My introduction to the wry wit of Samuel Langhorne Clemens or Mark Twain happened around the age of eleven. I had sprained an ankle, so I was restricted to sitting and laying around for awhile. One of dad’s friends dropped by the house with the gift of a small stack of “young reader” books. Amongst the gems was an illustrated copy of Mark Twain’s Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn. I quickly fell in love with the story. It remains as one of my all time favorite books.
Right away, I strongly related to Finn’s character. Like me, he was unconventional. He wasn’t a stick in the mud, status quo loving sort of guy. I picked up, right away, that Huckleberry was a little bit naughty, but not at all a bad kid. I liked that he questioned society’s rules and wasn’t really sold on authority figures. Later in my life, I realized that Finn was really Mark Twain in a superficial disguise.
Twain, through Huckleberry and his pal Tom Sawyer, revealed that the accepted moralism of society was oftentimes wrong headed and harmful. That was when I fell in love with Samuel Clemens. I loved and envied that Finn and Sawyer lived a raw, unvarnished, frank life that I was not able to live in conservative, 1960s America. I felt the craving for a simple life like that deep in my guts.
At various life crossroads, I found myself picking up my old copies of Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer books. They inspired that bit of impishness I needed to be a part of whatever social movement needed my help. Because I was a painfully shy boy, Finn helped push me out of my shell. For that, alone, I’ll be eternally thankful to Clemens.
There’s still a big part of me that’s unable to mesh with the Huckleberry Finn ideal. I guess that’s what literary archetypes are meant to do, leave some room for growth. If I had been more mentally aware as a teen, I would have probably grown up to be more like Finn and Sawyer. I have the suspicion that many other guys feel the same way.
One major attribute that Finn passed to me early, is the scathing aversion to entrenched attitudes like bigotry and racism. The phony aristocracy of the old south was mercilessly raked over the coals in the book. I ate up every morsel like it was candy. The language and tone of the book made these aspects even more appealing to boys like me.
A few years ago Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was sanitized to please the more prudish members of the education establishment. I don’t think they understood the backhanded manner in which intolerance was lampooned. The elimination of the “n” word in the school-worthy versions is a travesty. The vernacular of the period is one of the strengths of the book. To compromise it is silly.
The meeting of Huckleberry and the runaway slave, Jim is the part of the book that grabs most readers. Huck’s inner conflict as to whether to turn in Jim as a fugitive of slavery or not is brilliant. The blooming friendship that develops between the two, gives depth to Huckleberry’s opinions and ethical values about life.
The episode in which Huck crossdresses to spy on the makeshift posse out to capture Jim is classic Twain. The twisted scene is at once hilarious and tension filled. The woman from whom Finn questions about news of the manhunt figures out the crossdressing ruse, but lets Finn believe his charade was successful. The scene is quite memorable.
The fact that Adventures of Huckleberry Finn dealt with America’s dysfunctional relationships of freedom vs. slavery and the continuing problem of racism makes the book as relevant today as it was in Clemens’ day. In fact, I think it’s time for me to dust off my copy of the book again.
Ciao
The Blue Jay of Happiness shares this excerpt with you: “When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a coarse shirt and a roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him he started to tell me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when the candle went out. I said I didn’t know; I hadn’t heard about it before, no way.”
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