No Home Like a Raft:  “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”

Everybody should read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I enjoyed thoroughly on a fourth reading. It is not only a classic, but it is sui generis in American literature.

In Twain’s smart, witty, suspenseful masterpiece, Huck and Jim, a comic duo on the run, try to escape trauma as they raft down the Mississippi River.  Jim, a runaway slave, took off when he learned that he was to be sold for $800 and separated from his wife and child. And Huck, too, is a runaway who has escaped from his drunken, abusive father. 

Their experiences are in some ways parallel. Jim looks after Huck like a son, and the two repeatedly save one another from dangerous adventures. Both are flexible in the face of peril, and it is not always apparent, especially to Huck, how much danger they face from flim-flam men and violent feuding families.

Huck’s witty, optimistic voice dominates the narrative, and the tall tales he spins to survive are very funny indeed. Jim and Huck are happiest when they are on the raft.

Here is one of my favorite quotes.

We said there wasn’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.”

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