[PEN-L:33529] Re: Re: Huck Finn

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> At 7:36 PM -0500 12/29/02, Max B. Sawicky wrote:
> >Leslie Fiedler's sexual take ("come back to the raft, Huck honey").
>
> Leslie Fiedler's take has yet to be commodified in Hannibal.

Incidentally, Fiedler spoke at a departmental dinner a decade or so ago,
and the only thing I remember about the talk is that he discussed Huck
Finn and did _not_ mention, either to affirm or to qualify or to
retract, the thesis of "Come back to the raft." He did discuss various
features of the book which could (he thought) be considered racist --
but I don't remember any of that either!

I find some of the defenses of the last third of the book posted here
persuasive -- but not decisive. It is always easy to defend anything
almost with the catchword "irony." And while it's true that Tom "stands
for" respectable society, and it is directly Tom (not Huck or Twain),
these are somewhat abstract points, and there is no direct voice in the
book even implying that there is something wrong, deeply wrong, about
making a black man an object for play of several whites. Tom is
following "The Book" (and I assume that Twain and at least some readers
will think "The Bible"), and that is made as ridiculous as Tom makes
Jim. But I still can't imagine the same narrative beting presented had
the captive been (say) a Confederate Officer in a Union prison.

Besides. Twain is one of the greatest prose stylists in the English
language -- and the first 2/3rds or so of Huck Finn would be Exhibit A.
The style loses density in the final chapters.

Carrol