Re: Huck Finn / Uncle Tom's Cabin

[Jeffrey Booth <booth2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ralph,
        I know this is just a minor detail in your post but what is the
"local" you refer to in the p.s. part of your message?  Is this a union
local?  (Please forgive my obstinate trade union feteshism).
        By the way, I think I agree with the rest of your post.  And I have
some quotes floating around in my head from Letters To The Earth by Twain to
back up some of your points but I can't remember them.

                                -- Jeff Booth

On Thu, 18 Jan 1996, Ralph Dumain wrote:

> Who is this Jane Smiley, anyway, and why would anyone read
> HARPER'S magazine?  I don't see anything profound in this
> ahistorical piffle, except that it might be a good kick in the
> teeth to the sort of people who read HARPER'S.  To put Twain's
> relationship to the racial issue in perspective, there is much
> better material out there.  Start with WAS HUCK BLACK? by some
> well-meaning Jewish lady named Fishbein, I think.  You can get
> this for $5.99 on the remainder tables of many bookstores.  Half
> the book is footnotes, and you will learn a lot from these alone.
> Also, Ralph Ellison has a much more balanced portrayal of Twain's
> work.  The minstrel characterization of the slave Jim does not
> pass muster with a lot of people, understandably, but that doesn't
> mean that Twain's view of black people was limited to the minstrel
> notion.  Quite the opposite.  Twain liked the  tomfoolery of
> minstrel shows while recognizing that they were not real.  Why he
> decided to minstrelize Jim even though he knew better is a valid
> historical question, but it is stupid to blame Twain, whose
> indictment of  his own culture was daring for its day, for the
> appropriation of  his work in public schools and universities
> decades later.
>
> Then to elevate UNCLE TOM'S CABIN over HUCKLEBERRY FINN on
> political grounds is just sickening.  This is the worst kind of
> agitprop approach to literature.  The Canon -- being for or
> against it -- matters to the midcult mavens of HARPERS.  What
> matters to me is intellectual honesty and historical perspective.
>
>
> P.S.: One day I brought my copy of WAS HUCK BLACK? with me to my
> local.  A number of teenage black girls work there.  One spotted
> my book, picked it up, showed it to a co-worker, and I was asked
> what it was about.  I said it was about the cultural origins of
> Huckleberry Finn.  One girl said: "Who cares?  It's a great
> story."  The other, after agreeing, threw the book back down on
> the table, screwed up her face, and said, "Whatever interests
> you."  Is it possible that all these well-meaning whites have
> wasted their time agonizing over the embarrassment Mark Twain has
> caused them?
>
>
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