambiguity of life and the impossiblity of correlating the surface with the core. The Grangerford's parlor seems to Huck to be a awesome display of extravagant possessions. The reader laughs smugly only to be caught aback with Huck as tradition and family unity move from the parlor to the brutal massacre by the river. Similarly, the encounter with the King and the Duke is not all it first seems to be. When the con men mangle Shakespeare and don bogus titles, the reader laughs and laughs harder as they don yet more titles in order to bilk the Wilkes girls out of their inheritance. Howver, all of a sudden, the behavior of these humorous buffoons begins to affect people in serious ways. They viciously threaten Huck, sell Jim, and intend to leave the girls penniless without a qualm. The mask is torn away. In just such a way, Tom Sawyer's notions from romance and adventure books abruptly lose their air of good fun when they involve very real danger and Jim's freedom. Probably, the one time time that Twain does not mix the bitter with the sweet is in the depiction of the Bogg-Sherburn duel. Here is found the purest strain of social criticism. The tone is consistently heavy, and yet the philosophy of the thing is a study in the ambiguity of life yet again. Sherburn shoots a man in cold blood, remorselessly, with the sanction of aristocratic privilege. Yet, when he cows the lynch mob, this coward and murderer tells the truth. He can base his own actions on the most wicked and useless of traditions and still accurately blast the traditions in Southern history and "justice" which bolster the lynch mob. Thus, Twain uses satire as his unifying force in HUCKLEBERRY FINN. He amuses, informs, preaches and shocks--all in one breath.
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Summary: The Reluctant Classic
Review: _Huckleberry Finn_ has become, to paraphrase one of Mark Twain's many aphorisms, a classic---one of those imposing literary edifices that many feel they should read but haven't. I struggled with the novel for years, flipping through it at age twelve (expecting another _Tom Sawyer_) and giving up shortly after Jim and Huck amble down the river. Several subsequent efforts failed. It wasn't until I took a college course on American Literature that I finally read _Huck Finn_ the whole way through. The novel is a masterpiece, a flawed masterpiece but a masterpiece nonetheless. Much of it is instantly memorable, and maybe that's part of the problem, because Huck the character, like Don Quixote and Holden Caulfield and a host of others, has become bigger than the book---this boy is ever present in the collective consciousness, and anything that looms so prominently is bound to deflect the very real rewards and virtues of the book itself. That is where the Norton critical edition comes in handy. Here, the Huck we've heard about is explained, put into context---the long passage in the heart of the Mississippi is given nuance and analysis, with the text itself complimented by Twain's letters and thoughts on the act of composition. _Huckleberry Finn_ is turned back into book, and a very good book at that, with its leisurely pace, its endless sidetracks, and its puzzling ending all threading together into a sensible, coherent, but still magical structure. It's a very good novel. It's also a very tough novel, the kind that requires all the help you can get, and the Norton edition certainly gives it to you.
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Summary: Excellent reading
Review: This book is superb in a number of ways, including good storytelling, fine characters, a coherent plot, commentary on human nature and society, as well as a remarkably fine display of the various dialects heard in the south. I enjoyed reading it in gradeschool because of the interesting adventures Huck had, and I enjoyed reading it as an adult for all the reasons mentioned in the last sentence. This is one of the best novels I've come across, and deserves repeated readings.
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Summary: An American Classic? or A Racist Novel?
Review: Is "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" a racist novel? It certainly does not portray Jim in a very favorable light in the last few chapters especially after he had been portrayed as a warm, loving human being in the middle of the novel. But just because the book seems to fall apart after Chapter 31 doesn't make it a failure and it certainly is not a racist novel. Just consider Twain's use of Pap, of all the people he could have chosen, as the spokesman for white superiority as he denounces the black college professor from Ohio; who looks ridiculous? Pap, of course; the drunken, child abusing bum who contributes nothing to his society except bad breath after he drinks, who considers himself superior to Jim solely on the basis of his skin color. There are also many other instances in the novel that clearly show how Twain uses Huck's willingness to test things out early in the novel(remember his testing out of Miss Watson's ideas about prayer and also Tom Sawyer's story about the genie and the lamp?) to prepare us for his growth in love for Jim the black slave, whom he comes to love enough to go to hell for rather than allow him to remain in captivity. Huck gradually learns to have feelings for Jim, feelings that his society told him were wrong, and he also learns to accept the fact that Jim has the same feelings for his own family as a white person does. Huck says, "It don't seem natural, but I guess it's so." Is he grudgingly admitting this here? No, no more than Twain himself is grudgingly writing about it. Is the book a racist book? Hardly. It is a book about the stupidity of racism, a major problem still in our society today, but one that hopefully one day will be wiped away just as Huck's was by the time Twain wrote Chapter 31. What happens after that chapter is a disappointment perhaps, since Jim reverts to the subservient slave he had been early in the novel, and Huck lets Tom take over, but at the end, when Huck rejects Aunt Sally's offer to adopt him and 'sivilize' him, he decides to light out for the territory; if what he has experienced in the white adult world is civilization, he wants no more of it. He is probably a lot like Biff Loman at the end of Death of a Salesman, who, having recognized the falseness of his father's dreams, rejects the crazy city of New York and heads out for his own territory. Both characters are reborn at the end of the respective works. But Tom Sawyer and Happy Loman have learned nothing from their experiences; Happy is going to stick it out in the big city and show them that Willy Loman did not die in vain; Tom Sawyer even gets shot in his game of escape but he wears the bullet around his neck as a badge of honor. Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman" calls for us to reassess our values and to know who we are; but Mark Twain had Huck do the same nearly a century before.
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Summary: Mark Twain can't write a good book.
Review: Whatever you do do not read this book. It's long, it's really hard to read, and the story just flat out sucks. A lot of people say that this book is packed with meaning, BUT IT'S NOT. Mark Twain wrote a stupid story about a boy and a slave floating down the mississsippi. THAT SOUNDS REALLY INTERESTING!! Yea right. This book is a big waste of time, it should be out-lawed from our schools, because Twain likes to use the "N" word a lot. This book in my opinion, should get the "Turkey of the Century" award. A big book B-B-Q, should be devoted to all the copies in print.
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Summary: The best book you will ever read!
Review: I have read this book 3 times, read it to my siblings 1 time and have it read to me 1 time, that makes 5 times I have heard it and everytime I love it even more! This is the best book in the world, I think that everyone should read it, and there are even childrens copys of it for the young reader, it is the best book you will ever see, read, or hear!
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Summary: The Lonely Thinkingness of Huck Finn
Review: This book is bigger than the Mississippi, bigger than school boards that would ban it, bigger than contemporary critics who would snuff it. Read it and wonder at the loneliness of Huck Finn, the cultures and traditions that embrace ignorance and racism, the hopefulness of Jim in a society that values only him as a slave. You Charles Dickens fans will hear echoes of Great Expectations. But above all else, read it as a Story. It's one of the Best.
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Summary: This book is an American classic!
Review: On a scale from one to ten, I give "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" a ten because it is a well written book and creatively assembled. Mark Twain is among the top ten American authors, writing classics such as "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer."
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Summary: But It's BANNED!!!!!
Review: I'll be the first to admit that I read this book simply because it was on the Banned Book List, and I happen to have a copy of it lying around the house so I decided to see what the fuss was about. I shouted at the characters, I laughed, and putting it bluntly, I just plain enjoyed myself. I see why it was banned, since the N-word was used so frequently, but considering the time and place that the story takes place, no one with any kind of common sense should be upset because of it. The book tells the story of Huckleberry Finn, and young boy and the adventures he has when he is travelling down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave, Jim. The book is a serial of the troubles and the good times that Huck and Jim have on their adventures. And what adventures they are too. From Huck escaping his father to the last adventure with Jim. It's more of a truth that America has yet to completely heed. Accurate, funny, and wise, it is a book to be handed down and read.
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