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The Story's Fiction; The Lesson's Real

My youngest daughter just finished reading Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and I had to struggle to keep my conversations with her in check as she wrestled with her own interpretation.

I have a long history with Mr. Twain’s novel. I first read it at age 10 in 1973 and, since then -- and I am telling the truth -- I have read this book at least 17 times for either academic reasons or just to reread it.

Despite its flaws with plot, and its awful last chapters when Tom Sawyer shows up, each reading sees Huck’s way with the King’s English get funnier and funnier and his trip down the Mississippi get darker and darker.

The book is replete with the worst kind of hypocrisy, ignorance, cruelty, murder, greed, deceit, and bullheadedness, with a sprinkling for at least some optimism.

Before their trip down the river, Huck saw Jim as a troublesome piece of property. By trip’s end, Huck is willing to risk his life and eternal damnation to rescue Jim, though he by no means becomes an abolitionist.

Huck’s transformation is worth remembering. Slowly, Huck came to understand what Jim was: a kind, smart, loyal and thoroughly decent man who loved his wife and kids.

But I still share some of Twain’s pessimism with a troublesome truth. The many demons of the 1840s are still with us in 2016 or, as Huck put in Chapter 33, “Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.”

I hope we see less of that 2017, but I’m not so sure.

I’m Andrew Nelson, and this is my perspective.

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