The Annotated Huckleberry Finn (Gebundene Ausgabe)

Unfortunately, last year, when I had to read this for school, I found it a very well written headache.

It is not the story that is at fault. Quite the contrary, the story itself is wonderful, and points out and pokes fun at the rough points of the society of the time. This is very common in Twain's work.

However, what ruined it for me was the dialog. Living in the south for 6 years now, I had a leg up on what the characters were trying to say, but Twain so layers the book with local color dialog that it is literally painful to read at times. If you like dialog in your stories, this is one definite must-read; however, if you do not like decyphering southern dialect, leave this one on the shelf. If you have to read it for a class, don't feel too bad, the plot is engaging enough to where you can enjoy the book. Just don't read to much at a time. I believe everyone knows the basic story. Huck Finn gets tired of his life and his abusive father, so he runs away from home, sailing down the mighty Mississippi on a raft with an escaped named Jim. This is the sotry of their escapades down the river. At some points you slap your head, at some points you grab it in pain, and in some points you just can't stop reading. A fairly good book for the way it was written. Literature buffs have to read it, though.

There's rich material there for a cynic like Twain, or even more for one the likes of Ambrose Bierce or H. L. Mencken. Tiny, immature, ill formed minds incapable of grasping a truth deeper than Nintendo or Playstation lash out in outrage at a genius who holds up a mirror to expose their ignorance.

The fact is, this is THE American experience of the 19th century, a microcosm of the defining characteristic of our country's beginning and of our national shame and curse. How did a nation, conceived in liberty, holding self evident so many truths about Man's rights, institutionalize the degredation of Black Americans, the utter denial of their very humanity? How could the noble idealistic American eagle ever swallow such a poisonous pill?

Huck's bitter determination to "go to hell" in order to save his friend Jim is to me the most moving and courageous moment in all literature. Huck "knows" that Jim is not really human, that he is mere property, that he has no rights and deserves no consideration, and that Huck's social duty is to return the slave owner's lost property. Yet he knows even more deeply that Jim is his friend, mentor, companion, and in not saving him he will lose his own soul, regardless of what his society holds to be true. Thus Huck makes himself an outcast and outlaw in civilized society, and thus he prefigures the cataclysm of the Civil War, in which this vile contradiction nearly destroyed our nation. All the blood spilled during that war, however, has not expunged our Original Sin, and we have been paying for it ever since, and perhaps always shall.

So try to expand your mind, at least accept the concept that the past is not a Real World episode in period costume, that people of another time did think and talk and act differently, that what "everybody knows" today will surely be as ludicrous a century hence as slavery may seem to us now. Reflect, also, on the courage of those who recognized evil ahead of their time and stood up to it, even though in this case such a hero is a fictionalized semi-literate boy.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was first published in 1884 . The hero is Huck ,an orphan addopted by the Widdow Douglas.Huck is kiddnapped and imprisoned by his father ., but he manages to run away . On Jackson`s Island he meets Jim , a runaway slave . Together they start a magic expedition on the river Mississippi . Together they experience a lot of happenings , all leading to a stronger friendship between Huck and Jim .Huck learns from Jim the dignity of a real man . Their adventure comes to an end , when Jim is captured . Huck ,toghether with Tom Sawyer , helps Jim to escape . In the end , when " all ends well " and when Tom`s aunt Sally decides to adopt Huck he refuses and prefers to heads westward to avoid being " sivilized" .