I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in the middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, and judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn’t had a bite to eat since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, and pork and cabbage and greens – there ain’t nothing in the world so good when it’s cooked right – and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn’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.
--Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, first published on this day in 1885.
I've been on the Mississippi in a small boat. When a barge goes by the swells are so big that when you're in one of the troughs all you see is water 10 feet over your head in all directions.
ReplyDeleteHuck's enthusiastic description notwithstanding, I'd just as soon drive alongside the Mississippi in a Hertz, Mike.
DeleteI can't remember that passage. Nice, isn't it.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, it's not a particularly famous passage, but it puts in words the novel's central image, that of Huck and Jim on a raft in the Mississippi.
DeleteI've read Huckleberry Finn several times. A powerful (and often misunderstood) condemnation of slavery and the American reliance upon it.
ReplyDeleteBy misunderstood, you mean the N-word, Debra? I tell ya, it's not easy to find a quote without that word in it. But since my time in front of the computer has been severely curtailed for the time being, I didn't want to get into some lengthy defense of the novel's 19th century colloquialisms in case someone did indeed misunderstand and thought they were reading a KKK tract. I will say that in order to CONDEMN racism (as Twain did) you first have to SHOW racism (as Twain did.)
DeleteAlso, I've already used the novel's best and most satirical passage on this blog. Here it is, N-word and all:
https://wwwshadowofadoubt.blogspot.com/2011/08/quips-and-quotations-spiritual.html
Hello Kirk, Being young and living a long time ago, it was much easier for Huck to get away from it all. Today it is not such a simple matter, and as adults sometimes we have to enter the fray and take responsibility, as for instance when voting in the upcoming primary elections.
ReplyDelete--Jim
Well, Jim, I honestly don't think Mark Twain the writer meant it as a beatnik call to drop out of society. However, what he IS doing is satirizing the society he grew up in. As far as I know Twain voted.
DeleteThe same link I gave to Debra, Huck's crises of conscience.
https://wwwshadowofadoubt.blogspot.com/2011/08/quips-and-quotations-spiritual.html