"Tom Sawyer is Mark Twain's hymn to the secure and fantastic world of boyhood and adventure. From the famous episodes of the whitewashed fence and the ordeal in the cave to the trial of Injun Joe, the story is redolent of life in the Mississippi River towns which Twain spent his own youth. A somber undercurrent flows through the high humor and unabashed nostalgia of the novel, however, for beneath the innocence of childhood lie the inequities of adult reality--base emotions and superstitions, murder and revenge, starvation and slavery."I read Huckleberry Finn back in my Junior year of high school and Mark Twain's writing is just as I remember it. His satire can be interesting, but his novels (at least to me, personally) are like pulling teeth to read. I genuinely didn't care for this book. There's just so much unnecessary information in it that it became not fun to read at all. One prime example of this was the scene where the students are making their end of the year presentations. What person--let alone a child--wants to read word-for-word what the students recited? It drove me crazy! I really do want to like Twain. His writings are classics. However, I just cannot seem to get into any of it. To be brutally honest, he--along with several other choice authors--is the reason that I decided not to teach American literature. Sure there are a couple eloquent lines, but Twain's novels are really not my cup of tea. Sorry to all of the Twain fanatics out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment