In his recent review of Shelley Fisher-Fishkin's latest book, Wesley Britton
asked in closing for opinions about _Was Huck Black?_, specifically whether,
as
Shelley apparently claims, that most Mark Twain scholars accept her thesis
that
Sociable Jimmy was the model for Huck.  Wesley says that's not what he's
heard,
and I guess I would agree.  So here I go with my opinion, for whatever it's
worth.

I found the connection between Sociable Jimmy and Huck's voice very thin.
First
off, Jimmy sounds more like Buck Grangerford, with all his breathless talk,
than
the laconic Huck (if I were a wag, I might suggest she call her book _Was
Buck
Black?_, but I'm not a wag!).  Second, I don't think Mark Twain needed a
reminder like meeting Jimmy to spur him to write in black dialect.  So on
that
score, I'm not convinced.

But on her larger (and I think more important point), I agree that there's a
lot
of black influence on the way Huck talks, and that the "juices get swapped
around," as she says.  If the question is about this point, I think many
more
people do agree with Shelley, and thank her for her careful and insightful
work
on the intermixing of black and white speech.  Her point resonated very
strongly
with this Southerner--I know that the way I talk is a mixture of white and
black
, and I suspect the same was true of Mark Twain.  So the way I see it, this
was
there with him all the time, and it didn't take Sociable Jimmy to bring it
out.

I'll be interested to see what others say, and thanks to Wesley for raising
this
question.