I love to read books,
so expect a book review in this spot every month. Be sure to recommend books
for me to read / review, as well as any other sort of medium that I review in
my blog! Who knows, I just might take requests.
The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
I thought that I would
begin this series with my all-time favorite novel by my all-time favorite
author, Mark Twain. As a reader, I always enjoy Twain’s tremendous doses of
sarcasm and satire, where as a writer, I delight in his witty dialogue,
Southern flair, and underlying themes. This book encompasses of all these
aspects of Samuel Clemens’ writing (a.k.a. Twain).
This book is probably
what ignited the racially-aware side of me in literature and film. It
introduced me to a world where slaves were property and no one thought anything
of it. In fact, helping a slave to escape makes the protagonist, Huckleberry
Finn, wonder if his soul will go to hell for doing so. From here, I found
myself drawn to books like Beloved, Long Division, 12 Years a Slave, Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, all which handled racism more seriously. But none can match how direct
Twain made the racism in his book while making it look funny, but in a
self-reflective way. Finn’s relationship with the runaway slave Jim makes up a
good majority of the book, and this chemistry has been emulated for ages since
(think Django Unchained with Dr. Schultz and Django, or Schindler’s List with
Stern and Schindler).
Another great facet of
this novel is how Twain reveals life in the South in an old-fashioned voyage
down the river. Stopping in towns here and there, events happening randomly, and
a general drifting story mirror an 1800’s version of The Odyssey, with a
beginning and end that are connected, but the middle mostly contains chance
happenings. Something about this journey-style storytelling appeals to me, how
it captures real life, since that’s really all life is: random stuff happening
to people without any particular order besides that they happen after one
another. That’s exactly what Twain has captured here, and while it may not be a
gripping thriller, it still creates a quite enjoyable trip through the
Antebellum era.
If you asked me what
novel I would choose to introduce a child to a world full of danger and hate
without scaring them, I would choose this. It reveals many faces of our
society, even if we have now progressed nearly 300 years from this era. I
highly recommend this book to anyone who has not read it yet (even though it’s
been on reading lists for years). I promise that you will enjoy the journey,
the characters, the story, and of course the satiric humor that Twain always
brings to the table.
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