[N.B.: The following book review was authored by Wesley Britton; I am
merely posting it on his behalf. --Taylor Roberts]
BOOK REVIEW
Twain, Mark. _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: A Comprehensive
Edition_. Introduction by Justin Kaplan; foreword and textual
addendum by Victor Doyno. New York: Random House, 1996. Pp.
xxviii + 418. Paper, 6-1/4" x 9-1/4". Illustrations by Edward
Windsor Kemble (from the first ed.). Tentative price $25.00. ISBN
0-679-44889-6. To be published 1 May 1996.
Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
Wesley Britton <[log in to unmask]>
Grayson County College
Copyright (c) Mark Twain Forum, 1996. This review may not be
published or redistributed in any medium without permission.
(Note: uncited attributions to the ideas of Vic Doyno come from a
personal interview with Vic and cannot be found in the text of this
edition. If I have misquoted Vic or unintentionally misrepresented his
views, on my head be the blame.--W.B.)
As Justin Kaplan notes in his introduction to what can be called the
_Comprehensive Huckleberry Finn_, in October 1990, 665 handwritten pages
were rediscovered of a novel that is "both a timeless universal
adventure story and a brilliant comic novel that tests the tolerable
limits of humor and irony" (viii). These pages have not been seen
since Buffalo attorney James Fraser Gluck solicited the manuscript from
Twain on behalf of the Buffalo library. In the summer of 1887, Twain
sent Gluck the manuscript, Gluck apparently took the pages home to be
bound, but upon his death this important draft of _Huckleberry Finn_ was
lost until a descendent of the attorney made the proverbial attic
discovery, and now the fruits of this treasure have been made available
in a useable form for all readers to explore anew.
The Random House edition of _Huckleberry Finn_ is indeed a book of
revelations that will both change and add much to our understanding of
the creative process of Mark Twain. As Kaplan notes, with this edition,
readers can look over Twain's shoulder as he creates his most
significant work, and we learn much about the man and his creation.
Among the discoveries awaiting new readers are new and variant passages
published for the first time, both integrated into the main text and
also as part of Vic Doyno's important Addendum. Reproduced are thirty-
one intriguing facsimile pages in Twain's hand that shed new light on
Mark Twain's working habits. No small contribution is the scholarship
of Vic Doyno in the Foreword and Addendum, which explains much of the
historical context of the work in progress and provides fresh insights
into new paths of interpreting _Huckleberry Finn_.
Perhaps of first interest to readers will be the four previously
unpublished passages now inserted in the text, helpfully indicated by
Scott's Rules (double gray lines indicating the new material). These
new passages are more than deleted novelties; they will alter our
perceptions of the book and Twain's intentions in writing it.
The first of these is Jim's experience thawing out a medical school
cadaver, which Justin Kaplan describes as "a vivid set piece, ideal for
performance" in the same spirit as "The Golden Arm" (xiv). Published
earlier in the _New Yorker_ (3 July 1995), this passage changes
interpretations of the novel, editor Vic Doyno believes, because Jim is
established as an authority figure early in the book, juxtaposed against
the character of a naive white boy. Jim is given relatively high status
as a slave and is seen as an experimenter. Further, Doyno claims, the
passage reflects African-American religion of the period often
associated with superstition. "Slaves revered the living, the dead, and
the dead who are remembered," a belief Doyno finds "considerate and
decent rather than mere superstition" (372).
The second new passage is the original text of the "Raftsman Passage,"
which Twain revised for _Life On the Mississippi_. The "new" version is
much rawer in the earlier draft, as in one character's avoidance of
being kicked in the family jewels (378). As in other changes in the
manuscript, Doyno observes, Twain's original diction was often more
physical, and the author self-censored his word choice to appeal to his
audience.
Another example of manuscript alterations occurred in the changes to
Pap's "Call this a government" speech, where it is apparent Twain made
adjustments for both humorous effect and references to historical
concerns of the time. For example, when Pap says, "When they said he
could vote . . . well, that let _me_ out," Twain first italicized "me"
but later instead emphasized the word "vote." The emphasis was changed,
Doyno asserts, because in 1876, many blacks had been attacked and killed
attempting to vote in the presidential election that affected "the
Compromise of 1877 that basically ended Reconstruction" (371).
Perhaps the most interesting "new" passage is the King and Duke's
discussion of the four divisions of religious trickery, (beginning on
page 166). They talk about "gospel work" as coercion and theft, calling
attention to the fact Christians are more interested in donating to
missionaries abroad than charity at home (379). (This scene develops an
idea nineteen-year-old Sam Clemens expressed in an "Eds. Note" squib
regarding a poor woman ignored by Illinois Christians--an example where
the new passages cast new light on Twain's other writings.) According
to Doyno, Twain must have known his attack on religion was too direct,
and he chose instead to dramatize the camp meeting. This idea supports
Doyno's earlier thesis in his _Mark Twain: Selected Writings of An
American Skeptic_ (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1983), which claimed
Twain's religious skepticism was expressed "subversively" throughout his
career. "_Huckleberry Finn_," Doyno now re-states with continued
conviction, "is a subversive book."
The changes in the camp meeting, Doyno says, are among the most
interesting alterations to the text, and he points out that the original
version is much closer to the model of Johnson Jones Hooper's _Simon
Suggs_ (379). Doyno finds one scene drawn from Hooper a touching moment
when a large black "wench" (a term that then referred to a woman used
for child-bearing) thinks the preacher's allusion to broken chains
refers to slavery as well as religion, and offers genuine Christian
forgiveness to a crowd of whites who want nothing to do with her (380).
Again, Twain likely knew he was over the line of public acceptability,
and deleted the scene. Of course, as Doyno notes, the reasons for
Twain's decisions are open to speculation--another avenue for new
scholarly pursuits.
Smaller changes also indicate, as Doyno observes, the original drafts of
_Huckleberry Finn_ were "more troubling and darker" than the final texts
and show "Bernard DeVoto's claim that Twain never censored himself is
just wrong." For example, originally Huck ate "swill" at the Widow
Douglas', but swill was changed to "odds and ends," Doyno believes, to
soften the Widow's character, not having Huck competing with pigs for
his meals (366). The "House of Death" passage has Jim, a "son of Ham,"
examining Pap's corpse (with obvious Biblical meaning), showing Pap had
died in "extraordinarily degrading circumstances" in a room where the
walls were filled with "vulgarest things," later changed to "ignorant
things." The "vulgarities" indicated the room was a one-woman brothel
where an amputee was killed and probably a child (376). Again, such
dark images had to be toned down for Victorian tastes and an audience
expecting a sequel to _Tom Sawyer_.
Doyno also claims many changes were made to have the diction fit
contemporary usage of terms. For example, Twain originally used
"rawhiding" four times to describe Pap's beating of Huck in order to
reinforce the horror of Pap's actions, as rawhiding first meant adding
rocksalt to the hide to increase the pain of the welts. But by the time
of _Huck_'s publication, "rawhiding" had to be changed to "cowhide," as
rawhiding had come to mean using a more expensive whip (369).
Many changes, of course, reflect the development of the book as Twain
writes "discovery drafts," learning for the first time himself the
direction his project was taking. In the Addendum to the edition, Doyno
includes two wonderful descriptions of a sunrise and a storm Twain
deleted probably because they might have slowed down the narrative pace
(384, 385). Doyno believes Twain, like many other creative writers,
overwrote the third or fourth drafts, then cut back to balance the pace
with the descriptive passages.
Another passage in the Addendum includes Huck's thoughts after saving
Jim from the slave traders by claiming smallpox was present on the raft
(383). Here, Huck seems younger, and the scene was possibly revised to
incorporate the "situation ethics" an older boy was likely to express.
And, for the first time, readers learn of Huck's first kiss, with a
young Grangerford girl (378).
Other characteristics of the manuscript, evident in the facsimile pages,
include the "running script" of Twain's creative white heats. When the
ideas are flowing, his words run together when the pen is moving fast
across the page. For example, Doyno believes, when "Huck doesn't know
who's at the fire on Jackson's Island, neither does Mark Twain." When
Jim first speaks about being glad to see Huck, the words run together, a
moment of discovery for both characters and novelist. "Twain probably
didn't originally plan to have Jim run away," Doyno says, "as he was not
originally the Widow Douglas' slave but rather the less compassionate
Miss Watson" (discussed on page 367). As the drafts developed, Doyno
points out, Jim's character strengthens (see page 377, 382, facsimile
pages 408-9), and Tom Sawyer becomes more foolish (377, 383).
Twain's word choice is also made interesting in the manuscript as,
unlike other writers, he added alternate words above his first idea but
rarely scratched out the first choice (366, illustrated in facsimile).
Frequently, according to Doyno, Twain restored his first words to the
final text, altering the rhythm of the sentence but retaining the
original diction. In other cases, the changes indicate the shift in the
authorial voice. In one instance, Twain's word "fellow" was altered to
Huck's "nigger," a likely example where the author's own voice became
that of his character's.
Of particular service to readers of this new edition are Vic Doyno's
carefully researched notes, which discuss the historical contexts Twain
reflected and also point to Twain's possible intentions in choosing his
vocabulary and philosophical points. In 1875, for example, President
U.S. Grant proposed a tax supporting American school systems as a
Constitutional amendment. According to Doyno, the bill passed the House
of Representatives, but a coalition opposed to possible education of
blacks killed a law they feared "too hard to corrupt." For Doyno, the
national issue of the impact of education played a part in Twain's
satire and characterization of an uneducated boy (368). In another
case, Twain originally had Huck refer to the incident of the Freedman's
bank going broke in 1873, but Twain wisely deleted the reference as Huck
would not know of this event.
For Doyno--and for all new readers of this edition--awareness of Twain's
lost manuscript enriches the novel, giving readers "x-rays that
illuminate the changes" in the text of a work Doyno believes "keeps
changing" for readers in "times of crisis, times of uncrisis." Doyno's
studies of _Huckleberry Finn_ lead him to see the novel as a book that
"frames the Civil War, showing slavery and the re-enslavement" of
African-Americans. The importance of the book, Doyno says, includes our
need "to know what we've come from," and the importance of issues
including injustice, alcoholism, child abuse, poverty, and violence."
What Doyno has learned from his work on this important edition will be
further developed in a work he currently calls _Beginning to Write
Huckleberry Finn_, an extension of his earlier _Writing Huck Finn: Mark
Twain's Creative Process_ (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1991). The richness of this new text is, of course, that all
readers of _Huckleberry Finn_ will find new avenues to explore and new
revisions of their interpretations of the book, based on the text itself
as well as on the scholarship of Doyno.
Doyno also notes in his Addendum that the Mark Twain Project ultimately
will incorporate the new material in a revised version of its
authoritative text, and hopes the manuscript itself will appear either
in print or on CD ROM. Until then (around the year 2027, when the
copyright runs out), the _Comprehensive Huckleberry Finn_ belongs on
every public and school library shelf in America. Further, teachers of
the novel must become immediately and intimately familiar with the text
and Addendum, and all educators should encourage students to read this
edition for the new insights and new avenues of interpretation opened up
by this important work in American studies. Mark Twain, as Doyno
reminds us, set out to write an adventure book, and 111 years after the
adventure began, we are all privileged to have literary adventures anew,
and are fortunate to be among the first to share in the discovery,
exploration, and expansion of the cultural milieu revealed in this
significant story of a boy, his friend, a raft, and the country in which
they still journey.
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