reflections on huck finn
7:49 AM
Twain starts off with something one of my friends at another school called "the best introduction ever":
"You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth."
Clever self-promoter.
Huck is reminiscent of Nancy Drew in a tight spot; he's quick-witted and he lies scarily well. When he's caught pretending to be a girl, he apologetically promises to tell the truth -- and then he tells another lie. His method of coping with questioning strangers reminds me of a piano teacher. I quit piano at ten, but until that glorious winter day I buried finger warmup books in the cold snow, I had to deal with an incurably nosy teacher. His small talk was erratically placed throughout lessons, and the quality of it just furthered my suspicions that he lived alone.
Anyways, he would ask what my hobbies were, where I went to church, what I had for lunch, the names of my friends, how much money I think we made. So I would try to maintain eye contact and a truthful tone. "I like running with my dog," I said. I didn't own one. He said, "Oh. Oh, I'm allergic to dogs." "Me too," I said.
Honest Abe watched from above as I responded to the other questions:
I think he liked me a lot, in the way America might enjoy a small, nine-year-old Kardashian.
But even more ruthless and sharp than Huck is his right hand Tom Sawyer. I sort of wish Twain had penned a novel with the two living together as adults. Maybe it could be set in industrial America at the turn of the century, with them fooling Rockefeller into handing over his business to them. "Oil get ye lads," Twain would have Rockefeller say, as critics would call Twain an untalented and depressed maniac.
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