benja22

I have just finished reading “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain for the ninth time in my life.

It truly is an amazing book. One I believe should be read at every age in a persons life.

I read it as a boy and thought it was a marvelous adventure about a boy rafting down the Mississippi river. I loved passages like this;

” In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set
perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didn’t
draw a breath while it thumped a hundred.

I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank was an
island, and Jim had gone down t’other side of it. It warn’t no towhead
that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber of a
regular island; it might be five or six miles long and more than half a
mile wide.

I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I
was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you don’t
ever think of that. No, you FEEL like you are laying dead still on the
water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don’t think to
yourself how fast YOU’RE going, but you catch your breath and think, my!
how that snag’s tearing along. If you think it ain’t dismal and lonesome
out in a fog that way by yourself in the night, you try it once–you’ll
see.

Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hears
the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn’t do it,
and directly I judged I’d got into a nest of towheads, for I had little
dim glimpses of them on both sides of me–sometimes just a narrow channel
between, and some that I couldn’t see I knowed was there because I’d hear
the wash of the current against the old dead brush and trash that hung
over the banks. Well, I warn’t long loosing the whoops down amongst the
towheads; and I only tried to chase them a little while, anyway, because
it was worse than chasing a Jack-o’-lantern. You never knowed a sound
dodge around so, and swap places so quick and so much.”

As I grew a little older in my pre-teens I just loved how they spoke and the absurd things that were said;

“Why, yes, dat’s so; I–I’d done forgot it. A harem’s a bo’d'n-house, I
reck’n. Mos’ likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck’n de
wives quarrels considable; en dat ‘crease de racket. Yit dey say
Sollermun de wises’ man dat ever live’. I doan’ take no stock in dat.
Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids’ er sich a
blim-blammin’ all de time? No–’deed he wouldn’t. A wise man ‘ud take
en buil’ a biler-factry; en den he could shet DOWN de biler-factry when
he want to res’.”

“Well, but he WAS the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told me
so, her own self.”

“I doan k’yer what de widder say, he WARN’T no wise man nuther. He had
some er de dad-fetchedes’ ways I ever see. Does you know ’bout dat chile
dat he ‘uz gwyne to chop in two?”

“Yes, the widow told me all about it.”

“WELL, den! Warn’ dat de beatenes’ notion in de worl’? You jes’ take en
look at it a minute. Dah’s de stump, dah–dat’s one er de women; heah’s
you–dat’s de yuther one; I’s Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill’s de
chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun’
mongs’ de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill DO b’long to, en
han’ it over to de right one, all safe en soun’, de way dat anybody dat
had any gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in TWO, en give half
un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat’s de way
Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what’s
de use er dat half a bill?–can’t buy noth’n wid it. En what use is a
half a chile? I wouldn’ give a dern for a million un um.”

“But hang it, Jim, you’ve clean missed the point–blame it, you’ve missed
it a thousand mile.”

“Who? Me? Go ‘long. Doan’ talk to me ’bout yo’ pints. I reck’n I
knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain’ no sense in sich doin’s as dat.
De ’spute warn’t ’bout a half a chile, de ’spute was ’bout a whole chile;
en de man dat think he kin settle a ’spute ’bout a whole chile wid a half
a chile doan’ know enough to come in out’n de rain. Doan’ talk to me
’bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back.”

As I grew older I began to see the horror of it all. The murders, the wretchedness of people along the river. The senseless violence. Mark Twain seemed to show his loathing for all classes of people around the river as he does with the low brow tobacco chewing loafers of one small town.

” All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn’t nothing else BUT mud
–mud as black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some places, and two
or three inches deep in ALL the places. The hogs loafed and grunted
around everywheres. You’d see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs come
lazying along the street and whollop herself right down in the way, where
folks had to walk around her, and she’d stretch out and shut her eyes and
wave her ears whilst the pigs was milking her, and look as happy as if
she was on salary. And pretty soon you’d hear a loafer sing out, “Hi! SO
boy! sick him, Tige!” and away the sow would go, squealing most horrible,
with a dog or two swinging to each ear, and three or four dozen more
a-coming; and then you would see all the loafers get up and watch the thing
out of sight, and laugh at the fun and look grateful for the noise. Then
they’d settle back again till there was a dog fight. There couldn’t
anything wake them up all over, and make them happy all over, like a dog
fight–unless it might be putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting
fire to him, or tying a tin pan to his tail and see him run himself to
death.”

Or the senseless feuding of the Sheperdsons and the Grangerfords

“All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns–the men had
slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their
horses! The boys jumped for the river–both of them hurt–and as they
swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and
singing out, “Kill them, kill them!” It made me so sick I most fell out
of the tree. I ain’t a-going to tell ALL that happened–it would make me
sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn’t ever come ashore that
night to see such things. I ain’t ever going to get shut of them–lots
of times I dream about them.

I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down.
Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen little
gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I reckoned the
trouble was still a-going on. I was mighty downhearted; so I made up my
mind I wouldn’t ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I was
to blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss
Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half-past two and run off; and I
judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way
she acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this awful mess
wouldn’t ever happened.

When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river bank a
piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and
tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces, and
got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering up
Buck’s face, for he was mighty good to me.”

All along I had some social conscience. I understood the plight of Jim. The terror and prejudice he had to deal with, even that of Huck himself until most of the way through the book. I had to age some to truly understand his own tortured soul.

” What makes me feel so bad dis time ‘uz bekase I hear sumpn over yonder
on de bank like a whack, er a slam, while ago, en it mine me er de time I
treat my little ‘Lizabeth so ornery. She warn’t on’y ’bout fo’ year ole,
en she tuck de sk’yarlet fever, en had a powful rough spell; but she got
well, en one day she was a-stannin’ aroun’, en I says to her, I says:

“‘Shet de do’.’

“She never done it; jis’ stood dah, kiner smilin’ up at me. It make me
mad; en I says agin, mighty loud, I says:

“‘Doan’ you hear me? Shet de do’!’

“She jis stood de same way, kiner smilin’ up. I was a-bilin’! I says:

“‘I lay I MAKE you mine!’

“En wid dat I fetch’ her a slap side de head dat sont her a-sprawlin’.
Den I went into de yuther room, en ‘uz gone ’bout ten minutes; en when I
come back dah was dat do’ a-stannin’ open YIT, en dat chile stannin’ mos’
right in it, a-lookin’ down and mournin’, en de tears runnin’ down. My,
but I WUZ mad! I was a-gwyne for de chile, but jis’ den–it was a do’
dat open innerds–jis’ den, ‘long come de wind en slam it to, behine de
chile, ker-BLAM!–en my lan’, de chile never move’! My breff mos’ hop
outer me; en I feel so–so–I doan’ know HOW I feel. I crope out, all
a-tremblin’, en crope aroun’ en open de do’ easy en slow, en poke my head
in behine de chile, sof’ en still, en all uv a sudden I says POW! jis’ as
loud as I could yell. SHE NEVER BUDGE! Oh, Huck, I bust out a-cryin’ en
grab her up in my arms, en say, ‘Oh, de po’ little thing! De Lord God
Amighty fogive po’ ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to fogive hisself as
long’s he live!’ Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb, Huck, plumb deef en
dumb–en I’d ben a-treat’n her so!”

This reading I was more aware of each aspect of the book. I was able to follow along and laugh at the absurdity, shudder at the inhumanity, become angry and sad and happy along with the flow of the book. I was able to marvel at the genius of Mark Twain’s writing such as the re-write of Hamlets Soliloquy;

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of so
long life; For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to
Dunsinane, But that the fear of something after death Murders the
innocent sleep, Great nature’s second course, And makes us rather sling
the arrows of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of.
There’s the respect must give us pause: Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I
would thou couldst; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The
oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, The law’s delay, and the
quietus which his pangs might take, In the dead waste and middle of the
night, when churchyards yawn In customary suits of solemn black, But that
the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns, Breathes
forth contagion on the world, And thus the native hue of resolution, like
the poor cat i’ the adage, Is sicklied o’er with care, And all the clouds
that lowered o’er our housetops, With this regard their currents turn
awry, And lose the name of action. ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be
wished. But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope not thy ponderous and marble
jaws, But get thee to a nunnery–go!

I can hardly wait to grow a little older and read it again. I doubt I will ever be able to read it according to the authors stated intent. Perhaps when my hair is as white as Twain’s even this may change.

NOTICE

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.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, Per G.G., Chief of Ordnance.

note: I would not normally place such long passages in a blog entry about a book. These passages are taken from Project Gutenberg text. The book is not copyrighted in the United States.