Friday, February 4, 2011

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn/ Mark Twain

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Coming-of-age story, historical fiction 224 pages

If one were to engage me in conversation any given day at work, I would (without much prodding) begin to piss and moan about how hard things are for me being a full-time student and still working 30 hours a week at the library. I will let loose cries of injustice that would put a mob of Egyptians to shame (too soon?...yeah I kinda thought so too. Oops...). I am perpetually in a state of keeping my fingers crossed in the hope that someday, somewhere, my unique circumstances will provide me with an advantage of some sort. That time...is now. I am allowed to count books I read for school towards my reading total in the book challenge!!! HOORAY!!!...Yeah it may not be the Nobel Prize, but I'll take what I can get.

The first of these books that I read was Mark Twain's classic- "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". I think this is also a great literary classic to blog about because Mr. Twain has been getting a lot of publicity with the recent re-release of his autobiography which contained information that he specifically requested not be revealed until 100 years after his death. Personally, I found most of these revelations underwhelming but that doesn't make me any less of a Twain fan. Call me old-school, but a little Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer never hurt anybody.

While rereading Huck Finn, I was presented with an excellent opportunity to go back and actually enjoy something I was forced to read in high school and appreciate it for what it is--a true work of art. Not only is Twain's narrative style extremely compelling, but unlike many other authors of his time, his jokes are still laugh-out-loud funny to today's readers. This may be the future English teacher in me talking, but I would like to extend a challenge to all my fellow U-City bloggers (as well as any non-blogger who is reading this...hi Dad) to pick up something that you had to read in high school and give it another shot. It is much more rewarding to read a literary classic when it's on your own terms and you don't have to write a paper or take a test over it. I was able to rediscover what I loved not just about Mark Twain, but what I loved about the great American novel in the first place. I believe that this experience was not unique to just me, and I hope that anyone else who reads this entry will decide to follow suit and learn for themselves why that crotchety old lady teaching English your junior year pushed you so hard to read that one book...

1 comment:

  1. "crotchety old lady teaching English"? My Jr. year teacher was a smoking hot guy but that was in the old days. You are right, they probably only hire crotchety old women THESE days to teach English. Good luck finding a job when you finally finish that degree!

    ReplyDelete