“TWENTY YEARS FROM NOW YOU WILL BE MORE DISAPPOINTED BY THE THINGS THAT YOU DIDN’T DO THAN BY THE ONES YOU DID DO. SO THROW OFF THE BOWLINES. SAIL AWAY FROM THE SAFE HARBOR. CATCH THE TRADE WINDS IN YOUR SAILS. EXPLORE. DREAM. DISCOVER.“

Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)

ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY YEARS (1884 – 2014) SINCE THE PUBLICATION OF ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR CHILDREN’S BOOKS  “THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN“ BY MARK TWAIN

 

The first edition book cover

 

THE BOOK DESCRIBES PEOPLE AND PLACES ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER IN THE 19TH CENTURY AMERICA

THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER THEN

 

…. AND NOW

THE STORY OF …

… FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN A WHITE BOY HUCK FINN AND A RUNAWAY SLAVE JIM

“I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn’t do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking – thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim  before me, all the time, in the day, and in the night- time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking, and singing, and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me, and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim had in the world, and the only one he’d got now; and then I happened to look around, and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, for ever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

‘ All right, then, I’ll go to hell’ – and tore it up.”

 

… THE HARD BUT EXCITING LIFE ON THE RIVER

“It’s lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened – Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took long to make so many.”

“We catched fish, and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big still river, laying on our backs looking up at the stars, and we didn’t ever feel like talking loud, and it warn’t often that we laughed, only a little kind of low chuckle. We had mighty good weather, as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to us at all, that night, nor the next, nor the next.”

…  PEOPLE AND THEIR BEHAVIOUR

“That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it.”

“Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”

… HUMOUR

“Jim said bees wouldn’t sting idiots; but I didn’t believe that, because I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn’t sting me.”

 

THIS NOVEL WAS AMONG THE FIRST WORKS IN AMERICAN LITERATURE TO BE WRITTEN COMPLETELY IN VERNACULAR ENGLISH

“Pretty soon he gapped, and stretched himself, and hove off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson’s Jim! I bet I was glad to see him. I says:

‘Hallo, Jim!’ and skipped out.

He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his knees, and puts his hands together and says:

‘Doan’ hurt me – don’t! I hain’t ever done no harm to a ghos’. I awluz liked dead people, en done all I could for ’em. You go en git in de river agin, whah you b’longs, en doan’ do nuffn to Ole Jim, ‘at ‘uz awluz yo’ fren’.’ ”

HOWEVER, TWAIN WAS SEVERELEY CRITICIZED IN THE 20TH CENTURY BECAUSE OF THE USAGE OF POLITICALLY INCORRECT LANGUAGE DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE PROTAGONIST AND THE MESSAGE HE SENDS ARE ANTI-RACIST

 

ANOTHER GREAT AMERICAN WRITER ERNEST HEMINGWAY PRAISED THIS NOVEL BY SAYING:

” All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

 

Ernest Hemingway (1899 – 1961)

Quotations taken from:

Twain, Mark. 2001. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer & The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Wordsworth Editions Limited. Ware, Hartfordshire.

 

 

Sanja Bura, May, 2015