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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Audiobook10 hours

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Written by Mark Twain

Narrated by Dick Hill

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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About this audiobook

From the pen of America's master, Mark Twain, comes this classic and beloved story of boyhood freedom.

When we first met "the pariah of the village…the son of the drunkard" in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom was "under strict orders not to play with him," so he played with him every time he got the chance. Twain took his most outrageous and outcast character (and perhaps the one he loved the most), Huckleberry Finn, from that timeless tale and wrote his own adventures.

This giant work, in addition to entertaining boys and girls for generations, has defined the first-person novel in America and continues to demand study, inspire reverence, and stir controversy in our time.

This novel is part of Brilliance Audio's extensive Classic Collection, bringing you timeless masterpieces that you and your family are sure to love.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateJan 27, 2015
ISBN9781491553374
Author

Mark Twain

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book was a good book about morality and growing up. Throughout the book Huck Finn matures and really grows into a respectable young man. Huck runs into many problems. He has money of his own, but his drunk father wants to take it from him. When he is finally given a safe home, he doesn't feel comfortable because he is so used to not being treated right. After his dad locks him up in their home, he runs away with a slave. Huck constantly questions society and realizes how wrong the mistreatment of Jim is. The story is long, but good. It teaches many lessons and is a great tale of growing up.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I have always enjoyed the humor of Mark Twain but have only read two of his novels.I had started this book a few times but never got interested in it and put it down. This time I started by listening to an audio version and finished it by going back and forth between audio and print.I enjoyed the book very much. It was originally an adventure story for young adults and now it is a classic of American historical fiction showing warts and all what this country was like.Reading the book helped me to appreciate how important the Mississippi River was in shaping the lives of millions of Americans since that area was settled. The river is a focal point for the action in the book and the lives of the characters in the book are intertwined together around the river. For me one of the most pleasant scenes in the book was Huck and Jim on the raft floating down the river at night looking up at the stars.The characters in the book are a cross sample of the people who lived beside and traveled on the river in that time period. Miss Watson, Aunt Polly and the Judge are examples of upright solid citizens and on the other end of the spectrum are Huck's Pap and the King and the Duke. Huckleberry Finn was my favorite character. Huck seemed pretty smart, a good friend, mostly honest and always trying to do the right thing if he could. The more I read about him the more complex and likable I found him.I don't think that Tom Sawyer holds a candle to Huck. Tom is well meaning but he gets real silly at times and everything in his world seems all about him and his crazy ideas.The author does an excellent job of making the reader a participant in Huck's adventures. The writing is clear and concise and the varied dialects add spice to the story. The main story is about Huck and Jim running away from Huck's Pap and Miss Watson. As this is proceeding there are various sidetracks that keep the story moving well. I was never sure how things would work out until the end but I always had a feeling from the author's tone in telling the story that all of the dangers would be overcome. The last adventure which is a Tom Sawyer special is a real hoot that gets funnier the more I think about it.Jim was portrayed as a good person but his character, the fact that he was a slave and always referred to as a nigger brought out the ugliness of racism in America. Jim was very childlike in his speech and his thoughts. An important aspect of American racism was that African-Americans didn't have the abilities of whites and needed to be taken care of. I grew up in an era when the word nigger was still used and I had to teach myself not to use it. Even when I hear it used by black people it is a derogatory term with offensive connotations. The worst part is that I cannot say that the author goes out of his way to be offensive or that his portrayal is not accurate. That is the way things were and I sometimes wonder if all the death and destruction of the Civil War wasn't the price that was paid for the shame of it all.All seriousness aside I thought this was a really good book and one I would consider to have the necessary attributes of a classic. There was adventure, joy, suspense and a happy ending. I look forward to reading some more of Mr. Twain's novels and reading this book again.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Audiobook. The narration was good, but I didn't care all that much for the story. I preferred Tom Sawyer's story to Huck's.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    What’s to even be said about this book? It’s Twain’s greatest accomplishment. It manages to undertake a variety of difficult themes (i.e. race relations) and make it possible for a seventeen year old to not only understand it, but be inspired by it.

    Down with censorship. Twain wrote what he meant. He was probably smarter than you, PTA president-soccer mom-Volvo-driving-bitch.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain was good, but not great book. I would give this book a 7 out of 10. The book was funny, sometimes full of suspense, and even find yourself getting involved in the book.This book was written in a text that I struggled with greatly Sometimes had to read outloud to understand. The text of this book is written of constant misspellings.The text gets easier as you read. The reason why it is written like this is because Mark Twain wanted to write as people spoke. Also, this is supposed to be written by Huck and Huck hasn't had a lot of schooling. "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" got a 7 out of 10. The book is about a boy name Huck. He has ran away from home is rafting down the Mississippi with a ruanaway slave named Jim. On their trip down the mighty Mississippi, they have many strange encounter. The book, in my opinion, had some really boring parts. Such as the beginning because it is full of background information and is giving subtle clues to what is going to happen. Don't worry though because it gets better. Once Huck and Jim get on the river the story starts to pick up. The adventures get intense and sometimes nail-biting. This is why "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" got a 7 out of 10.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I "reread" this book on audio, narrated by Elijah Wood.

    I haven't read this since high school and I thought it would be fun to listen to, and it was. Elijah's voices were true to the story, and brought an additional level to the depth of this tale.

    I'm happy to report that this book held up to my memory of it, and then surpassed it.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The introduction to the Norton Critical Edition notes: "Originally, Huck's adventures were banned from public libraries and schools for being crude and using bad grammar. Now the issue is racism." In putting the criticisms in context and modern responses to it, I found the Norton Critical Edition valuable, particularly the essays by Jane Smiley, who compares the novel unfavorably to Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; Toni Morrison, who calls the book "amazing" despite feeling Jim is presented as "minstrelized" and a "buffoon" and David L. Smith, who points out how it is precisely through Jim's very characterization that Twain subtlety subverts the racist stereotypes of his time. The book does make for uncomfortable reading for a contemporary reader. The introduction notes the word "nigger" is used over 200 times. By itself, I don't think that should bother people. I've stopped reading books that fling racial epithets more sparingly than Twain's book. It was a major reason I couldn't take reading more of Guthrie's Big Sky--I felt so assaulted by it. But it's a word used frequently after all by African American authors such as Toni Morrison herself. It's appropriate in a book presented as written in the first person by the barely literate child of the town drunk in the Antebellum South. And I think something about Huck's innocence and Twain's satiric purpose and cynicism bubbling in the subtext cut a lot of the offensiveness for me. Of course, the charges of racism go beyond the use of a particular word. However, I think those who decry the work as racist forget Huck's role as an "unreliable narrator" as well as the use of irony. I agree with Smith that Huck's depiction of Jim shouldn't be taken at face value. And Smith picks out this passage in particular:"Good gracious! anybody hurt?""No'm. Killed a nigger.""Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt."Anyone who can't see the savage satire and swat at racism in that.... Well, I have a friend who tried Huckleberry Finn as a child and said she was immediately turned off because it was so racist. Naturally. I'm surprised anyone could see Huckleberry Finn as a children's book. Children are notoriously literal-minded, and tend not to appreciate irony. I'd think adults would know better, but I've known people who think it offensive to use humor in serious matters despite its long history in works of political dissent. I remember one person who said they were offended greatly by All in the Family because it had people laughing at racism. Smiley accuses Huckleberry Finn of not being a "serious" book--she prefers the way Stowe handles issues of race, despite conceding Stowe also embraces some racial stereotypes. I recently read Uncle Tom's Cabin, and I do think the book is greatly underrated and misrepresented (among other things, Uncle Tom is no Uncle Tom). Uncle Tom's Cabin is indeed a very serious book--it's also at times cloyingly sentimental and unbearably preachy and the prose stiff and formal. And Huck is a much more convincing portrait of a child than "Little Eva" who seemed born a saint. Huck's moral growth is a lot more difficult, conflicted and subtle, and to me therefore a lot more moving and real.I do prefer the style of Huckleberry Finn--the way Twain masterfully uses the vernacular and a fourteen-year-old narrator to examine the corrupt and hypocritical ways of adults and their "civilization." The depiction of Huck's abuse by his father is all the more heart-breaking for Huck's absolute lack of self-pity. Through that adolescent voice Twain manages to give you a sense of the magic and majesty of the Mississippi River, and I'll take the book's "bad grammar" over the formal, stiff prose of the British and Continental literature then being written--even if some of the eccentric spellings and use of dialect can make some parts tough going. Beyond the critique of racism, the book is a sharp and general critique of Southern culture. I found telling one note in the Norton Critical Edition that mentioned Twain's hatred of Scott's Ivanhoe and how he felt "the Sir Walter Scott disease" infesting the South with its "sham chivalries" helped incite the American Civil War. That made sense for me of the role of the Grangerford-Shepherdson feud, the characters of the "King" and the "Duke" and maybe even Tom Sawyer's fantastic schemes. Think of Huckleberry Finn as the ultimate anti-Gone With the Wind. The book is not perfect, and I think the eleven chapter Tom Sawyer episode at the end is strung along far too long, but I'm more of Smith's and Morrison's opinion than that of Ms Smiley--for the most part, an amazing book--docked a star for that much-criticized ending--and because at times Jim does strike me as buffoonish.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A lot of the time reading 'classics' can be a bit disappointing when they don't live up to the hype, but I absolutely loved Huck Finn and couldn't put it down. It was really funny and absolutely drew me into its world.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Things I liked:

    The characters voice and train of thought frequently made me smile. The way his mind came up against big moral issues like slavery and murder and things like that were provocative, making me wonder about my own rational for strongly held beliefs.

    Things I thought could be improved:

    The section at the end when Tom Sawyer was doing all manner of ridiculous rituals as part of the attempt to free Jim I thought stretched credibility of Huck or Jim going along with him. Even with the reveal at the end that Jim was really free anyway I found it tiresome after a while. While I don't mind the idea of Tom trying to add some romance to the escape, I think it definitely could be have been edited down to about a third of what it was.

    Highlight: When Jim finds Huck again after being lost on the raft. Huck plays a trick on him to convince him it was all a dream. Jim falls for it but then catches on and shames Huck for playing with his emotions. That made both the character of Jim and Huck sing for me.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    While I really enjoyed this book, the constant use of the word nigger made me really uncomfortable. I know that during the time that the book was both written and set it was in common usage and I also know that if the book had been edited to remove any offensive terms then I wouldn't have read it because then it wouldn't have been Twain's work. Other than that I found this to be a really well written and engrossing read, couldn't put it down. Confession time - I am 37 years old and this is the first Mark Twain book I have read but I am looking forward to reading more.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I liked this book a lot. The experience of encapsulating every chapter into a poem was a fun but challenging experience. Twain had a lot more than just a kids book in mind when he wrote this book. He was writing to all people who were caught up in the political question of the time: "Should one leave slavery alone, or do something about this issue?"

    I however, did grow tired of Tom and felt like grabbing him by the lapels and screaming, "Grow up Kid!" But it was merely a book, and Tom Sawyers merely a fictional character, so I restrained myself.

    This book is an astute answer to the political cross hairs of the nineteenth century.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The actor Elijah Wood nails the voice of Huck Finn as a good actor does.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Now this was a book that I could enjoy reading! It's about time! What I love the most about Huck Finn is that it's a simple story, with nothing too over the top plot-wise. You've just got a kid who ran away from home, floating down the Mississippi River on a raft with a slave who's running away because he heard he was going to be sold down South. And, well, that's about it! They talk, they run into people, they experience different adventures based on the towns they pass and the people in them, and it's a learning and growing experience for our main character, Huck, which says a great deal for those of us who have experienced the single-mindedness of Tom Sawyer. *Snorts* For one thing, when Tom Sawyer appears in this book the couple of times you see him, not only are you shocked by the manner of his thinking and the utter nonsense he pulls everyone into, but it just made me mad that he was so over-the-top and made everything a MILLION times more complicated than it needed to be! Arg! Okay, so towards the end it all played out for the best, perhaps. But STILL. The kid needs to seriously be smacked upside the head for being such a jerk of things! He's a smart kid, and he knows how to take advantage of others. That's been his thing since anyone's first met the character. But it can get reaaaally frustrating to those of us that don't know that we're being put on or why we're doing things so lengthy and miserably intense when the easy solution is sitting RIGHT THERE.

    I definitely feel that there was a great deal of charm to this book however. The way that Huck and Jim act and interact is always fun and delightful, and half the time it's a wonder watching Huck learn so much from being with Jim over this long journey. You get to just sit back and enjoy everything as it unfolds. And when there are intense, life-and-safety threatening things going on, you're pulled to the very edge of your seat with anxiety for these characters that have come to mean so much to you, that's you're almost unaware of how it happened or at what point you started to really and honestly care about them. But I think that's part of the charm of Mark Twain's writing here, because that's the exact same way that Huck experiences his attachment to Jim: not knowing if he cares, or how much he cares, until all these different events come along and put him in a hard place, where he has to make some life-changing decisions--not just for himself either, but ultimately for Jim as well. It shows his character, how strong he is, even when he feels he's lost most of the time, or guilty of one thing or another that is really tied to him in no way. We've got to remember that Huck's just a kid, but he's a kid going through some majorly adult decisions a lot of the time, and a kid that's been through a lot just from the way you see him react to certain things. This is a boy that's been around and knows the world, even if he isn't an expert in it, and even if he isn't the most educated.

    I think, in part, it's this lack of any strict education or upbringing that makes Huck the wonderful character that he is: because he's got much less to influence him besides his own feelings, and his own logic, and his heart. He's a kid that uses his brain, and that makes mistakes, but he sure as the sun rises does his best to figure his way out of things--and he CAN too, what's more! He's capable, even though he's nothing special at all. And it's this great ability of his to choose what he feels is best over anything else that truly made me admire his character.

    That's why, when Tom Sawyer got involved and Huck once again became a secondary, if not background character even, I was ROYALLY steamed! This was Huck's story! It's got HIS name on the book! And Tom Sawyer just has a way of waltzing in, destroying everything that we just achieved, and stealing not only the show but the spotlight itself--permanently. From the moment Tom once again enters the picture in the latter part of the book, we lose everything that we gained throughout the story, and that's what frustrates me so IMMENSELY. And it kills me too, because Huck just goes right along with it, like it's no big deal. He sits there and goes right back to thinking all those things he's been probably told all his life: that he was born bad and will stay bad; that he's not smart, and he'll never be smart enough to out-do others; that he's nothing special, and so he's not going to try to be anything special. And it just irks me to see him like that! I feel like if he had the chance to be on his own with Jim for a time longer, that he would have grown so much more, so that maybe someday, this attitude that he's nothing at all would disappear, and he'd take claim of the fact that he is somebody strong and worthwhile!

    Who knows what's going to happen from here though. Readers, I definitely think this is a book that most people can enjoy. It's got a few things in it that I think are meant to be blatantly grating and even insulting, but that's how we learn and begin to think, and I know that's how Mark Twain intended it to be read and thought about. Take a chance on it if you haven't read it before! It's one of the better reads in the batch of Classic literature we're all told to read, I feel! And I hope you enjoy it as much as I did~!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I first happened on this book when my older brother was reading it for school. He hated it, so I stole it to read. I loved the story although I was too young to get any of the major themes/symbolisms. Later, when I was in high school, we read it for class, but didn't spend much time on it, which was a shame. - I read it again in college for an American Lit class and found so many things that I had missed before. It's a fast read that I can pick up when I just need something to read, but not to get too involved in.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Everyone loves a classic novel. In this case, you may not. Mark Twain was a realism writer. Meaning he believed that good characters were more important than plot. So, if you're only looking at the plot, this book has no point whatsoever. But if you do look only at the characters, they develop before your eyes and you really get to know them. This novel has many great themes like racism, classism, and freedom. I would not consider this novel racist, or Mark Twain, because (once again) Mark Twain was a realist writer. He wrote how it was in the civil war era. So there was slavery and discrimination of colored people. I learned a lot from this book, so I recommend it to you!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In seinem berühmtesten Werk lässt Mark Twain die bereits aus seinem Roman "Tom Sawyers Abenteuer" bekannten Figuren erneut auftreten. Diesmal ist die Geschichte in der Ich-Perspektive aus Sicht des ungebildeten, am Rande der Gesellschaft lebenden Huckleberry Finn verfasst. Dieser reisst von zu Hause vor seinem alkoholkranken und prügelnden Vater aus und reist gemeinsam mit dem entlaufenen Negersklaven Jim auf einem Floß den Mississippi flußabwärts. Dabei bestehen die beiden zahlreiche Abenteuer und werden in diverse Gaunereien verwickelt anlässlich derer Huckleberry Finn immer wieder Gelegenheit bekommt, sein grundgutes Wesen zu offenbaren.Sprachlich bemerkenswert ist,dass sämtliche Protagonisten nicht in der Hochsprache sondern in ihren eigenen Dialekten, quasi so wie ihnen der Schnabel gewachsen ist, sprechen. Twain sorgt so für Authenzität zu Lasten der Lesbarkeit. Die aus Sicht eines die (Erwachsenen)-Welt gerade erst entdeckenden, staunenden Kindes gezogenen Rückschlüsse sowie satirische Seitenhiebe des Autors bringen den Leser immer wieder zum Schmunzeln. Trotzdem hat mich das Werk nicht überzeugt, zu hanebüchen sind die geschilderten Abenteuer und Wendungen.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I think I was intimidated from reading Huckleberry Finn earlier in my life because it has too many times been designated "the great American novel." I had no idea how much fun it was!

    I may have benefited from the fact that I did this as an audio book, and the reader was gifted in doing all the dialects of the characters which may have been thick on printed page. It was like being in the room with a great raconteur--which, of course, is exactly what Mark Twain was.

    WARNING: Huckleberry Finn has been banned by some schools because of its liberal use of the "N" word to refer to African-Americans. And sometimes the use of the word feels pretty overwhelming. Furthermore, although embedded in the book is the understanding that humanity transcends skin color, the way blacks are portrayed is not enlightened, looked at through a 21st-century lens, But if some leeway can be granted, given the cultural consciousness of the time of its writing, there much to delight in here.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    We read it in the great books class. It was a good book. I would read it again.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a wonderful American classic that deals with the issues of the antebellum south, harsh and overbearing parents, and the challenges of an active and growing boy. Huck finds adventure where ever he goes. I would recommend this as a read for all children in the 7th and 8th grade. It is timeless.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    eBook

    What is there to say? It's my favorite novel. Funny and profound and moving; It's almost hard to read because it spins my thoughts and imagination in all different directions on almost every page.

    I suppose you could take something different from it every time you pick it up, but for me, it's about recognizing that everyone has the power to shape their beliefs to meet the world they encounter. As Huck travels down the river, he keeps adopting and discarding the belief systems he encounters until he finally realizes that it's up to him to decide what's right and what's wrong. That he's unable to stick to his guns is what makes this both a tragic work and a profoundly real one.

    Huck, the boy, is the man I aspire to be. Smart, despite not being educated; wise, yet not without flaws. It's a good day when I recognize his cadences in my thoughts.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    One of my all-time favorite books! Huck's redemption scene - and the fact that he doesn't even know he has saved himself - is the most powerful moment that I know of in American literature. Coming-of-age, travel, friendship, and social commentary: this book gets my nomination for the Great American Novel! Oh - and don;t forget the two greatest rapscallions in American literature: the King and the Duke. PS: Thanks to my long-ago English teachers who first helped me get into this book!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I believe that the Notice provided at the very onset of the book (Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.) pretty much sums of the book. I did not find a motive, a moral, nor a plot but nevertheless found the book somewhat enjoyable. I kept wanting the book to get where it was going, only to remind myself that it wasn't going anywhere and like a raft on the Mississippi I was just going to have to sit back and enjoy the ride. I cringed at the racism in the book, but understood that's just the way it was back then and was fascinated by how people could have once (and sadly some still) think the way they did. Overall the book was just too slow-paced for me, but I found myself several times thinking that I needed (and should have previously) read Tom Sawyer.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Huckleberry Finn has been taken in by Widow Douglas and her sister, Miss Watson, who intend to teach him religion and proper manners. Huck soon sets off on an adventure to help the widow's slave, Jim, escape up the Mississippi to the free states. Huck tell's his own story, the book is able to tell the painful contradiction of racism and segregation in a "free" and "equal" society.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another literary classic. a must read
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Rating 5 out of 10.This book was decent. I found it to be funny in some parts, but boring in others. Sometimes it seemed that it dragged on and on, and went over the same things. But in other aspects it was funny. Huck had a sense of dry humor at times, and he and Jim made things brighten up even in the darkest times. Huck was creative and insightful, and had a bright mind for someone his age and back in his day.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Check. That's how I feel about this book -- I've read it now, so can cross it off the list.Not sure why I found this one hard going compared to Tom Sawyer. I had expected them to be about the same in terms of difficulty, but Huck Finn has so many plot twists -- might I even dare suggest it sags in the middle? Were huge coincidences more accepted in fiction back in the day, or were huge coincidences actually more likely in a smaller population? I'm talking about the coincidence of Huck meeting up with Jim, and the even bigger coincidence later of Huck turning up at Tom Sawyer's auntie and uncle's house. Then there's the coincidence of meeting up with a whole string of baddies. Were there really that many bad people around to be met?I don't know. All of this is background noise, to a story written by a man with progressive politics. Now I really don't understand all that fuss about the frequent use of 'nigger'. Better instead to turn our aggravation towards stories such as Dead Wood, in which the language is all wrong for the time period. Nothing wrong with 'fuck', but no one talked like that back then, so why insert it? If the word 'nigger' was the word for Huck Finn's time period, then we are obliged to use it. If I never read this as a kid I can see why, despite its always adorning our bookshelves -- the phonetically reproduced dialogue is quite tough to understand for a child of the antipodes. Then there's the different word usage. Not sure I would've known enough about American history or what 'vittles' meant. Honestly, I loved Little House On The Prairie but at no stage did I have an education on how white people entered the American West. Likewise, nothing was ever said at school about American slavery. So I guess it's no wonder I only just got around to reading books like this.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    There is a reason this book is a classic. Twain's tale of Huck Finn leaving his home and traveling with the slave Jim up the Mississippi is endearing. Not only is it telling of the time period, but it also tells the story of a kid and the mischief a young boy can get into.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A great classic, this is the story of Huck Finn and his adventures rafting down the Mississippi with Jim, a runaway slave. Although I enjoyed it this go around, I enjoyed it more as a teenager when I read it the first time. Overall, if you haven't read it, you should!
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    How can I possibly review something as monumental as Mark Twain? Srsly.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Mark Twain wears well, I think. I first read Huck Finn in college, which I think is the appropriate place for its introduction -- not grade school, as seems to be the norm. You need to be able to apply historical context to the story, to grasp Twain's sense of irony and satire, as well as his political motivations. You also need patience, as there is dialect and regionalisms in this book. It was a first in that regard. I recently acquired a copy for my library, and I started reading it again while my toddler played outside on a sunny afternoon. It wasn't long before I was swept away into Huck Finn's world. Twain has a gift for telling a good story while doing a lot more at the same time. His famous introduction cautions against finding a motive, moral or plot in this story, but how can you help it?