I must confess that it has been years since I’ve read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and I did not re-read it for this week’s blog because I didn’t enjoy it the last time. I really want to like this book, and Mark Twain, but I only believe one of his books is a masterpiece, and that is Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn, unfortunately, is the sub-standard spin-off of the book that should have made the list of Great American Novel contenders.
While Huck Finn rambles for chapters and chapters about digging a tunnel with a spoon, Tom Sawyer fits grave robbers, murder, romance, escapes, trial, and buried treasure into a book half the size as Huck Finn. That’s my biggest problem with Huck Finn; Twain dwells too much on the satirical theme of boyhood as a collection of “adventures” that are largely imagined or invented for the sake of it.
However, upon looking up a summary of Huckleberry Finn, I may be forced to admit that there’s more to it than I’m giving it credit for. At least in summary form, Huck has plenty of real adventures. Perhaps I should give it another try and read it again, but I am none too excited to do so.