BOOKS

adventures-huck-finn

Curator Reviews

Bret Easton Ellis

It still even now feels remarkably contemporary, like rap and hip hop. Hemingway said all modern American literature comes from this book, and it feels like the most American novel ever written—a novel about the yearning to be an outsider in terms of wanting to be free.

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Terrence McNally

I’ve read, reread and loved this book most of my life. It never disappoints. Twain writes with an easygoing virtuosity that makes American English the equal of any King’s. This is the book that codified American English, not Moby Dick or The Scarlet Letter. Those two great books are American Literature. Huck and Jim are America. The seeds of the tragedy of racism are planted on nearly every page of Twain’s masterpiece. Those birds are still coming home to roost.

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Suzanne Vega

The classic story of a wild child on the outskirts of rural society with an absent mother and wayward father, and the trials he endures. I feel for Huck as I never do for Tom Sawyer, who is more civilized. A portrait of America at a moment in time which is still relevant today.

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