Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the only one
of Mark Twain's various books which can be called a
masterpiece. I do not suggest that it is his only book of
permanent interest; but it is the only one in which his
genius is completely realized, and the only one which
creates its own category." T. S.
Eliot
Huckleberry Finn, rebel against school and
church, casual inheritor of gold treasure, rafter of the
Mississippi, and savior of Jim the runaway slave, is the
archetypical American maverick.
Fleeing the
respectable society that wants to "sivilize" him, Huck Finn
shoves off with Jim on a rhapsodic raft journey down the
Mississippi River. The two bind themselves to one another,
becoming intimate friends and agreeing "there warn't no home
like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up
and smothery, but a raft don't. You feel mighty free and
easy and comfortable on a raft."
As Huck learns about
love, responsibility, and morality, the trip becomes a
metaphoric voyage through his own soul, culminating in the
glorious moment when he decides to "go to hell" rather than
return Jim to slavery.
Mark Twain defined classic as
"a book which people praise and don't read"; Huckleberry
Finn is a happy exception to his own rule. Twain's mastery
of dialect, coupled with his famous wit, has made
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn one of the most loved
and distinctly American classics ever
written.
Nominated for a Grammy for his work as
co-producer of the five-CD box set The Jazz Singers
(1998), Robert O'Meally is Zora Neale Hurston
Professor of Literature at Columbia University and Director
of Columbia University's Center for Jazz Studies. He is the
principal writer of Seeing Jazz (1997), the catalogue
for the Smithsonian's exhibit on jazz and literature, and
the co-editor of The Norton Anthology of African American
Literature (1996).
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