tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2991343547887142385.post6588866484694767782..comments2024-02-24T20:29:17.083-05:00Comments on MINDFUL PLEASURES: The Real Problem with HUCKLEBERRY FINNBRIAN OARDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00695622618831825498noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2991343547887142385.post-54733541198130744162016-02-05T01:50:48.236-05:002016-02-05T01:50:48.236-05:00P.S. Specially when Tom Sawyer shows up it is &quo...P.S. Specially when Tom Sawyer shows up it is "sold down de riber".Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05357854530829988756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2991343547887142385.post-60614079815009160542016-02-05T01:48:55.117-05:002016-02-05T01:48:55.117-05:00I just finished it and was so disturbed by how Twa...I just finished it and was so disturbed by how Twain went from great to lousy in the second half of the book that I did a google search about it and found Brian Oard's very lucid critique. Happily, for my peace of mind, I could not have said it better or maybe as well, despite being a writer myself. The first half of the book is magnificent. How people of such talent cannot be aware of these differences in quality and honesty is a puzzle. Sadly, I see it from time to time in other fine artists as well. RWAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05357854530829988756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2991343547887142385.post-671377731263736982011-10-06T19:59:15.689-04:002011-10-06T19:59:15.689-04:00I don't know. What other book is able to offe...I don't know. What other book is able to offer such a lacerating comedy of manners but in the voice of an unwittingly naive narrator? She grumbled over the food but there was nothing wrong with it (Huck's understanding of grace) Once I found out she was going to heaven, I figured I wouldn't go for it. If I was well-behaved and let the widow sivilize me, then I could join Tom's band or robbers. I don't have the book in front of me, hence the horrible paraphrases, but the wit in the early sections alone makes the book worthy of its fame. The novel does fall apart, because Twain never could decide what genre he was writing in--but the very dilemma that Twain confronted and couldn't resolve parallels the dilemma that Huck faces--so at the very least the incoherence at the end represents an interesting problem--not merely a sign of bad writing.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2991343547887142385.post-68193781645829302482011-09-17T15:14:25.645-04:002011-09-17T15:14:25.645-04:00Joe,
Twain would probably have agreed with your r...Joe,<br /><br />Twain would probably have agreed with your reading, but for me his obvious satirical intentions don't overcome his tedious execution. I've long thought that <i>Huckleberry Finn</i> is really three separate tales that should not have been bound together. "Huck and Jim" would have been a brilliant novel if Twain has taken it all the way downriver to 'Newrleans'; "The Duke and the Dauphin" might've been better as a stand-alone short story; I don't think the Tom Sawyer stuff is salvageable: it's a millstone around the novel's neck.BRIAN OARDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00695622618831825498noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2991343547887142385.post-73195854647643239342011-09-17T14:49:09.777-04:002011-09-17T14:49:09.777-04:00I'm not sure if those examples are flaws when ...I'm not sure if those examples are flaws when considered in the light of Twain's mockery of silly adventure novels, and more particularly the ludicrosities exhibited by the antebellum South as inspired by the novels of Walter Scott (think of the capsized riverboat of the same name). Each of Tom's cruel exercises for Jim are derived from popular European romances as exemplars of how prisoners are supposed to behave; he's trying to impose fictional molds on a sparse and terrifying reality. Twain is showing the fax-chivalric tendencies of the antebellum South for what they were; quixotic, wrongheaded confusions of fiction with reality.Joe Millerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10998425923008263531noreply@blogger.com