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paulakaye's review against another edition
4.0
I read this book as a very young person. I remember thinking that I wish I was Huck. Or at least that I was his friend
kirahaynes's review against another edition
Dnf at 42%
Why do I care about this kid going down a river
Book club review:
I only read about half of huckleberry Finn and I don’t think I would have even gotten that far without liking the audiobook narrator. I found the book boring mostly , I couldn’t find it in myself to care about the characters. That being said I think I would have cared more if the book was from Jim’s point of view or if the book was about the feud between families that huck wanders into . I found that huck himself was quite adaptable to whatever new situation he finds himself in and I feel that reading Tom Sawyer first would have been useful with some characters like the widow who didn’t feel as fleshed out in this book as other characters even though she is regularly mentioned
Why do I care about this kid going down a river
Book club review:
I only read about half of huckleberry Finn and I don’t think I would have even gotten that far without liking the audiobook narrator. I found the book boring mostly , I couldn’t find it in myself to care about the characters. That being said I think I would have cared more if the book was from Jim’s point of view or if the book was about the feud between families that huck wanders into . I found that huck himself was quite adaptable to whatever new situation he finds himself in and I feel that reading Tom Sawyer first would have been useful with some characters like the widow who didn’t feel as fleshed out in this book as other characters even though she is regularly mentioned
m_i_c_h_a_e_l__________'s review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
p_t_b's review against another edition
5.0
i really will always be in love with this book. for a while after each time i re-read it, i dream in the language of Huck and Jim and the many people they encounter, talk to myself in their manner. the stories here never quite seem the same each time i read them, much like moby-dick. the chapters with the duke and dauphin might expand to epics or shrivel to anecdotes, while the shepherdsons and the grangerfords last forever (although the latter is much shorter than the former in reality). such a good marriage of huck's soulful, human vision and a setting worthy of its depth. there is an ugliness to the ideas in the book, not necessarily twain's ideas but the ideas that existed the period when lived and when written. i'm not sure if i agree with hemingway's famous statement that everything after tom gets shot in the leg and jim is re-captured yet again is "cheating" but it does (no pun intended) whitewash the complex racial themes in the book. only on this reading did tom's "evasion" start to seem like it might be more than just a succession of funny jokes in slightly questionable taste (jim's freedom and possibly his life being at stake, all because tom, who knows jim to be free, desires an adventure of considerable style).
i wondered if the tangle of notions that tom brings to the evasion, and huck's inability or refusal to demand that they simply free jim, is another extension of the book's complexity on the matter of race. is twain making a larger point about the fraught nature of racial relations, and of the end of slavery? that it could never be as simple as simply freeing jim, that there would be a thicket of questions about what comes next? i am probably overreading a little, as the last quarter of the book is mostly jokes. but there is definitely something to say or think over re "narrative"--both the romantic adventures that tom sees as examplars of "style," and the narrative of interracial relations. i'll have to figure it out on my own time.
in the meantime: the two lines that stuck with me on this reading are:
“It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way; then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way.”
-and-
“it don’t make no diference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn’t know no more than a person’s conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person’s insides, and yet ain’t no good, nohow.”
i wondered if the tangle of notions that tom brings to the evasion, and huck's inability or refusal to demand that they simply free jim, is another extension of the book's complexity on the matter of race. is twain making a larger point about the fraught nature of racial relations, and of the end of slavery? that it could never be as simple as simply freeing jim, that there would be a thicket of questions about what comes next? i am probably overreading a little, as the last quarter of the book is mostly jokes. but there is definitely something to say or think over re "narrative"--both the romantic adventures that tom sees as examplars of "style," and the narrative of interracial relations. i'll have to figure it out on my own time.
in the meantime: the two lines that stuck with me on this reading are:
“It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way; then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way.”
-and-
“it don’t make no diference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that didn’t know no more than a person’s conscience does I would pison him. It takes up more room than all the rest of a person’s insides, and yet ain’t no good, nohow.”
skypirateb's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.0
vishnu_'s review against another edition
adventurous
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
georgesreadingcompanion's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.0