Fourth Friday Book Club to meet February 28
Fri, Feb 28, 2025, 2pm
The Fourth Friday Book Club will meet via Zoom on February 28 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. CST to discuss The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.
You might regard it as a literary leap-and-a-jump to go from Middlemarch by George Elliot (our selection for January) to Huckleberry Finn. The former was published in eight parts in 1871–72, the latter in 1884 (in Canada and the U.K.) and 1885 (in the U.S.)
Huckleberry Finn by Samuel Clemens, under the pen name of Mark Twin, chronicles the adventures of two white boys and Jim, an escaped Black slave. The book was criticized pretty much upon publication, described at the time as racist, coarse, trashy, irreligious, mindless, and so on.
Some two decades later, no less than the New York Public Library Children's Room joined the lengthening list of communities, schools, and libraries where the book was banished.
What are we to make of the criticisms? Satire? Irony? Exposure of the hypocrisy of slavery and of the society in which Mark Twain grew up?
Even the casual reader will conclude that the white characters are portrayed much more negatively: Huck's irresponsible and alcoholic father; the hollow and pious Miss Watson.
Generally regarded as Mark Twain's best work and one of the great American novels, perhaps there’s no better time than now to read Huckleberry Finn.
The Fourth Friday Book Club is open to all UMRA members. Please email to let us know of your interest.
—Dorothy Marden, Fourth Friday Book Club
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