Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn

The novel begins with Huckleberry Finn, a teenage boy, declaring that he’d rather go to a bad place, than be in a not-much-fun good one. From here on, the reader knows that this novel is not going to preach any 'do the established right, discard the wrong'.

               It actually is good to not form notions about things at all, or not to judge, like Huck does. “I wouldn’t bother no more about it, but after this always do whichever comes handiest at the time”, he says. He goes with the flow, be it in life or on his raft in Mississippi river.

               And that is how the life of adventure, islands, raft, canoe and made-up stories begin. And it is indeed a beautiful one. So much so that when Huck doesn’t sleep in the night because there is a storm and one doesn’t get to see one like it every day; it felt like witnessing a rare phenomenon. The account of such things is so beautiful that you end up wishing you had that sort of life- amidst water and woods.

              However, at times, when the concern is only about what happened next, these descriptions get tiresome. But then it is revived by the small tales that are very finely woven alongside the main plot; and in no time they too grasp the interest.

              By the last tale Tom Sawyer enters with his imaginative ideas, and creates problems that don’t even exist, those are few hard chapters where one wishes Huck would take over. At the same time, I was wondering if we do the same- create problems when they don’t exist, just because the famous tales said they should exist.

             Anyhow, coming to the language, which is the major aspect of this work. It seems like the author crawled into the skin of a child to speak like that and to think like that too. No way else could the idea of the stars being laid by the moon like frogs lay frogs, could’ve crossed his mind. It’s ideas like these that make the book a must-read (even for adults). But beware, cuz the grammar a going to lose its foundation for some days.

My favorite quotes from the book:

🔆"There's a grave somewhere for me. The world may take everythng from me- loved ones, property, everything- but it can't take that."

🔆"That's what an army is- a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass".

🔆"A person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide it, it ain't no disgrace."

🔆"You can't pray a lie."