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THE 50 GREATEST BOOKS

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

MARTIN LEVIN

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 4:38 PM EDT 14/03/08

Mark Twain's classic starts new, year-long series ...Read the full article

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  1. Paul Thompson from Canada writes: The 1st half of the novel is immortal, the last 12 chapters or so are mostly crap, and I'll bet Mark Twain himself would admit that, if you caught him in the right mood.
  2. Misha Abarbanel from Toronto, Canada writes: While it's true that the novel's denouement is less exciting than that which precedes the climax of Huck's 'unlearning' (Chapter XXXI), it should hardly be called 'crap'. The paradox that raises the question of the degree to which this novel is a bildungsroman is created in the final twelve chapters. The paradox being, of course, that while Huck dismisses conscience as nothing more than an inconvenience, he is exceededly motivated by it. Why might that raise the aforementioned question? It does so because his moral development is something of which he is unaware, and your standard protagonist in a bildungsroman is aware of his/her epiphanies. The ironic - and comedic - value also plays out in the final twelve chapters in that Huck's decision to continue to assist and protect Jim is one that he thinks is categorically 'wrong' (and will send him to hell) yet in the reader's mind, he is clearly doing something quite 'right'. Also, Tom's influence and his relative immaturity are 'crystal-clear' in this section. As this novel is a sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, taking up the topic of Tom's influence (especially as compared with Jim's) is another important aspect of the final 'twelve chapters or so'. Huck's questioning of Tom's quixotic schemes to emancipate Jim as well as his comments on the absurdity of the fact that Tom went through all the trouble just to "set a free n***** free" serve as critical criteria of differentiation between the two boys. These three dimensions of the novel are essential to its meaning; both play out in the final twelve chapters. The whole novel is immortal. Misha Abarbanel Highland JHS, TDSB
  3. james bell from Canada writes: the 50 greatest books of all time! the 10 greatest aircraft carriers in the world! the 100 greatest movies ever made! i can hardly wait for this panel to get together and let me, barely literate, not too bright, but i think i can comprehend it, me.
    we'll all have to get our dictionaries oiled, bend and re-bend the thesaurus while the panel shall decorate my screen with unintelligable, intractable, pithy,ululating phrases, wordstorms and general, everyday b.s.
    how about a panel to tell us the 10 rudest comments made by an intoxicated, red-faced, purple haired restaurateur.
    why? why?
  4. Brent Van Osch from Kitchener, Canada writes: james bell ... be free brother! Don't allow yourself to be tortured. Get up, walk away from your computer and ignore this 'best of' series lest ye be suffering from the opinions of others meant to entertain - not forcefully indoctrinate.

    why, why indeed.

    (Gotta go now, they are showing the top 10 missteps taken by young Hollywood starlets last month and I can only think of 8 myself ...)
  5. Paul Thompson from Canada writes: I see that your insight into the novel is very profound Misha, and I won't dispute it other than to say I nearly wet my pants laughing at the 1st part and was mostly bored with the rest.
  6. Misha Abarbanel from Toronto, Canada writes: I agree; there's no question that the 'first part' is hilarious, and the rest is more serious / less hilarious.
  7. Trying to be Rational from Canada writes: Perfect choice. I also believe this to be the greatest novel of all time. I account for the so-called flaws of the final third of the novel this way: Twain is returning the story to the society from which it grew. Hence, Jim, as one instance of this return, becomes infantalized again. (Note: Jane Smiley's criticism of the novel some years ago missed this essential point.) And, hence, Huck, now permanantly enlightened, has to leave this essentially corrupt society.
  8. james bell from Canada writes: where's the hilarious part? Bildungsroman? wha'? is that a roman fort in germany? where's part 2, misha?
    i woulda said, "the moral and philosophical maturation of the principal character.", but that would be trite.
    I gotta go now, gonna get "The Book of Lists."
  9. Geoffrey May from Canada writes: I am often surprised by G&M readers comments, and always disapointed when other posters fall back on name calling .But how Mischa can declare the bulk of Huck Finn as "Crap" is just stunning.
    In my opinion , Huck Finn is the best novel ever written, in terms of what it reveals about the human character and human nature .
    As the great man wrote , To be or not to be, that there is the bare bodkin
  10. Misha Abarbanel from Toronto, Canada writes: Geoffrey, read more carefully.
  11. Misha Abarbanel from Toronto, Canada writes: Geoffrey: The first post called the last twelve chapters 'crap', and I was objecting to that (see "the whole novel is immortal" line).

    Oh, and James, pardon me for elevating the discussion above your protest toward the existence of the Globe's series. If you think the series isn't worthwhile, don't read it (let alone comment on it). If you don't know what bildungsroman means, look it up. Leave the posting to people who have something to say (Paul, Brent, Trying, and myself).
  12. Albin Forone from Toronto, Canada writes: I hope readers will avail themselves of the good reading of this very good and free audiobook by a Ms. Annie Coleman for www.librivox.org - I find these audiobooks the best thing since the long-gone days of serial radio, especially if you can't stand chirpy self-congratulatory a.m. radio "hosts" during your commute and can listen to your player on the car sound system. (Careful - conscientious objectors to the "N" word will have a difficult time transporting themselves into the mid-1800s, but the relevant "N" comes off very well in the telling.
  13. Trying to be Rational from Canada writes: Misha: Admirable self-control. I wish I could do that!
  14. Theodore Street from Canada writes: I very much enjoyed the book -- I'm sure there were picaresque stories or road books before this one, but certainly H Finn would have influenced J Kerouac and others.

    I think in this era of political correctness people can fear the N-word, the C-word, the V-word, or whatever letter of the alphabet you wish to mention. From a literary standpoint, or even just my plain reading of the book: I didn't sense any hatred or condescension in what M Twain wrote, but obviously it would take a character not an actual person to freely say those words, eh?
  15. Farenheit 451 from Vancouver, Canada writes: Is it just me or does Mark Twain appeal more to a male audience?

    I agree that the 'list' concept has been done to death, but I rather like the idea of the discussion to go with the selection. I read Huck Finn and it didn't really do much for me, but I like reading what other people think. To the Lighthouse went right over my head the first time through but then I had the opportunity to hear someone else discuss it and I realized there was more to it than I had thought. So I'm on board. Can't support Huck for 'best novel' ever though.
  16. Albin Forone from Toronto, Canada writes: 411 - no claim that HF is the best ever, but certainly among the best 50 novels I've read - there may be enough (G-rated) cross-dressing to make it past the diversity-celebration critique. If informed criticism helped you with Woolf, maybe the same would do for Twain. The better writers are bigger than their times, it's why they outlast. (I'm now listening to Elizabeth Klett's fine reading of Forster's great Howard's End, which I hope will make it onto the Globe's list.)
  17. Cyrus Of Persia from Canada writes: I loved this beautiful book when I read it as a boy, and it has been in my blood ever since. I read it 12 times by the time I was 12, so that I didn't even have to read it again when I studied it in both grade 9 and again in university. Which simply proves Twain's power as an artist, not my capacity as a reader. He could pack such profundity in such simplicity.

    I haven't read it in 40 years, but I'm going to haul it out again now.
  18. joe cormorant from Canada writes: Misha - what have you written? Any classics? Anything better than your commentary?
  19. Misha Abarbanel from Toronto, Canada writes: Gee, Joe. I hadn't realized this forum was only for writers of classics. And which of those did you write? how about James Bell? Oh, and what exactly did you want to take issue with in my commentary? By the way, you don't have to have written classics to comment on them.

    It seems that all people like you, James, and Geoffrey want out of this forum is the opportunity to say "uh, I liked it" or "uh, I didn't like it". In a discussion of a list of greatest novels, I didn't expect chiding for defending the bloody book that had been selected with some substance from the text.

    Your attitude sucks.

    Your
  20. Paul Thompson from Canada writes: Maybe my characterization of the final 3rd or so of the novel as "crap" was a little harsh, but perhaps it's because what preceded that was so good, and it suffers in comparison. I found the part where Tom Sawyer showed up to be especially tedious, but I would and likely will read it again to become reacquainted with the adventures of "The Royal Nonsuch" and the like.
  21. james bell from Canada writes: if you read my posting you would have noticed i did explain the meaning of bildungsroman. i wanted to point out that people take many things far too seriously, especially lists.
    i've often pointed out that many pick the king james bible because that is the bible they grew up with even though they can't really understand it. the same is true of many of the classics. i've actually had people tell me "don quixote" was one of their favourite novels.
    i was being a bit off the wall and apologize to misha for any unintended
    affront, but "bildungsroman" is not a word used in everyday conversation. if you read, for example, gibbon's "decline and fall of the roman empire" the extensive footnotes have many passages in greek and latin. gibbon expected readers to understand it because any educated people understood greek and latin.
  22. J S from Canada writes: I think this is a great idea. The point is not that it's a "list"...how else to introduce and structure a discussion around what are considered the literary masterpieces of our time? James Bell = wet blanket.
  23. Richard Bojankiewicz from Toronto, Canada writes: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. A much more enjoyable read, in my humble opinion. In it, Mark Twain captures the essence of boyhood antics and had me laughing whole heartedly, especially when I re-read it at age 45. Huck Finn was a bit of a disappointment after Tom Sawyer.
  24. dick brown from missy, Canada writes: How come the G&M haven’t covered Ezra Levant’s eviscerating of the Alberta Human Rights Commission...pure classic stuff! Youtube Ezra Levant, watch the video...wow...
  25. Ann Battison from Canada writes: I welcome lists to bring to my attention books or music etc that I might otherwise have neglected. I have been meaning to start reading Mark Twain for some time - thanks to Martin Levin, Mischa and others for the helpful postings. Lists are fun - for example - the Modern Library has two 100 "bests" for literature. Included in the top 10 of the Readers' Choice list are 4 by Ayn Rand and 3 by L. Ron Hubbard, which I found surprising. That list is on my personal Top Ten Lists of Lists. In any case, with approximately 1000 years of world literature to evaluate, the definitive list will be some time in coming.

    As for word choice - I once read a description of a person who "didn't know his Bildungsroman from his Entwicklungsroman." At the time, I didn't know either term, but I knew it was funny and it took about 5 seconds on the internet to track down the meaning of both.

    For anyone looking for a faster way to find definitions than an oily dictionary or an over-bent thesaurus, I can't recommend the internet too highly. And seriously - thanks james bell l - "wordstorm" joins the Onion's "bloodstorm" on my list of Top Ten Interesting Storms. Wordstorm, how did I miss that. I love it.

    For anyone looking for a recipe for Schandenfreude Pie, which is dark and sinful and delicious, I would be happy to share one with you.
  26. Mat B from Canada writes: Why don't you provide an RSS feed of this series? I'd be much more likely to follow along...
  27. Brian Brett from Salt Spring Island, Canada writes: Alas, the great tragedy of the Hemingway quote is that it is never fully quoted: All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. If you read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating. But it's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since. Mark Twain obviously became afraid of what he'd written and in a panic converted it back into a children's book. When Tom Sawyer comes walking down the road the book turns silly, even racist. Twain might have lost his courage but that still makes Hemingway right. What comes before the appearance of Tom Sawyer is one of the great journeys of humankind, and so you can't really hold his failure of nerve against Mark Twain. Brian
  28. Hugh Draper from Vancouver, Canada writes: It's one of the greatest children's books. I enjoyed it when I was twelve.
  29. C K from Toronto, Canada writes: Hugh, I hope you weren't being dismissive. And if you read it at 12 and thought you got everything out of it, then you need to go back to it. True great novels can be read and absorbed and reacted to differently at different stages of your life. I don't find Huck as funny as I did when I was younger, because I often end up looking at the society that Huck and Jim are forced to deal with. The lies "adults" tell each other -- and children -- and expect to be believe are enormous. It sometimes appears from the novel that society is just a construct of lies that all participants are actively and knowingly supporting. It still exists today. How much responsibility do each of us have in supporting this world of lies? We all think we're Huck or Jim, trying to escape it.
  30. Brian Brett from Salt Spring, Canada writes: Whoops, the Hemingway quote somehow got formatted right into my comment. It goes like this” “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. If you read it you must stop where Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating. But it's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.“ The reason why it stopped getting fully quoted long ago is part of the problem with the modern reading of Huckleberry Finn. Even the name Nigger Jim has become so toxic that I find it hard to type, as others obviously have. Despite the book’s flaws and maybe because of its nakedness, its honest river of America makes it one of the great books and I’m glad the Globe had the courage to begin with it.
  31. Stephen Dedalus from Canada writes: I liked Huck Finn. I'd say it's a flawed masterpiece, but it's still a worthwhile read. I think it was Harold Bloom who said that this book, Moby-Dick, and Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass are the three candidates for America's "national epic." It's interesting how a short adventure novel--which, as some have already mentioned, can be seen as a children's book--can compete with such heavily symbolic, refined texts as Melville's and Whitman's . . . though I'm going by hearsay on Leaves of Grass. I've never read the thing.
  32. Janice Cooper from West Kootenays, British Columbia, Canada writes: While certainly not my favourite novel of all times, it most definitely had a huge impact on modern literature. One of the big themes in both American and Canadian Lit is "lighting out to the west" to start a fresh slate. It's not fair to criticize Twain's use of the N word when it was commonly used at the time of writing. My mother almost fainted when in grade 7 or 8 I was retelling the short story we'd read that day in English class, Leningen VS the Ants, and casually tossed off something the teacher had said about the "darkies" in the story. Our teacher used that term (she was about to retire, and that was in 1967 or so, so she was born around the turn of the century when there was no such thing as political correctness.) To be honest, my classmates and I didn't even realize she was referring to people of colour, we just assumed it was a referrence to the guys working in the fields on the plantation or whatever. We were far more interested in whether those crazy ants could be stopped before they ate everything in their path!! My mom did call the school the next day and proceded to tear a very large strip off the principal, the teacher, and probably the school board, knowing my mom. Now that I've read this article I must read HF again.
  33. leo bloom from radisson, sask, Canada writes: Mark twain once wrote that 'There ain't no way to find out why a snorer can't hear himself snore.' ...Judging by the comments on the first of these 50, I think there might well be a editorial nudging process whereby posters are required, at intervals, to roll over on their sides...
  34. scott mclendon from Memphis,TN, United States writes: When do we get to Robertson Davies?
  35. Anne Peterson from Canada writes:
    I think it's a guy's book. Or perhaps I should say a boy's book. I also think Hemingway is a guy's author. Treasure Island as adventure escapism is a better book.
  36. Anonymous - from Waterloo, Canada writes: Huck Finn is a good book, but I personally dont think its good enough to be called one of the greatest 50 books. I thought Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was much better, both content-wise and writing style. It deserves to be in the top 50.
  37. The Bubble from Canada writes: I'd put it on the list, it is a great book and probably the only one I forced my son to read. It's tangled up with my own memories of "borrowing" duck hunter boats thirty five years ago when I was about eleven and paddling down the rideau river with my friend.
  38. The Bubble from Canada writes: Treasure Island doesn't come close to The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne.
  39. Better to light a small candle than to sit and curse the darkness from Canada writes: Anonymous - from Waterloo, Canada writes: Huck Finn is a good book, but I personally dont think its good enough to be called one of the greatest 50 books. I thought Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer was much better, both content-wise and writing style. It deserves to be in the top 50.
    *****************************************************I diasagree. Tom Sawyer was a good book and very entertaining but to compare Huck Finn with Tom Sawyer is like comparing Archie Bunker to ...well just about any current sitcom. Bunker was not only entertaining it was series of (mostly) parables. It made some people uncomfortable (as does Huck Finn)and for that reason it was nearly taken off. Huck Finn was thrown out of a good number of librairies and thrown off many a reading list.
    CYMRO
  40. Maria Stewart from Victoria, Canada writes: It's interesting in reading the comments to see how the "greatness" of a book can be analyzed against its political or cultural relevance. I.e., HF is great because Twain moves past the racial bias of his time by showing that if HF can accept blacks as real people so can you. Is it fair to say: A great book is one that helped form our current view of the world, and, therefore, this list will evolve.
  41. Rollo Tomasi from Belgium writes: What a crappy review, he told me a dozen times what I already knew and did not need to hear once, HF is a book/novel.
  42. Eric Kirkpatrick from Vancouver, B.C., Canada writes: Don't know why we must only consider books written for adults as qualifying as among the Greatest. Most of us were first introduced to the Bible as children. These books mold our charactor and give us goals. And as a child growing up upon the banks of the St. John River, the memories of this fellow Mississippi adventurer has been with me throughout my many travels across Canada.
  43. john chuckman from Canada writes: Paul Thompson (above) has it about right. Huckleberry Finn is more flop than success. I like Twain, and at his best, as in the novelette Mysterious Stranger or in parts of Letters From the Earth, he is truly a great writer. But he was a man who wrote too much that was of poor quality, indeed far more than he did of good quality. He always was desperate for money which he lost in huge quantities trying to get rich with crazy investments like an elaborate, Gyro-Gearloose typesetting machine. Twain himself was in many ways an archetypical American, feverishly concerned with making money. His art suffered badly. It could fairly be said he thought his witty lines sufficient to cover stories he did not work hard enough on, but he was wrong. His wife, the prudish daughter of a Buffalo New York newspaper magnate, often influenced his writing. She was touchy about his using raw language, the very language a boy like Huck would use, as Twain well knew. He cleaned up the manuscript in response to her. The word n----r survived because in Twain’s time it was the common, everyday word. It is actually an embarrassment to read the 200 or so mentions of this word today. I am aware of the literary argument for his repeated use of the word, but I don’t accept it. Twain was a man who might have been great, but settled for being popular.
  44. M j from Canada writes: You can download the masterpiece, and others out of copyright, from the Project Gutenberg website: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/76

    Put it on your favourite device for re-reading on the go.

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