August favourites #10: American novel

Mark Twain was a brilliant writer. Tom Sawyer is a child’s fantasy with running away from home, outwitting grown-ups, a murder mystery, and finding a fortune, whereas the sequel of sorts, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn moves into the darker and more serious world where a child comes to realise that all is not perfect in the world, that grown-ups cannot always put everything to rights, or even be trusted to be acting in your best interests. Such a realisation comes to us all and is often scary; we realise we have to take some responsibility for our own destiny; we are faced by choices that are not simply black and white, and we have to live with them. I think Twain shows us this so well in this novel. I have no truck with those who think it’s racist because it uses certain words, and I think the moment when Huck humbly comes to acknowledge how he has been wrong in his behaviour to Jim is one of the most moving in all American literature.

I’m doing something different for the holiday month of August, writing about some of my favourites: poems, plays, music, art and other things, a short piece on a different topic each day. The categories are random, as are the choices within them, meaning that’s my favourite that day, and is subject to change… And I will try and explain why each choice is special for me. As always, I look forward to your comments.