CHAPTER 1

DISCOVER MOSES AND THE BULRUSHERS

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. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly--Tom's Aunt Polly, she is--and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six thousand dollars apiece--all gold. It was an awful sight of money when it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round--more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back.

The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come to time. When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little over the victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with them--that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better.

After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people.

Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that was all right, because she done it herself.

Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, "Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry"; and "Don't scrunch up like that, Huckleberry--set up straight"; and pretty soon she would say, "Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry--why don't you try to behave?" Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said...

 

Huckleberry Finn has had a rough life, enduring protests and book bans by generations of readers unfamiliar with the concept of irony. Revisiting a novel only dimly remembered from high school is always a treat, but Huck Finn still presents its challenges. Can a narrator stay true to the text without lapsing into caricature, especially in the case of Jim, the runaway slave? Michael Prichard does it rather well, giving Jim a distinctive voice without exaggeration. As most of the book is carried by Huck's own narrative, though, a more youthful voice than Prichard's might have been appropriate. Still, he does a good job with the dialect, and his pace is suitably laconic. As Huck might say, by and by, a body does get used to it. D.B. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

 

Listeners are becoming more and more discriminating about the fidelity of the audio production, as well as the artistry of the reading performance. Michael Pritchard's 1977 reading for Books on Tape reflects a quality typical for that time; the fidelity is only fair. Pritchard's reading is too rushed and gives the listener little chance to form images and absorb the material. His vocal characterizations are only moderately effective in helping the listener enter Huck's world of diverse personalities. If Pritchard's heart really is into telling the story, his voice betrays him. P.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

 

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. It's the best book we've had."

 

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
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