Finished Huckleberry Finn

Here we are on Super Bowl Sunday. And as I don't really care a rip for the Giants or the Patriots (but I would like to see the perfect season spoiled), I finished up Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Like Tom Sawyer, it was full of humor (especially poking fun at superstition) and excellent character development. The story was a lot different than Sawyer though. It seemed more like a series of unconnected stories. Admittedly, they were all pretty good stories, told from Huck's perspective. I daresay that the only boy craftier or more sly in all of history (real or fictional) than Huck Finn is Tom Sawyer. Though Huck is a far sight more self-reliant.

Most of the story involves Huck leaving the civilizing influences of the widow and Miss Watson and going back to his vagabond ways. That is, until his drunken ol' Pap shows up, looking to take advantage of Huck. Huck finally outwits the old man and goes on the run with Jim, an escaped slave of Miss Watson's. Now Huck was a boy of his time and certainly condescended to Jim (and his race) many times, but there was never any question that Huck considered Jim his friend and did what he could to help him get to freedom (though it takes some roundabout paths). The rest of the book captures their adventures with Mississippi River con men, feuding families reminiscent of the Hatfields and McCoys, and quite a few other folks on and along the river. I certainly hope I never come down with the "pluribus unum mumps." I'm happy to report, there is a Tom Sawyer sighting in the book. Dear Tom, never one to go with an easy, straightforward, fool-proof plan when he can think up a wonderfully complicated scheme with plenty of opportunity for failure.

In all, I think the book is considered great because it provides a snapshot of what life on the antebellum Mississippi was like. Raftsmen, traders, steamboats, plantation owners, slaves, drunks, preachers, layabouts, farmers, and good upstanding citizens are all represented. Also, as in Tom Sawyer, Twain works in the dialect of the time and area so well that you can just hear every word spoken.

Slavery, of course, plays a driving part in the story. It's obvious that Twain was no fan of slavery, but he demonstrated how a white person of the time could be conflicted about it. Moreover, Huck makes his decision to go against the rules of the time and help Jim, his friend, even though he was sure he'd go to Hell for it. The book also has one of the statements I've felt most conflicted about in all of my reading. After talking about how he'd squandered away 40 dollars, Jim says, "Yes-en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn't want no mo'." Jim seems to realize that his freedom is worth quite a lot, but it damn near makes you cry that he places the value of that freedom in the context of the slave trade's economic system. Further, it's damn sad that he seems to be willing to sell himself into indentured servitude for that same pittance. But again, I think this is Twain showing how the slave system penetrated into all ranks of society, regardless of race.

Huck Finn is clearly a deeper novel than Tom Sawyer. However, I will say that it's just not as fun as Tom Sawyer either. Both novels though, I believe, have rightfully established spots in the canon of American literature.