The purity of the first 20 or so chapters of Huck Finn cannot be understated. They capture the restlessness of the outcast, the desire to break the bonds of society's expectations, to find freedom in nature. Huck is an abused child of an alcoholic; Jim is an enslaved man who has no bonds, familial or otherwise, that cannot be destroyed by being sold down the river. In some ways they are like Adam and Eve on Jackson Island, trying to create a civilization, or utopia, or Eden, that allows them their own version of freedom.

The flight from slave-hunters down the Mississippi is the destruction of this Eden, finalized by taking the Duke and the King onboard the raft.

I found Ralph Ellison and Judith Fetterley's essays most insightful in this Norton Critical Edition. Ellison connects the characterization of Jim to the minstrel show, and his friendship with Huck as an undermining of Black manhood. This is the primary scar, or flaw, in this text. Jim is a martyr; he is noble; but is he fully human in Twain's portrayal?

Fetterley's analysis of the Tom Sawyer episode at the end reveals Tom's malevolent egotism as a continuation of the King and the Duke, Miss Watson, and the general milieu of violent and primitive folks who live in small towns along the Mississippi. This river is not so dissimilar from Conrad's Congo - we are in a state of nature, where the concept of civilization resides in the power structure and those who are willing to use deceit or violence to attain power. ( )

I read this book once every year. My favorite copy is a facsimile edition that was included with an anthology of American literature that I had to buy for a literature class. This Norton edition is good because it's the authoratative text. Illustrations are not included in my copy of the Norton edition--the reviewer who mentioned illustrations must be referring to a different edition.

If political correctness is a big deal for you, then this book probably isn't for you. Lucky Mark Twain--he had to deal with a lot of different issues, but the PC Police wasn't wasn't one of them. ( )

An amazing achievement. Fathers and sons, Blacks and Whites, rich and poor, men and women (and trans-gendering), settlement and wilderness, North and South, the curse of slavery, realism and melodrama. Great scenes, themes, structure, and characters. ( )

I first read this book at about age 10 or 11 and loved it, so much so in fact that I can still recall hearing a particular song on the radio as I was reading a certain chapter for the first time. I've read it at least 10 times over the years and take away something new and different each time. It is clearly one of the greatest of American novels. ( )