What Is A Huckleberry Friend

Sequels to Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain are Tom Sawyer Abroad, a high flying adventure, and Tom Sawyer, Detective, a mystery. While the main characters appear in both of these books, they are largely lighter in tone than the original and do not deal with social issues to the extent that Huckleberry Finn did. Therefore, they are fun to read if you like the characters, but do not provide the same depth of reading that Huckleberry Finn does.

‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ is a book of such profoundness that it gets pulled into the culture wars of today every so often. On one hand, there are the vehement critics who assert that the novel perpetuates racist stereotypes of black people; on the other hand, there are the ardent defenders of Twain’s masterpiece who are convinced that he wrote an anti-slavery novel. As with most things in life, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. For although Huck Finn’s curious journey to escape down the Mississippi River is aimed at critiquing the so-called civilized society and its gross hypocrisy, the humor often resamples from the same pool of Humanization by Dehumanization, thus reducing the other to a caricature in order to underscore a point. As the case is with Jim, for example: as Huck sees him, he is most certainly human; yet, as he is represented to the reader via his dialect and his comic relief, he is reduced to less than that. Perhaps the greatest value of the book is the many arguments it inspires regarding art and history and who has the right to be offended.

The experience that 17 year old sheltered reader would have with same language as 14 year old history studying adventurer would likely be quite different. I would advocate for a “layered” reading experience of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. For late elementary age children, a version of the book could be read to them and then they could have an adventure of their own. In high school, the full text of book could be read by students with teacher-led discussions. Finally, in adulthood, the book could be re-read critically by the reader for even more insight and value. This experience would not be possible if the book was limited to a single age group. The depth and complexity of the book would not be allowed to grow with the reader.

What the book achieves above all is to validate the private ending of Leo’s story over the public one. The public ending of the story of the man who founded a major company and watched it fail is one that will be trotted out as a cautionary tale for web entrepreneurs in tech blogs for years to come. The private ending on the riverbank with his friends of many years was peaceful and validated the quiet recovery he had made from the scandals of his life. In our culture we are addicted to the story of the scandal, of the failure. This novel insists that the real story of Leo’s latter years, of quiet recovery from personal scandals and of sustaining a true friendship over decades, is of far greater significance to us than the publicly recognized story of his downfall as the founder of a high-profile company. The book is a reclaiming of his story from the prying eyes of the public.

I think the friendships are portrayed better in books where the characters are a bit older, such as in the original versions where the characters are in their late teens to early twenties. Then their dynamics are more mature. In modernized versions where they’re written as younger characters, their bickering can sound more childlike. However, the core of mutual respect is still there and it just has a different tone.

Set along the Mississippi River during the pre-Civil War years in the Southern states, the story opens in the slave state of Missouri. The journey of Huck Finn down the Mississippi River on a raft with run away slave Jim is a perilous one, as their travels take them through the heart of slave holding territory. Constantly worried about being discovered by another boat or by the residents of a town, Jim’s freedom is hard to come by. The book isn’t just pretty and scenic. Many of the island scenes are safety for a time but often the shore presents danger. Grangerford, which seems to be a peaceful enough scene is turned into a bloodbath as Twain portrays the culture of Southern honor. The river flows and the scenes of Huck and Jim travel down the river providing and exploration of much of the American experience – good and bad.

I sort of skimmed the last few chapters. They started to get into some really heavy philosophical musing, and it wasn't really my cup of tea. It seems like, in the end, everyone went their separate ways, the big cloud of sorrow (or whatever it was) disappeared, and Dorothy planted a tree. Maybe I'll re-read the end of the series in a few months when I've got more time and I'll get to enjoy it as I'm sure it's a great read. But for now, I just don't get it. The heists and the dungeon crawling were so much better than this. A totally different story. Not really my bag.

So Slam Books are sort of random. So instead of buying some boring old book, pick up any old notebook and let your friends trash it with doodles, with bad advice (like ‘How to Fake Being a Morning Person’), with lyrics to songs that they feel best describe your friendship. In mine, people rated my cooking on a scale of ‘microwave ramen’ to ‘MasterChef disaster.’ You could also have a ‘Time Capsule’ where people write letters to each other and seal them to open in a certain amount of time. The messier the better: coffee stains, hasty notes (like “I haven’t got time to finish this right now – the bell’s about to ring!”), a wrapped-up piece of candy taped into the page… It’s not really about the book, but about the laughing fit you will be in when you randomly come across it years later.

Arthur Ransome wrote the classic British children’s book ‘Swallows and Amazons’ – it’s a Tom Sawyer style book where children go sailing, camping and make pretend battles as pirates on a lake in the Lake District. The children are given a huge amount of freedom in the book. For quieter take on independence read ‘My Side of the Mountain’. The main character runs away from home to live in the wilderness. While this book is very different from Mark Twain’s work it also goes back to a time when there were far more possibilities. It suggests that the world is a very big place and that you can go and do anything with it.

This is another beloved character that we love to watch in films. He is typically a bit gruff and perhaps not part of the main family but in the end he is so lovable that he ends up being the greatest father figure to this other person outside of his own family. We can recall the classic ‘Big Daddy’ starring Adam Sandler as Sonny, an eccentric and quirky man who after a night out drinking wakes up the next morning to find a baby in his care. Despite it all he goes on to care for the baby until the real father turns up. This film packs a lot of laughs throughout but it is a beautifully warming movie at the end of the day too. The ‘fun uncle’ or ‘best friend dad’ is once again another great example of why the ‘unconventional dad’ is so popular with audiences today. The biggest symbol of love and learning for how to be a parent is found in the movie “Mrs. Doubtfire”. In the movie Robin Williams plays the part of Daniel, a male spouse who wants to spend more time with his children after a divorce, so he dresses up as a female nanny named Mrs. Doubtfire. Most of the movie he is in ‘nanny’ mode, playing the part of a fun, loving, young, and loose ‘uncle’ to the children, but eventually the mask comes off and he exposes himself as their real dad. The movie not only shows him learning to be a father to his children but also a better husband to his wife. Taking a different turn, ‘The Game Plan’ is an action-packed film where a football player (Dwayne Johnson) finds his life turned upside down when he discovers he has a daughter he never knew existed. Fumbling his way through parenting and accidentally finding humor in moments meant for tears, he attempts to learn how to be a good dad. Scenes of him awkwardly attempting to braid his daughter’s hair and sitting at a tea party with her were sweet. Recent films are bringing another twist to this gruff but lovable father figure: even when he makes mistakes, simply showing up for his children is enough. This is particularly evident in the recent true story of Instant Family, in which Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne adopt three children including a hardened teenager. Watching the father figure struggle to connect with the teenager, often getting things wrong but realising she needs a friend as much as a parent, is a very real and powerful take on this.