I first read Mark
Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn in secondary school. At the time, the book hadn’t yet generated the
volume of controversy that it has provoked in recent decades. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a
regular on the American Library Association’s list of
books most frequently banned
in schools because of its attitudes on race. Ironically, the book was
originally banned not long after it was published in 1884 by those who found
its attitudes toward race and religion too radical and progressive. Still, I'm sympathetic to those parents who don’t think the novel is suitable
as a textbook for their children.
Listening to the
audiobook recently, my reactions to Twain’s disputed classic were varied. I found
myself laughing out loud at certain passages, but seriously troubled by some of
his portrayals of black characters, especially Jim.
One of my favorite
parts of the book was Twain’s portrayal of Tom Sawyer’s gullible Aunt Sally,
and Sister Hotchkiss’s hilarious speech mannerisms:
“You may well say it,
Brer Hightower! It's jist as I was
a-sayin’ to Brer Phelps, his own self.
S’e, what do you think of it, Sister Hotchkiss, s’e? Think o’ what, Brer
Phelps, s’I? Think o’ that bed-leg
sawed off that a way, s’e? think
of it, s’I? I lay it never sawed
itself off, s’I—somebody sawed it, s’I; that’s my opinion, take it or leave it,
it mayn’t be no 'count, s’I, but sich as ‘t is, it’s my opinion, s’I, ‘n’ if
any body k’n start a better one, s’I, let him do it, s’I, that's all.”
Twain’s comical shortening
of the phrases “says I” and “says he” does justice to the way that American
slang can accordion long phrases into monosyllables. I was sitting on the 24
Divisadero bus in San Francisco not long ago, and one of the passengers was inadvertently
delivering what amounted to a Mark Twain monologue to a friend sitting next to him. The passenger finished every sentence with, “Nohmsayn,” which I swear he
pronounced as one syllable, even though the meaning was eight syllables long:
“Do you know what I am saying?” His speech reminded me so much of Twain's Aunt Sally character.
In recording American
idioms with loving authenticity, Twain was both poking fun of, and paying
homage to, the speech of the common individual. He was honoring equality and
democracy at a time when writers were generally expected to parrot the king’s
English.
Twain’s vision of
democracy versus royalty also emerges in the book’s characterizations. Two of
the most unlikeable characters in the book are the shyster vagabonds who call
themselves the King and the Duke and pretend to be descended from royalty. From
the point of view of Jim and Huck, they are just like royalty in their
lazy and parasitic way of life.
But not everything in
Twain’s book is democratic. In The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain mocks superstitious African
Americans who are easily taken in, but the whites in the book don’t come across
much better. Even so, there is an oddness to the gullibility of Jim and the
other blacks Twain paints in the book. Huck seems to be able to fool black
people at will into thinking that something they have just witnessed with their own
eyes never happened. That willingness of the black characters to believe something
contrary to their own senses doesn’t feel either funny or realistic to me.
So I would hesitate
to give The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn either a simple thumbs up or a thumbs down. I don’t know that I personally would
teach it to young people because of the stereotypes and the incessant use of
the “n” word. I can understand parents being upset by those features of the
book and not wanting their children to read it at a young age. But other
aspects of the book are terrific. And it is laugh-out-loud funny in a great
many places. The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn is not a book that I would be quick to judge in either a
positive or a negative way. It’s a much more nuanced case, in my opinion.
So, what is the takeaway for writers, here? Even though Twain's book was farsighted for its time, it feels antiquated in many ways now. It's not enough for writers to be just a few years ahead of public opinion. Writers need to have the vision to imagine their work being read a hundred years or more in the future, and to conceive their own mission as an artist with the enlightened eyes (one can only hope!) of the next century.
So, what is the takeaway for writers, here? Even though Twain's book was farsighted for its time, it feels antiquated in many ways now. It's not enough for writers to be just a few years ahead of public opinion. Writers need to have the vision to imagine their work being read a hundred years or more in the future, and to conceive their own mission as an artist with the enlightened eyes (one can only hope!) of the next century.
Zack’s most recent translation, Bérénice 1934–44: An Actress in Occupied Paris by Isabelle Stibbe
Other recent posts about writing topics:
How to Get Published
Getting the Most from Your Writing Workshop
How Not to Become a Literary Dropout
Putting Together a Book Manuscript
Working with a Writing Mentor
How to Deliver Your Message
Does the Muse Have a Cell Phone?
Why Write Poetry?
Poetic Forms: Introduction; The Sonnet, The Sestina, The Ghazal, The Tanka, The Villanelle
Praise and Lament
How to Be an American Writer
Writers and Collaboration
Types of Closure in Poetry
