BOOK REVIEW

The following book review was written for the Mark Twain Forum by John
Pascal.


_Critical Insights: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_. R. Kent Rasmussen, ed.
Salem Press, 2017. Pp. 279. Hardcover. $105.00. ISBN 978-1-68217-122-6.


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Reviewed for the Mark Twain Forum by:
John Pascal


Copyright © 2017 Mark Twain Forum. This review may not be published or
redistributed in any medium without permission.



 _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ has conjured intellectual and emotional
reactions from countless readers since its 1885 publication. Books and
articles about its themes, enduring yet changing relevancies, characters,
and Mark Twain himself number in the hundreds, if not thousands, with no
apparent end in sight. Given such an enormous number, some skeptics may
conclude that nothing more meaningful can be said. But this is like a
veteran steamboat pilot saying that the great Mississippi River's twelve to
thirteen hundred miles are completely "learned."  As this new collection of
essays shows, this is not so.


There have been a number of collections of critical essays on _Huckleberry
Finn_ over the past fifty years. To name just a handful: _Twentieth Century
Interpretations of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_, Claude Simpson, ed.
(1968); _One Hundred Years of Huckleberry Finn_, Robert Sattelmeyer and J.
Donald Crowley, eds. (1985); _The Critical Response to Huckleberry Finn_,
Laurie Champion, ed. (1991); and _Satire or Evasion? Black Perspectives on
Huckleberry Finn_, James S. Leonard, Thomas A. Tenney, and Thadious M.
Davis, eds. (1992). Each generation of scholars brings something unique to
the forefront for critical examination.


This new volume is the second in the Critical Insight series from Salem
Press that R. Kent Rasmussen has edited. The series is a valued resource
for academic libraries for its array of scholarly criticism on authors such
as Emily Dickinson, Stephen King, James Baldwin, John Steinbeck, Charles
Dickens, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Rasmussen's _Critical Insights: Mark
Twain_ was released in 2011.


This volume devoted to _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ includes sections
on "The Book and the Author," "Critical Contexts," and "Critical Readings."
A great literary work is integral with its author's background and
Rasmussen's own essay "On Mark Twain and _Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_"
demonstrates that the masterpiece could not have been written without the
stunning life experiences of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. He was a world
traveler and his writing is fueled from his unique lifelong powers of
observation, his ear for vernacular language, and his ability to make
different generations rage and laugh at our humanity.


The "Critical Contexts" section begins with veteran Mark Twain Papers
editor Victor Fischer explaining the process of creating a critical edition
of _Huckleberry Finn_ under the extraordinary circumstances that included
manuscript halves separated for more than a century, references to heavily
revised typescripts now lost, unauthorized editorial interventions, and
inadvertent errors. Given the proliferation of editions that appeared in
Clemens's lifetime, how difficult was it to have this work rendered as he
intended?  It was extremely difficult. In "'Bessie' or 'Becky': Should We
Care about Text?"  Fischer discusses the resulting differences between
Twain's original manuscripts and the printed editions over the decades
which involve the "raft episode," carefully crafted dialects, even the
definite article "The" in the book's title.


Kevin Mac Donnell brings his long experience as a rare book librarian and
widely published bibliographer and scholar to measure "Huck's Reception
during Three Centuries" with a broad perspective ranging from
nineteenth-century reviewers to twentieth-first century critics, including
African American readers. He draws upon contemporary letters written to
Mark Twain and provides clarification on Louisa May Alcott's and Ernest
Hemingway's thoughts on _Huckleberry Finn_. Mac Donnell is right on target
stating that the book has "been taught, translated, abridged, and banned
but never ignored" (p, 48).


Alan Gribben's gut-wrenching personal experience in attempting to get _The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_ back into classrooms where
both were banned because of the word "nigger" is recounted in "Huck Finn
and Tom Sawyer Expelled: Censorship and the Classroom."  The pain of
Gribben's many African American students in reading this racial slur and
his seeing both works banned in many statewide integrated public school
classrooms gave him the tremendous courage to prepare editions of Twain's
two novels without the offensive racial slurs; they were intended as
extremely logical and workable alternatives to halt against "generations of
students being prevented from encountering Twain's masterpieces" (p. 68).
Gribben recounts the backlash of widespread firestorms of unjustified
personal and professional condemnations in and beyond our country that were
completely dismissive and were inexcusably empty of intelligent reaction.
Yet like Jim never abandoning the wounded Tom Sawyer, Gribben's achievement
certainly "removes the last possible excuse for public schools not to
include these works in their curricula again" (pp. 79-80).


Jocelyn Chadwick in "_Huckleberry Finn_ vs. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ as
Antislavery Novels" examines both novels as separately distinctive
"examples of the social media of both their time and our own" (p. 82). She
also clearly differs with novelist Jane Smiley's 1996 _Harper's Magazine_
article "Say It Ain't So, Huck: Second thoughts on Mark Twain's
'Masterpiece'" contrasting _Huckleberry Finn_ unfavorably to _Uncle Tom's
Cabin_. Chadwick pointedly shows that despite Stowe's sincere effort to
show slavery in a way to end it, her work still developed and maintained
negative racial and cultural stereotypes that tragically continue to affect
race relations today. Twain's "masterpiece" is far superior in exceeding
traditional antislavery novels because he wrote for future as well as his
contemporary audiences in consistently showing the unreasoning brutality of
slavery while simultaneously showing free and enslaved black people as
"conscious, thinking, reflective human beings--real individuals with voice
and choice" (p. 82).


The "Critical Readings" section naturally begins with the importance of
studying a literary work with a critical eye. Can Pap Finn be ignored?  As
Injun Joe said, "not exactly," thanks to _Finn_, a 2007 work of terrifying
art by novelist Jon Clinch. "Animating the Unsaid: Between the Lines in
_Huckleberry Finn_" explores his painting a singular novel that meshes with
Twain's as well as giving logically imaginative and surprising answers to
the concentric black holes surrounding Pap himself that were suggested by
Twain but left unsaid. Clinch fills in the details using a four-part
approach of limitation, naivete, shading, and concealment derived from
choices made by Twain as he fitted the novel as a product of Huck's
character and narration. Thanks to Clinch, Pap no longer "haunts the
margins" of _Huckleberry Finn_, his unleashing of this true monster makes
readers bond fully with Huck's fear . . . as well we should (p. 103).


Humorist scholar Tracy Wuster contributes "'How a body can see and don't
see at the same time': Reading Humor in _Huckleberry Finn_" to illustrate
how the work of humor raises our awareness of the book's cultural issues as
well as making it "both clearer and more fun" (p. 113). His essay
scrutinizes Twain's role as a humorist; his creation of humor using Huck
Finn's vernacular narration in his descriptions and perceptions; how humor
molds understandings of Huck's moral dilemmas and ways Twain might be
satirizing racism and morality; and finally humor's comprehension of the
book's unforgettably controversial ending.


John Davis's "The Reluctant Author: Huck Finn's Metafictional Partnership
with Mark Twain" showcases the exclusive joint authorial roles between a
boy doing double duty as creator and character and so apparently more than
just ink on paper, and his maker who was invented by Sam Clemens. Building
his arguments include Huck's slight displeasure with how Mr. Mark Twain
told the story of _Tom Sawyer_; Twain's framing of the story with his
"NOTICE" and "Explanatory" both given by "The Author" himself; allusions to
real books and river terminology used by Huck that could only be known by
Twain; and even Huck's ability to precisely "write" Colonel Sherburn's
language demonstrate his metafictional connection with the "Author" who is
doing the "listening."


In "Is _Huckleberry Finn_ a Picaresque Novel?"  Robert Evans lays an
extensive foundation for why it can be so regarded. Leading picaresque
authority Ulrich Wicks provides thirty-three characteristics of picaresque
fiction and Evans comments on how each applies to the novel.


In "Identity Switching in _Huckleberry Finn_" Linda Morris discusses all of
Huck's multiple identity switches along with those by other characters. She
displays how Huck is the only character to change in innocence, but
ironically that quality reveals his true "identity" of persuasive
imagination and spontaneous cleverness.


According to Mark Twain, "The idea that no gentleman ever swears is all
wrong. He can swear and still be a gentleman if he does it in a nice and
benevolent and affectionate way."  Perhaps this thought segues into
"'Pow-wows of cussing': Profanity and Euphemistic Variants in _Huckleberry
Finn_" by Sarah Fredericks. She thoroughly categorizes and clarifies what
was considered foul language in Twain's time and how he pressed propriety's
boundaries in his writings without irrevocably offending delicate
sensibilities. Remarkably, in _Huckleberry Finn_ explicit profanity is
nearly transparent and Huck and Jim's passionate expressions at key moments
in their growing character become stronger.


Mark Twain believed that civilization is hypocrisies and cruelties, with
the word itself suggesting a lie. Philip Bader explains in "Why Huck Finn
Can't Stand Being Sivilized" that Huck cannot be blamed for wanting no part
of communities and individuals that can bewilder and at times frighten his
ingenuous disposition. With various examples, Bader further illustrates
that for all the physical and mental abuses striking this homeless orphan,
amazingly he does not react with violent cruelty to others. Ironically,
Huck is not the vulgar and bad boy according to the so-called civilized
society. He is far more respectable in his readers' eyes and won't be going
to hell.


"'Huck Finn, He Hain't Got No Family': Home, Family, and Parenting in
_Huckleberry Finn_" expresses John Bird's view that while Twain was
enjoying all aspects of his family life, he was writing of a boy who has
none of it but still aches for it. His cases in point include Huck's almost
crying because he has no family as a requirement to join Tom Sawyer's Gang;
and remarking that Uncle Silas "always is" a "mighty nice old man,"
suggesting that Huck did stay at the Phelps farm.


"'It's Tom Sawyer!' (No it ain't . . . it's Huck Finn!)" by Hugh Davis
discusses how Tom and Huck are often simplified and confused icons in the
eyes of readers due to the different shaping of popular culture in media
adaptations, toys, and memorabilia. Among several proofs, Davis reminds us
that of course Tom and Huck are quite distinct in origin and character
depth, lest we forget who narrates _Tom Sawyer_ and who narrates
_Huckleberry Finn_.


This volume contains a chronology of Mark Twain's life and related events
through year 2011, extensive bibliography of works cited and index.
Previous collections of critical essays on _Huckleberry Finn_ have provided
a timeless snapshot of scholarly attitudes and viewpoints when they were
published.  This 2017 collection, with its outstanding array of scholars,
editors, and educators contributing fresh voices and viewpoints further
defines the depths of the river of Mark Twain's masterpiece.

_____


ABOUT THE REVIEWER: John Pascal is in his sixteenth year teaching ninth and
eleventh grade English at Seton Hall Preparatory School in New Jersey. He
is in his second year teaching a course he developed called Writings of
Mark Twain. He holds a B.A. Cum Laude in English from Villanova University,
an M.B.A. from Seton Hall University, and an M.A. in English from Montclair
State University.