Misty’s Twilight – Marguerite Henry

On August 29, 2020August 9, 2020 By nymithIn Animal Stories, Horse Stories, Realistic Fiction, Set in Florida, Superfluous SequelsLeave a comment

Whatever the case may be, I’m going to insist this was actually ghostwritten and so should you.

Misty's Twilight - Marguerite Henry Title: Misty’s Twilight (Misty #4)
Author: Marguerite Henry (1902-1997)
Illustrator: Karen Haus Grandpré (????-)
Original Publication Date: 1992
Edition: Aladdin Paperbacks (1996), 142 pages
Genre: Animal Stories.
Ages: 8-12
First Line: On an early Saturday in spring, when dreams explode into reality, Dr. Sandy Price tiptoed about her home on Stolen Hours Farm.

This is the story of Twilight, Misty of Chincoteague’s great-great-grandfoal, whose mixed lineage of Chincoteague pony and thoroughbred makes her a potentially brilliant show horse, if only her owner Sandy Price could make up her mind what to do with her.

After 30 years, Marguerite Henry returned to Misty’s legacy in an irritating and completely skippable volume that, besides being graced with surprisingly pretty cover art, offers nothing to its intended child audience or to any grown fans of the earlier trilogy. Lacking Henry’s classic signatures of local colour and lovable characters, it falls far short of the normal standards which have made her a go-to for generations. Consider the rest of this review a set of variations on this statement.

Problem 1. Heavy doses of nostalgia for the original book and its legacy. This isn’t simply the story of a particularly gifted descendant of Misty. You will find herein full recaps and reenactments of scenes from Misty of Chincoteague, along with a protagonist whose whole life changed because she read the book as a twelve year old. It’s astonishing how self-congratulatory the whole thing feels. There are bland recreations of classic scenes, complete with stilted dialogue, most notably when Sandy’s two kids get upset over the foals and mares being split up on Pony Penning Day:

“Pam! Chris!” Sandy’s voice was firm. “Stop worrying! Don’t you remember in the book when Paul and Maureen were upset by this very sight, they went to see the fire chief, and he said, ‘Colts have got to grow up sometime. Their mothers can’t tell a colt in so many words to go rustle his own living. They just kick him away, gentle-like at first. But sometimes they have to get a bit rough, especially when they’ll be birthing a new foal in a few months.'”
Pam stopped crying. “I remember now,” she said, “how the fire chief puffed up in pride at his parting words to Paul and Maureen. ‘Separating the little ones from their mothers for only one night,’ he said, ‘why, that’s the kindest way we know how to wean ’em.'”
A gathering of parents and kids were listening in. Chris and Pam reddened in embarrassment at the attention.

Karen Haus Grandpre, Misty's Twilight — Sandy out shopping with the kids.

Problem 2. Sandy Price is an adult, sure, but it’s far more detrimental that she is not an underdog of any kind. Most kids who like horses don’t actually have any of their own, and reading about somebody lucky enough to live out that dream should be thrilling – provided the fictional proxy actually appreciates his or her good fortune in this matter. Sandy is introduced on her very own thoroughbred farm, but she ignores all of her unnamed horses to go chasing after her childhood dream of owning a Chincoteague pony. Regular thoroughbreds just aren’t enough. Her two kids act like horses are completely humdrum, so already in chapter one there’s nobody for the reader to root for. Sandy goes on to win three Chincoteague ponies at auction, but she still covets having a direct descendant of Misty (regular Chincoteague ponies just aren’t enough) and so she purchases Misty’s great-grandfoal Sunshine. Now she has four Chincoteague ponies, all of whom the book ignores as soon as Sunshine has a foal of her own.

Some readers might forgive Sandy if she at least formed an appropriate bond with newborn Twilight – like Paul and Maureen did with Misty. But it is soon apparent that Sandy has no meaningful interaction with any of her horses. She has a guy named Robert who works in the stable, while she goes to her day job as a skin doctor. She misses Twilight’s birth and she’s never shown training or tending her. Her kids are never shown playing with her. In other words, basically this entire book aimed at ages 8-12 is about a rich woman’s woes because she owns more equines than she has any time for.

Problem 3. Sandy is awful. She’s introduced announcing her decision to make her kids’ shared birthday the launch of a family road trip to Chincoteague – using their birthday to live her dream. She goes downhill from there. An idea was beginning to form in Sandy’s mind of taking one of Misty’s family home to set it free on Stolen Hours Farm. This impulse leads her to purchase Sunshine, a completely docile mare who loves attention, promising that she’ll “never know a bit or bridle.” Sandy appears to be quite bothered by the domestication of Misty’s descendants: What a contrast, these penned-up creatures, from the wild ponies of Assateague. Fame certainly had its price. A sadness came over Sandy that wouldn’t be pushed away. Yet given the chance, she gladly makes Twilight pay that price. What a fight she gave when first she felt the restriction of the rope! With a potential champion of cutting/jumping/dressage on her hands, Sandy gets over her scruples in a hurry. No pasture days for Sunshine’s spitfire daughter.

Grandpre, Misty's Twilight — Poor Twilight.

Sandy’s lack of horse sense then leads to the most horrible chapter of the book when she packs Twilight off to a horse trainer. She’s told Twilight will be ready to come home in three weeks, and during that time Sandy does not visit or supervise the trainer’s methods. When she comes to pick her up she finds out too late that poor Twilight has lost fifty pounds, trembles at the slightest touch and has a deep cut across her tongue to make her more sensitive to the bit. It would take weeks for Twi to learn all over again to trust those who had sent her away. Rather than engaging in a little self-criticism for her own part in her pony’s abuse, Sandy just directs all of her anger and blame at the trainer while she focuses on getting Twi registered. A little due diligence would have spared Twi’s ordeal but that never occurs to Sandy. Instead, she just quietly starts supervising the next trainer and remains impossible to like.

Problem 4. There are absolutely no developed or memorable human characters. Sandy’s story arc is a mess. First she wants a wild pony in pasture, then she wants a show champion, then she wants a wild pony in pasture again. Sandy’s kids are obnoxious at the beginning of the book, but then fifteen years go by and they’re suddenly understanding adults. Robert the horseman is a big guy. Andrew is from England. O’Quinn is Irish. Judy keeps house for Sandy but never features in a single scene. This is the same writer who gave us the Beebe family and their neighbours. Where are the character quirks? The warm humour? The brightness? The local colour? It’s so conspicuously absent that it’s hard to believe this is the same author.

Only one character is truly vibrant, enjoyable and Not a Problem – Twilight herself. Twilight was as unpredictable as a dangling electric wire. She liked to race along the fence rail, taunting the thoroughbreds on the other side, daring them to race. She had speed without question. She scared Sunshine and Sandy half to death as she skidded to the fence corners by sliding on her haunches and waiting until the last second to wheel out. Her poor mother tried to follow with frustrated whinnies, but she just couldn’t keep pace. None of the other Chincoteague ponies could. There was nothing tagalong about Twilight. She went far afield and returned only to nurse.
Unlike her mother, Twilight barely tolerated the bristles of the grooming brush and would pull away from a hand that longed to pet her. But in her frequent gallops she obviously enjoyed the cool fingers of the wind combing her coat.

Karen Grandpre, Misty's Twilight — Little Twilight at play.

Problem 5. Twilight is not the protagonist. She certainly should be, as it’s only when she’s being described that this begins to feel like a proper Marguerite Henry book. Twilight trains, travels and competes and we’re stuck witnessing it through Sandy’s eyes as she… waits at home and watches as ribbons get delivered to her door. She also answers the telephone and watches videos of Twi’s warm ups. Trust me, no child will be impressed with this.

Misty's Twilight, Karen Haus Grandpre — Twilight in her cutting career.

This lack of action does not extend to the illustrations, provided by Karen Haus Grandpre and also Not a Problem. Grandpre makes the most of Twilight’s athleticism, and her sketchy style suits the movement of show horses quite well. She captures Twi’s energy and her delicate build. It’s true that Grandpre lacks the humour and personality that Wesley Dennis always provided, but there’s so little of either to be found in the actual text that let’s be fair: I doubt if Dennis had lived to illustrate Misty’s Twilight that he’d have been able to inject any special life into it either. Let’s move on.

Problem 6. Marguerite Henry’s inability to maintain the natural connective tissue between her various sequels is still a problem. A cameo from fictional Paul or Maureen, grown and guarding Chincoteague’s legacy, would have been too much to expect. However, no acknowledgement of the Beebes or update on their existence is made at all; instead, Misty’s progeny are all owned by some guy called Merritt. Why does Henry insist upon reverting to the facts always after she’s come up with a lovely work of fiction? Here she refers to Stormy as “Misty’s third foal” even though in the novel Stormy, Misty’s Foal she was the fictional Misty’s firstborn, heightening the tension. Documentary facts or human interest drama: pick one and stop flip-flopping like this.

Problem 7. The faceplant ending. When Twi is twelve, Sandy suddenly starts having second thoughts. “Is it fair to work Twi daily and strenuously, to ship her across the ocean to enter the Olympics? Are we satisfying our belief in her … or is it our own vanity?” You’ve had your favorite pony on the ropes for ten years, woman, and you only think of this now? She then has the brilliant idea to make bred-in-captivity, over qualified, overly trained, registered champion Twilight some kind of wilderness ambassador. Okay then. Mercifully, the book finally concludes at this point.

I would not recommend Misty’s Twilight to any family at all. No matter how much you and yours love Marguerite Henry, just skip it and stick to her other books.

See Also: The Misty trilogy (Misty of Chincoteague, Sea Star, Stormy) are all worth it.

I’d direct your attention to Afraid to Ride by C.W. Anderson as well – long out of print but a much better book. Twilight’s rehabilitation after being abused is completely glossed over, while Afraid to Ride is an entire story dedicated to bringing a traumatized show jumper back to her former glory, with a genuinely nice main character.

Quick Parental Guide.

Violence: The scene with freshly “broken” Twilight, ribs showing.

Values: Misty of Chincoteague is the best book in the world. Horses should be free (or they should be made to jump through every competitive hoop available to make a name for ~~their owners~~ themselves).

Role Models: Terrible. Sandy lacks any introspection – she never examines her own desires or even appears grateful for goals achieved, she just runs from want to want to want. Faceless Judy raises her kids, faceless Robert tends to her horses, and she just obsesses over how to send Twilight straight to the top in whatever category seems best at the moment.

Educational Properties: None, unless you’re really interested in equine sports, and then there are better books on the subject.

End of Guide.

Your family/library/homeschool/students all deserve better. Give it a miss.

Up Next: A spinoff Anne novel about her new neighbours that’s better than it sounds.

Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague – Marguerite Henry

On July 4, 2020June 20, 2020 By nymithIn American writers, Animal Stories, Horse Stories, Read Alouds, Set in Virginia, Superfluous SequelsLeave a comment

Way to betray the entire premise of your original classic, Ms. Henry.

Title: Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague
Author: Marguerite Henry
Illustrator: Wesley Dennis
Original Publication Date: 1949
Edition: Aladdin Paperbacks (1991), 172 pages
Genre: Animal Stories.
Ages: 8-11
First Line: Paul was separating each silver hair in Misty’s tail.

I’ll begin with a quote from Misty of Chincoteague to explain my frustration with this book: Now when a buyer came to look at the colts, Maureen did not run to her room as she used to do, pressing her face in the feather bed to stifle her sobs. Nor did Paul swing up on one of Grandpa’s ponies and gallop down the hard point of land to keep from crying. Now they actually led the colts out to the buyers to show how gentle they were. They even helped load them onto waiting trucks. All the while they kept thinking that soon they would have a pony of their own, never to be sold. Not for any price.

Well, that didn’t age well.

It’s a bright July day when a silver airplane lands at Pony Ranch. Movie men have come to film the annual Pony Penning, and they want to purchase Misty for the film and subsequent tour. Paul and Maureen are guilt-tripped into selling Misty in order to put their uncle through college, and are afterwards thankful to discover an orphaned colt on Assateague. Little Sea Star helps to distract them from their loss but the colt is frail and refuses to eat – it’s up to the whole Beebe family to find some way to save the poor thing.

https://missmollys-inn.com/wp-content/uploads//2012/12/Marguerite-Henry-misty-of-chincoteague.jpeg — Marguerite and Misty.

Marguerite Henry had no plans to write a sequel to Misty of Chincoteague – having taken great liberties with the true story, she thought it stood well enough on its own, at least until she heard about little Sea Star. In this follow-up novel she tried to bring the plot more in line with reality. The real Misty had actually been sold to Marguerite Henry herself, and she did bring Misty to book signings to delight children. One important difference is that the real Misty was purchased before she’d even been weaned – while Clarence Beebe had not been planning to sell her, the little foal was not a beloved family pet, hard won from the wilds of Assateague and saved up for over a hard summer’s work by the Beebe children. Misty of Chincoteague was pure poetic license, delivered in gratitude to the Beebes for agreeing to sell such a wonderful pony. The characters by the end of the book were in a different place than they’d ever been in the real world, so the follow-up act of selling Misty was impossible to replicate naturally – instead, Marguerite Henry had to devote a portion of Sea Star‘s dialogue to a series of justifications for the decision. Unfortunately, none of them are very convincing.

Now it’s worth pointing out that the novel’s dialogues are only the connective tissue between the A and B plots. With the exception of the scene where Misty is crated for the plane trip, all of the horse material is entertaining for kids – the first half details the excitement of Pony Penning Day and the last third is all about saving Sea Star. Any child who loved Misty will easily pick this sequel out in a bookstore and they will probably like most of it – while it was my least favorite of the original trilogy as a kid, I still read it multiple times. Children might not agree with the decision to sell Misty, but it’s not likely to be a total deal-breaker and they certainly aren’t going to care about the mathematics of commerce or possible communistic overtones. That being said…

So the two men from New York arrive and, upon learning that the Beebe grandparents are both out, immediately start horse-trading with the kids. First they offer the tempting good news – a movie! how exciting! – and afterwards explain that they’d have to purchase Misty to make the film happen. They also want to take her to schools, libraries and movie theaters, and start guilting Paul and Maureen:

Mr. Van Meter said, “We had a feeling you might want to share Misty with boys and girls everywhere.”
“Boys and girls who have never seen a real pony,” Mr. Jacobs continued.
It was Mr. Van Meter’s turn now. “Sometimes when I hear children in New York talk about Misty, it seems she no longer belongs to a boy and girl on an island, but to boys and girls everywhere.”
The words kept flying, back and forth, higher and higher. “Misty has grown bigger than you know,” Mr. Jacobs said. “She isn’t just a pony. She’s a heroine in a book!”

Apart from the interesting metafictional element going on here (Misty of Chincoteague is a book within the sequel to the book) this is some appalling behaviour by two grown men, and Grandpa Beebe is rightly disgusted on his return. Also, no, Misty does not “belong” to all children everywhere, the book does. But the kids fall in line and even parrot some of this back at Grandma to shore up their decision to sell. “When they told how much Misty meant to poor little city children,” says Maureen. Well, as a former “poor little city child” who dreamt of riding lessons which my parents could never afford, I would not have wanted a girl in the countryside to give up her pony so that I could spend five minutes petting it. Not to mention the cold business decision to make thousands of children momentarily happy at the expense of making two extremely sad. As Grandpa says, “livin’ out here on this lonely marshland, why, Misty’s the nighest to a friend these childern got.” Are they undeserving of the pony they worked so hard for, just because she’s famous now?

Misty sold — Wesley Dennis does a great job with a sad scene.

The picture men’s arguments fail to entirely sway the family and Grandpa gladly sends them packing. However, shortly afterwards Grandma Beebe shows up with the woeful news that Clarence Lee, Paul and Maureen’s young uncle, can’t afford the college tuition of 300 dollars to study for the ministry. The children must now nobly sacrifice their beloved pony for the greater good of the family… No, hang on, that argument is also flawed.

First of all, it hinges on a character we never get to meet. Saintly Clarence Lee does not feature in a single scene in any of the three Misty books, so it is very difficult to care about his hopes and dreams. This is a failure in terms of dramatic impact, but it would still be an understandable decision for the characters in an era when college could have a great positive impact on an entire family’s prospects – until you do the math and realise that Grandpa Beebe is being taken for a fool.

The movie men explain that their company was young and struggling and could afford to pay only two hundred and fifty dollars for Misty. So she’s a famous pony and they’re trying to get her on the cheap. Grandpa agrees to this arrangement because, after a sale he was making fell through, he’s only got 50 dollars to his name. Combined, that makes up the entire tuition fee in one fell swoop. Problem is, the deal Grandpa had lost involved selling a “whole flock” of ponies – the buyer he had lined up decided to buy used trucks instead. So Grandpa has a “whole flock” of unsold ponies, and the going rate of wild ponies back in Misty of Chincoteague was 100 dollars. In that novel it was also made clear that gentled ponies could be sold for higher price. They’re sitting on a number of ponies that could easily turn a profit and instead they sell their famous Misty for beneath her value? How has Pony Ranch stayed in business?

Also, since when is college a one-time deal? Why can’t Clarence Lee wait a year and reapply? Grandma even says he’s recovering from pneumonia, which is why he can’t be expected to earn the money for himself. If he’s that physically frail, maybe it’s not the best time to embark on a grueling course of study? Selling out a beloved family pet to be hauled from place to place (which is bound to be stressful for a pony who has never traveled before), and giving her into the care of people who see a financial meal ticket decades before the film industry enforced an animal welfare code, all because college is worth any price? This has not aged well. Attempts to parallel them putting Misty in a sale crate with Paul releasing the Phantom back into the wilds also miss the mark because the Phantom was not happy at Pony Ranch while Misty clearly is.

And so Misty is sold. They don’t even write up a formal contract, just a vague promise that Misty will be sent home after the tour is over. Luckily, Henry was inspired to write a third book in the series in the 1960s, assuring new generations of children that Misty did indeed come back to Paul and Maureen – unless those children got the Aladdin Horseshoe Library box set, which went ahead and listed the books in the wrong order so that Sea Star appeared to be the conclusion to the series after all.

https://d20eq91zdmkqd.cloudfront.net/assets/images/book/large/9780/6897/9780689716249.jpg — No, I’m not bitter.

Sea Star rescued, wesley dennis — Sea Star rescued.

Within hours of Misty’s departure, Paul and Maureen find little Sea Star in a cove on Assateague, and the whole family is delighted and relieved. Once this plot is finally under way, the novel does a 180 and becomes classic Marguerite Henry – the story of an orphaned colt wasting away in sorrow, and of an injured mare pining for her own lost foal and how they are brought together to grow strong and heal the sorrows of an entire family with the help of a lot of myrtle leaves. Sea Star, with his toothpick legs and wondering expression, is adorable and Wesley Dennis’s illustrations are a wonderful accompaniment once more. There are no dubious motivations amongst the native Chincoteaguers – nope, real salt of the earth types one and all. Scrumptious food descriptions are back and there’s even some humour. The first half of the book is all but forgotten, and yet…

I don’t like giving a negative review of a Marguerite Henry book. However, since Misty worked perfectly well as a standalone, I have to say that Henry’s first instinct was right. I will say in its favour that, while I can nitpick its value system, Sea Star would actually make a tremendous vehicle for discussion with even a young child and the writing remains on the same strong read-aloud level of Misty. It’s not essential, but as I said at the start, children will still enjoy the majority of the story.

See Also: Misty of Chincoteague.

Parental Guide, with mild spoilers.

Violence: Sea Star is found beside his mother’s body, but that is hardly described. Both Sea Star and the injured mare are implied to be well on the road to recovery by the end of the book.

Values: College is worth any price. If you love something, let it go. Share your greatest treasure with the impoverished world. Love is a healing force that helps us overcome our sorrows.

Role Models: Obviously the whole plot is meant to make the Beebes look virtuous and self-sacrificing, and it’s obvious what I think about that.

Educational Properties: If it’s used as a read aloud, it could spark some strong feelings and interesting discussion. Always a good thing.

End of Guide.

I’m now halfway through the series, with one more sequel and a final spinoff volume to go.

Up Next: Back to the Anne novels.

Mystery: Tom Sawyer, Detective

On November 25, 2019November 21, 2019 By nymithIn Adventure, American writers, Mystery, Set in Arkansas, Superfluous Sequels2 Comments

Mark Twain had many talents but Stratemeyer Syndication wasn’t one of them.

book tom sawyer Title: Tom Sawyer, Detective
Author: Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Original Publication Date: 1896
Edition: The Complete Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Borders Classics (2006), 281 to 337 (56) of 337 pages.
Genre: Adventure. Mystery.
Ages: 11-13
First Sentence: Well, it was the next spring after me and Tom Sawyer set our old nigger Jim free the time he was chained up for a runaway slave down there on Tom’s Uncle Silas’s farm in Arkansaw.

Our scene opens upon a fairly decent description of spring fever on the parts of Tom and Huck, which leads immediately to an odd little passage as Huck details what thoughts this pent-up energy can lead to: …you want to go and be a wanderer; you want to go wandering far away to strange countries where everything is mysterious and wonderful and romantic. And if you can’t do that, you’ll put up with considerable less; you’ll go anywhere you can go, just so as to get away, and be thankful of the chance, too. This appears to be Twain’s way of saying the previous installment’s Arabian fantasia never happened, as the text otherwise refuses any acknowledgement of Tom Sawyer Abroad. Goodbye airship captain, hello Perry Mason.

https://tvguide1.cbsistatic.com/i/2019/03/22/6b96228a-1d98-4a52-aba1-1b70f3d8f4f9/7723ea02e4e58ff4fd479b156c8940ff/190322-raymond-burr-perry-mason.png — Raymond Burr is about to ruin some hoodlum’s day…

Also, goodbye Jim, who is nowhere to be found in this volume. It’s certainly more realistic than having him continue to be part of the gang, but a big part of the allure to sequels is in the audience’s desire to find out what happened to previous characters. Would it have killed Twain to insert one line of explanation? Jim headed north. Jim joined the Underground Railroad. Jim hopped a ship on route to Liberia. Something.

https://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/c42-355.jpg — Remember this scene, Aunt Sally?

This leaves Tom and Huck, bored and looking for adventure, when Tom’s Aunt Sally sends for them because Uncle Silas has been in an altercation with his neighbours, brothers Brace and Jubiter Dunlap. It’s not clear why Aunt Sally thinks that Tom and Huck will be an asset, a “comfort” in these hard times, considering their last visit included heavy gaslighting of both her and her husband, vandalism of house and property, inciting a mob to violence and getting Tom shot in the leg, but no matter. The boys head down on the riverboat and run into Jubiter’s identical twin, Jake Dunlap, who was presumed dead years ago and is now on the way home with a fortune in stolen diamonds and two angry ex-partners in hot pursuit. Everyone arrives in Arkansas and murder is the result. Tom Sawyer must take to the stand and defend his uncle to unveil the real murderer among them.

Since this is a mystery, I will do my best to avoid spoilers, just in case someone does intend to read this book.

As much trouble as I’ve had with the Tom Sawyer sequels thus far, there have always been praiseworthy elements, even in the dubious science fiction of Tom Sawyer Abroad. At that point it still felt like Mark Twain was enjoying some part of the money-grubbing process, as the book had glimmers of wit and elegant passages hidden away where you least expected them. However, in this final installment, all those better qualities have shrunk almost to nothing in a tale that seems to exist only for the entertainment of its closing chapter. Twain seems completely bored with proceedings, keeping Tom and Huck on a very tight leash until near the end, when Tom decides to borrow a neighbour’s bloodhound. Until that point they are simply observers of the action, unable to get into mischief because mischief would create subplots and this book was written to be published in a hurry – it’s the shortest in the series, 56 pages to Abroad‘s 80, and it feels it. In previous volumes, Tom and Huck’s intelligence levels have been on a dizzying see-saw, but this is the first time they’ve felt so tired as characters.

https://cdn.britannica.com/03/6703-004-A81DF9EE/Steen-Steensen-Blicher-detail-drawing-ink-pencil.jpg — Steen Steensen Blicher (1782-1848), one of Denmark’s great writers who remains little known internationally.

Tom Sawyer, Detective is a mystery, which is not a genre Twain was suited for. Incidentally, he was later accused of plagiarizing this plot from a Danish crime novella called The Vicar of Weilby (now more commonly translated as The Rector of Veilbye), written in 1829 by Steen Blicher and itself based on a true event from 1626. The two stories are admittedly quite similar, although the original Danish is way more depressing (big surprise). It doesn’t appear that a consensus has ever been reached on whether the allegation was true or not, and I couldn’t find any information outside of Wikipedia, so it does not appear to be a big source of debate at present. Let’s move on.

For the plot, Twain makes use of identical twins, a conceit he also engaged with in Pudd’nhead Wilson – the problem with bringing such a topic into a mystery setting is that readers know immediately that there will be a case of mistaken identity at some point. Meanwhile, Uncle Silas’s farm is clearly at the center of a mystical convergence, as once again a bunch of criminals all descend on the same stand of trees at the same time as Huck and Tom – it’s given a slightly more probable setup than it was in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but it certainly doesn’t make the already contrived plot feel any better. Then there’s the courtroom bit where Tom reveals the identity of an imposter because of a hand gesture he’d seen the man use before, and which the audience was never privy to in the first place. So the tale is at once predictable in its twists and impossible to “solve” alongside our erstwhile Perry Mason. All this on top of the problem that comes with Tom and Huck spending so much time watching and listening to other people rather than investigating. They spend four chapters thinking that their best clue is actually a supernatural occurrence, bogging the mystery down for the sake of a tired joke.

https://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/media/220836/credit_john_leslie.jpg — A kennel club bloodhound trial.

There are a couple of rays of light in all of this. First there’s the adorable scene where the boys wander across the countryside with a happy bloodhound, corpse-hunting. It’s a cute mix of ghoulish proclivities with classic childhood revels, and features the boys being proactive even though they feel like idiots for trying:

It was a lovely dog. There ain’t any dog that’s got a lovelier disposition than a bloodhound, and this one knowed us and liked us. He capered and raced around ever so friendly, and powerful glad to be free and have a holiday; but Tom was so cut up he couldn’t take any intrust in him, and said he wished he’d stopped and thought a minute before he ever started on such a fool errand. He said old Jeff Hooker would tell everybody, and we’d never hear the last of it.
So we loafed along home down the back lanes, feeling pretty glum and not talking. When we was passing the far corner of our tobacker field we heard the dog set up a long howl in there, and we went to the place and he was scratching the ground with all his might, and every now and then canting up his head sideways and fetching another howl.
It was a long square, the shape of a grave; the rain had made it sink down and show the shape. The minute we come and stood there we looked at one another and never said a word. When the dog had dug down only a few inches he grabbed something and pulled it up, and it was an arm and a sleeve. Tom kind of gasped out, and says–
“Come away, Huck–it’s found.”

This is an effective little scene hidden away in the midst of the slow plot, and the other entertaining portion is saved for the final courtroom scene, in which Tom takes to the stand to reveal the dastardly truth about every crime, stringing out each revelation for “effect” and feeling more like himself again – a final farewell to the brash, theatrical know-it-all. Energized by the limelight, Tom solves the case and gets the reward money, with our last glimpse of the pair summing up their friendship and their finest qualities in a rather beautiful sendoff: And so the whole family was as happy as birds, and nobody could be gratefuler and lovinger than what they was to Tom Sawyer; and the same to me, though I hadn’t done nothing. And when the two thousand dollars come, Tom give half of it to me, and never told anybody so, which didn’t surprise me, because I knowed him.

It’s a worthy goodbye to humble Huck and his compatriot, and I felt appropriately wistful as I closed the omnibus – an impressive feat, considering what a slog I found this volume to be. Despite building on established characters and settings here, I actually much preferred the wild departure of Tom Sawyer Abroad, which had greater amounts of wit, imagery and bafflement, wrapped in a sci-fi expedition that gave it a vague sense of fun. Tom Sawyer, Detective just made me wonder if Mark Twain were depressed when he wrote it. While very young kids might find the plot more surprising than their parents, I can’t recommend it when such series as Nancy Drew are so easily available.

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2014/07/Twain_looking_out_a_window-1/lead_720_405.jpg?mod=1533691683 — Mark Twain casting a cold eye on something.

To summarize my opinions on this series, there is sadly a good reason the last two volumes are so forgotten. They have not been unjustly spurned as I at first suspected, and even Twain’s use of the vernacular is far more sloppy than anything found in the truly perfectionist narrative he first gave Huck. When it comes down to it I would only recommend The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – a truly inspired and essential classic of children’s literature. Follow up with Adventures of Huckleberry Finn only if you’re studying the history of American literature, and the final two only from morbid curiosity. Reading all three sequels has not diminished the original though. Quite the opposite.

Parental Guide, with no spoilers.

Violence: It’s a murder mystery for kids. At some point, murder was struck from the list of appropriate mystery topics for juveniles and I’m not sure when it was added back into the mix (I’d suspect the 70s, and am genuinely curious to start collecting Edgar winners to find out). At any rate, the boys do witness a murder, in nowhere near the visceral detail of the bloody brawl in book one. There’s no way anyone who has already read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer would be bothered by anything in this book.

Values: The final passage seems to indicate that the best virtues in life are intelligence and humility, with Twain’s lack of satiric bite making it easier to get a read on such things…maybe.

Role Models: Tom and Huck are good kids, and even though they’re a bit tired on this outing, neither one feels like a caricature of their worst qualities. This is a nice note to go out on and is possibly the only reason this installment might be worth reading – although if you take my advice and skip all of the sequels, you’ll never have that problem in the first place.

Educational Properties: Nothing occurs to me.

End of Guide.

With that I conclude my first series for the WCC. From the start it wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but the complete Tom Sawyer was oddly endearing. As for Mark Twain, he only wrote one other novel that was intended for a juvenile audience – The Prince and the Pauper, which I have acquired a copy of and plan to review within the next few months.

Up Next: December, and to honor the Christmas spirit I will try to keep all reviews on books with a hopeful outlook (since I really don’t have enough Christmas-themed books for an entire month). So up next is Lloyd Alexander with a short novel in praise of the human condition.

Sentimental Fiction: Anne of Windy Poplars

On November 18, 2019November 21, 2019 By nymithIn Canadian Writers, Sentimental Fiction, Set in Prince Edward Island, Superfluous Sequels, Young AdultLeave a comment

Anne Shirley is now a guardian angel to all who cross her path and I have to create a new genre heading to contain this much glurge…

Title: Anne of Windy Poplars (Anne Novels #4)
Author: L.M. Montgomery (1874-1942)
Original Publication Date: 1936
Edition: Bantam Books (1998), 258 pages
Genre: Sentimental Fiction. Romance.
Ages: 12-14
First Line: (Letter from Anne Shirley, B.A., Principal of Summerside High School, to Gilbert Blythe, medical student at Redmond College, Kingsport.)

Taking place over the course of three years while her fiance Gilbert is studying to be a doctor, Anne takes a new job as the principal of Summerside High School, where she embraces her new role with great enthusiasm despite the difficulties of being an outsider to the area. Soon enough she wins over even her fiercest critics and is comfortably ensconced as Summerside’s resident maiden aunt, meddling in the domestic and love lives of almost everyone who crosses her path.

The seventh Anne novel written, Windy Poplars is listed as fourth in chronological order and it changes the format slightly by alternating between the usual third-person narration and Anne’s letters to Gilbert. This sounds like an intriguing change of pace but the execution leaves something to be desired, as Gilbert’s replies to these letters are never shown, nor are her letters even rendered in their entirety, with any portions pertaining to Avonlea, family, former friends and her romance with Gilbert carefully excised. The chief pleasures of the epistolary format are thus absent. Sadly, that is not the only missed opportunity herein.

The novel begins in a fairly exciting fashion as, after introducing the latest set of old dears Anne will be staying with, it becomes clear that not everyone is happy to have her around – notably the local gentry, the Pringles. The entire clan is arrayed against her, down to the children and in-laws, and this makes it impossible for Anne to do her job or even maintain order in the classroom. This is an incredibly refreshing development and creates a situation of rapidly escalating unfairness. Anne finds it hard to maintain a hopeful outlook against such poor treatment that she did nothing to warrant and which none of the parents will lift a finger to check (and even encourage): “The Pringle situation grows a little more acute every week. Something very impertinent was written across one of my books yesterday and Homer Pringle turned handsprings all the way down the aisle when leaving school. Also, I got an anonymous letter recently full of nasty innuendoes. Somehow, I don’t blame Jen [Pringle] for either the book or the letter. Imp as she is, there are things she wouldn’t stoop to. Rebecca Dew is furious and I shudder to think what she would do to the Pringles if she had them in her power. Nero’s wish isn’t to be compared to it. I really don’t blame her, for there are times when I feel myself that I could cheerfully hand any and all of the Pringles a poisoned philter of Borgia brewing.”

Fresh possibilities arise from this storyline, as Anne has actual enemies to contend with. Will she win them over with a magnanimous gesture? Will she best a Pringle in some fashion that earns their grudging respect? Will her sheer tenacity win the day? So many options, with perhaps the Pringles even starting to split around the Anne issue as the novel wears on, and instead (mild spoilers) Montgomery resolves the whole conflict not even a quarter into the book when Anne accidentally (accidentally!) convinces the Pringles to call an end to the feud. From this point on Anne is back to being adored by all who know her – holdouts like her bitter coworker Katherine Brooke just need a little extra TLC before they too join the chorus of approbation: “In spite of my hatred there were times when I acknowledged to myself that you might just have come from some far-off star.” I have enjoyed Anne as a character to this point because she was never a Mary Sue – she had storms of feeling and got into predicaments, confronted life’s sorrow and made an effort to be better. Now she’s a perfect Pollyanna and the world around her feels manipulated rather than idyllic.

https://artdeco-fengshui.com/zen-shop/_media/img/medium/big-0-crbst-fee-etoiles-ellhea.jpg — That about sums it up. Painted by contemporary French artist Ellhea.

The sad thing is that Montgomery was previously able to write very charming novels about Anne that did not betray human nature (see the resolution to Anne’s clash with Anthony Pye, or for that matter her entire “Prince Charming” misstep). Now her heroine gushes about how “The Pringles are delightful people. How could I ever have compared them to the Pyes?” as if her tormentors were kindred spirits all along.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1d/LMM_signed_photo.jpg — Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Aside from the problem of Anne, Windy Poplars is styled as a collection of stories, with Anne making the acquaintance of a Summerside local and his or her especial problem before, in the course of two or three chapters of incautious meddling, setting her new friends on course for happy futures. It’s impossible to keep all of the different families straight, but it’s also not really necessary. Each story is standard Montgomery, with her signature cast of sad children, timid wallflowers, grouchy elders and fickle lovers appearing in new guises throughout. At the start of each set-piece I would make a quick guess at how the story would resolve itself and was usually correct, though not in every detail. The ones I got completely wrong were also the best stories: Lewis and the photography contest, Rebecca Dew and the cat and Anne’s visit to regal Miss Minerva, last of the Tomgallons. Incidentally, none of these tales had anything to do with romance. I suspect Montgomery simply gave her Anne readers what she knew they wanted while her heart was drawn to quite different ideas.

One of the most successful elements of this book is actually Montgomery’s whimsical sense of the macabre. Anne’s early attempt at a poetic stroll through the graveyard is hijacked by an old gossip who insists on telling her all about the rumours, mysteries and eccentricities that lie buried there (enough for an entire book of short stories) while towards the end of the book Anne is invited to dinner by Miss Minerva and hears all about the Tomgallon Curse and its victims, as she is walked through the gallery. A sample:

“Oh, yes, that was my Aunt Emilia… not my aunt really, of course. Just the wife of Uncle Alexander. She was noted for her spiritual look, but she poisoned her husband with a stew of mushrooms… toadstools really. We always pretended it was an accident, because a murder is such a messy thing to have in a family, but we all knew the truth. Of course she married him against her will. She was a gay young thing and he was far too old for her. December and May, my dear. Still, that did not really justify toadstools. She went into a decline soon afterwards. They are buried together in Charlottetown… all the Tomgallons bury in Charlottetown. This was my Aunt Louise. She drank laudanum. The doctor pumped it out and saved her, but we all felt we could never trust her again. It was really rather a relief when she died respectably of pneumonia.”

Image result for cold comfort farm book penguin] — Cold Comfort Farm, 1932.

At these moments, I can only wonder if Montgomery was actually more inclined towards the writing of gothic parodies, something in the vein of Cold Comfort Farm (which had come out only four years earlier). Anne could have made a wonderful star for such a premise. It’s a curious thought, but as it stands, Anne of Windy Poplars is best if approached as a set of short stories for those who relish Montgomery’s style – after all, there were legions of authors writing sentimental stories for teenage girls in those days, and even when less inspired, Montgomery is a cut above much of her competition.

Unfortunately, as a continuous novel about the life of Anne Shirley, Windy Poplars is fairly short on substance. To my knowledge, the Anne books do not inspire the same passionate debate on chronological vs. publication order as C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, but I wonder if perhaps they should. Most people agree that this is one of the weakest volumes in the series and I doubt if it should actually be read fourth when it contains so little Avonlea material and such a starched and simplified interpretation of Anne herself. I shall know more upon reading Anne’s House of Dreams, which I certainly hope to find an improvement on this installment.

See Also: The earlier Anne novels, Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island.

Parental Guide, with a Pringle spoiler as well.

Violence: Aside from the lighthearted anecdotes of various Summerside skeletons in closets (including cannibalism at sea, being set on fire and a wide assortment of actual deaths) there is one fairly disturbing (and random) bit of bullying on the part of eight year old twins that Anne is supposed to be watching. Their victim is only seven.

They pounced like furies on the unfortunate Ivy, who kicked and shrieked and tried to bite but was no match for the two of them. Together they hauled her across the yard and into the woodshed, where her howls could not be heard.
…
Gerald held Ivy’s legs while Geraldine held her wrists with one hand and tore off her hair bow and shoulder bows and sash with the other.
“Let’s paint her legs,” shouted Gerald, his eyes falling on a couple of cans of paint left there by some workmen the previous week. “I’ll hold her and you paint her.”
Ivy shrieked vainly in despair. Her stockings were pulled down and in a few moments her legs were adorned with wide stripes of red and green paint. In the process a good deal of the paint got spattered over her embroidered dress and new boots. As a finishing touch they filled her curls with burrs.
She was a pitiful sight when they finally released her. The twins howled mirthfully as they looked at her.

Anne hardly even punishes them for this.

Values: Meddling in the private affairs of casual acquaintances is fine and will always achieve good or at least neutral results. Being positive and nice to absolutely everyone will lead to fast friendships, never mind that the Pringles only backed off of Anne’s case because she accidentally blackmailed them (they’re such nice people).

Role Models: Anne is now a sugar cube of happiness and wonder. Gilbert doesn’t get a single line of dialogue. Most everyone else is a lovable eccentric of some stripe.

Educational Properties: Little enough to speak of, with very little info on what Canadian high schoolers of this era would have been expected to learn.

End of Guide.

I will continue through the series with great interest, as we are now halfway there and Anne is about to embark on a new career as a wife and mother. Expect the next installment in January.

Up Next: Finishing off a different saga as Mark Twain tries his hand at detective fiction…

Adventure: Tom Sawyer Abroad

On October 7, 2019March 16, 2020 By nymithIn Adventure, Aeronautical Novels, American writers, Bizarre Children's Books, Humour, Science Fiction, Set in North Africa, Steampunk, Superfluous Sequels1 Comment

Although written by Mark Twain, this particular Tom Sawyer adventure feels more like an unauthorized fanfiction, complete with random sci-fi insert and artificially tampering with established character traits… Oh wait…

book tom sawyer Title: Tom Sawyer Abroad
Author: Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Original Publication Date: 1894
Edition: The Complete Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Borders Classics (2006), 193 to 277 (85) of 337 pages
Genre: Adventure. Humour. Science Fiction.
Ages: 10-12
First Sentence: Do you reckon Tom Sawyer was satisfied after all them adventures?

Mark Twain had many talents but character continuity was not among them. The scene opens upon a grandstanding Tom Sawyer, a last gift from the hard swerve his character took during Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, thirsting for new adventures as the townsfolk slowly lose interest in his previous folly. Hearing of a mad inventor about to set sail in a balloon of his own invention, Tom decides to go see the launch, with Huck and Jim accompanying him. Why is Jim still hanging with them? Does he have a job? What about his family, still enslaved? Is he working to free them? Not a word about any of it, and the trio are off to St. Louis, where they see the strange balloon, which has wings and fans and all sorts of things, and wasn’t like any balloon you see in pictures, according to Huck. I just ended up picturing a miniature zeppelin – it was easier. The trio get abducted in a haphazard fashion and soon find themselves hundreds of miles across the ocean and on their way to London when their lunatic pilot plunges to his death and they are swept off course to the Sahara Desert…

It’s very difficult to recommend Tom Sawyer Abroad, as even the most enthusiastic Twain fans are dismissive of it. It is laced with problems, starting with the age group it’s written for. It’s clearly aimed at a younger audience than Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and most kids who’ve successfully navigated that American hellscape would probably find Abroad somewhat juvenile. On the other hand, younger readers who just love Tom and want more of his adventures would probably have to skip Huckleberry Finn, rendering the beginning of this volume (and Jim’s inclusion) even more nonsensical than it already is. The third book in most series has a ready-made audience – this one, not so much.

The writing is also subpar on this outing; although narrated by Huck, the use of vernacular is looser and simplified, showing the speed at which Twain churned this one out, having entered financial ruin by this point in his life. Whatever organic interest he might have felt in this Verneian escapade dried up fairly quickly, judging by the slapdash “and then we all went home” ending. Oh yes, and then there’s the matter of the plot…

It doesn’t have one.

https://thewesterncornerofthecastle.home.blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/9eedf-saharadesertmorocco.jpg — Camel train in the Sahara.

Tom Tom Sawyer Abroad is usually called a Jules Verne parody. Granted, I’ve only read one of Verne’s Extraordinary Voyages at this stage, but the statement doesn’t seem particularly accurate toward the meat of this short novel. It would be more telling to call it a predictor of Samuel Beckett, given that the bulk of the text is given over to dimwitted people embroiled in arguments while they and the audience wait for something to happen. There are a few vistas and scattered dramatic incidents but they mostly serve as triggers for the arguments Tom has with Huck and Jim, whether the topic be mirages, the speed a flea can travel at or the reason the Sahara has so much sand. In a curious about-face from the previous installment, Tom has regained his good traits and is once more capable of understanding the books he reads. He’s the one who figures out how to operate the balloon, he has memorized and retells portions of the Arabian Nights for their evening’s entertainments and he’s got the hopeless task of trying to argue the scientific facts of mirages and the earth’s rotation with the pair of nimrods he’s traveling with.

While Tom has regained his wits, it’s safe to say that Huck and Jim have utterly lost theirs to compensate. Huck’s characteristic street smarts are long gone by this point, while Jim’s main contribution to the crew is a tendency toward superstition and panic. I expect fans of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn would be just as insulted by this depiction as I was by Tom’s in the previous. Sure, I might personally appreciate Tom’s disgusted remark that as for people like me and Jim, he’d just as soon have intellectual intercourse with a catfish, but it doesn’t change the fact that Twain treats his core characters very cheaply. Aunt Polly is more consistent over these three novels than any of the leads.

https://i0.wp.com/twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/applebaum/images/TS2.jpg — Way to go, Aunt Polly.

The thing is, with all of these caveats, I actually somewhat liked Tom Sawyer Abroad. Maybe I’ve just gotten used to Twain’s storytelling slip-ups but I found much of this little book vaguely entertaining rather than massively irritating. As dumb as the slapstick sequences are, the arguments Tom struggles to win have a certain obstreperous intent that I found endearing. After Jim maintains that the sun is (obviously) moving around the earth:

Tom turned on me, then, and says–
“What do you say–is the sun standing still?”
“Tom Sawyer, what’s the use to ask such a jackass question? Anybody that ain’t blind can see it don’t stand still.”
“Well,” he says, “I’m lost in the sky with no company but a parsel of low-down animals that don’t know no more than the head boss of a university did three or four hundred years ago. Why, blame it, Huck Finn, there was Popes, in them days, that knowed as much as you do.”
It warn’t fair play, and I let him know it. I says–
“Throwin’ mud ain’t arguin’, Tom Sawyer.”
“Who’s throwin’ mud?”
“You done it.”
“I never. It ain’t no disgrace, I reckon, to compare a backwoods Missouri muggings like you to a Pope, even the orneriest one that ever set on the throne. Why, it’s an honor to you, you tadpole, the Pope’s the one that’s hit hard, not you…”

Tom Sawyer, hero to every kid who’s ever felt superior for knowing about centrifugal force, the Fibonacci Sequence, Charles Martel, The Iliad or [insert your own nerd credential here]. The poor lad even has to deconstruct his insults for them. I suppose there is a chance that some juvenile readers would relate to Tom’s mindset here, provided they could look past the surrounding deficiencies of plot.

https://i0.wp.com/ens-newswire.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/20131205_lion.jpg — The African lion (Panthera leo) has never made its home in the Sahara, preferring savannahs and riverlands.

On that front, as silly as it is to read about “lions and tigers” in the Sahara (to say nothing of the repeated gag in which Huck is left stranded at the bottom of the balloon’s rope ladder sweeping along like a giant cat toy with the “lions and tigers” in pursuit while Tom looks for a safe place to deposit him), there is some throwaway imagery here deserving of a more well-crafted tome:

We were watching the shadder of the balloon slide along the ground, and now and then gazing off across the Desert to see if anything was stirring, and then down on the shadder again, when all of a sudden almost right under us we see a lot of men and camels laying scattered about, perfectly quiet, like they was asleep.
We shut off the power, and backed up and stood over them, and then we see that they was all dead. It give us the cold shivers. And it made us hush down, too, and talk low, like people at a funeral. We dropped down slow and stopped, and me and Tom clumb down and went amongst them. There was men, and women, and children. They was dried by the sun and dark and shriveled and leathery, like the pictures of mummies you see in books. And yet they looked just as human, you wouldn’t a believed it; just like they was asleep, some laying on their backs, with their arms spread on the sand, some on their sides, some on their faces, just as natural, though the teeth showed more than usual. Two or three was setting up. One was a woman, with her head bent over, and a child was laying across her lap. A man was setting with his hands locked around his knees, staring out of his dead eyes at a young girl that was stretched out before him. He looked so mournful, it was pitiful to see.

http://www.trbimg.com/img-4fd0f68d/turbine/la-ca-mark-twain-20120610 — Mark Twain.

It seems unlikely that Twain had a developed plot in mind for Tom Sawyer Abroad, as after a series of random encounters, extensive arguments and occasional soapboxing, he wraps the whole thing up and deposits the adventurers back home with Aunt Polly in the space of one page. However, the feeling I’m left with in this particular entry in the haphazard tales of Tom Sawyer (hardly a series as we would consider it today) is of disappointment for what this could have been, rather than frustration at what it was. After all, Tom Sawyer is in the public domain, and I could picture a really fantastic adventure being spun from this premise, packed with historical details and steampunk flourishes, with all three leads in character at once and all manner of exciting incidents and clever shout-outs to Twain, Verne and Beckett. Sadly, that book does not exist, nor does this unloved volume have the cult status likely to inspire it.

All theories for improvement aside, this is another superfluous sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, giving only a few hints at what sort of man Tom might grow up to be while breaking almost all continuity with that classic. If you’re a mad fan of Mark Twain, or enjoy collecting peculiar children’s books, this might be of interest.

See Also: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the classic that started this whole crazy train of rafting and ballooning adventures, with marvelous writing and delightful comedic (and dramatic) sequences.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the literary juggernaut meant for older readers, full of satiric darkness and incredibly stupid decisions made by all of the main characters.

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, an enchanting adventure for Victorian enthusiasts of all ages. Contains no balloon in spite of what your memories might be telling you.

Parental Guide, always a tricky thing for Mark Twain’s books.

Violence: There are occasional beduin attacks, but there’s never any dread on the part of the characters and usually they just pull their balloon up and watch the skirmish from a safe height. The encounter with the mummified dead, and a later sandstorm which buries a peaceful group of beduin without trace, are exceptions – Tom and company are shaken and these eerie sequences are standouts as a result.

Twain in Nikola Tesla’s lab remains one of the coolest historical photos of all time.

The mad inventor plummets to his death in a storm, with his demise being lit by the flashes of midnight lightning in a prediction of classic horror movies to come – and given that he fell while trying to push Tom out instead, it’s understandable that he is not then missed.

Values: Twain doesn’t seem to like Jules Verne much. Or the Crusades. Or the newspapers. As usual, it’s hard to tell what he actually does like. Tom’s education/intelligence seems to be slowly driving a wedge between him and Huck, such that it’s hard to picture them still being friends as adults, but I can’t tell if that was deliberate commentary or not.

Role Models: Huck and Jim are a total wash in this area. Granted they weren’t the most proactive pair before, but it’s still noticeable how little dignity either one now possesses. Tom is now a miniature man of action, still utterly indifferent to any worry he might be putting Aunt Polly to, but he’s moved on from being a prankster to a know-it-all.

Educational Properties: Most Victorian children’s books, whatever other failings they might have, would help your child to read at a higher level. This is one of the weaker offerings in that regard.

The best role this book could take in a homeschool setting would probably be to parse out the arguments as a demonstration of sophistry, strawmanning, logical fallacy, devil’s advocacy and other fun aspects of rhetoric.

There’s not enough detail to match this novel with a study on the Sahara, but assigning kids to design the balloon might lead to some artistic engineering attempts.

End of Guide.

One more to go and I’m done with the strange saga of Tom Sawyer. Expect the final volume in November. If anyone has ever read this book, please leave a comment with your opinion. I liked it better than it probably deserved but, in all fairness to Twain, at least he tried new things every time rather than rubber-stamping each new adventure with the same old form. Doubtless I shall look back on these with fondness when I’m embroiled in the 18 sequels to The Boxcar Children.

Up Next: An extended hiatus for family reasons. I shall return in November, probably with the next Anne novel. We shall see.

Adventure Novels: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

On August 17, 2019September 22, 2019 By nymithIn 1000 Good Books List, Adventure, American writers, Bizarre Children's Books, Classics, Poison Pills, Superfluous Sequels, Young Adult2 Comments

If you loved The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for its prose or its characters or even its brand of humour, then I have some bad news for you. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (whose loss of the definite article has always been a pet peeve of mine) is not a true sequel or even a companion volume to that first installment – rather, it is a wholly separate entity piggybacking on The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to that novel’s and its own detriment. Bear with me as I wrestle my sprawling notes into form, as this will be almost twice as long as my regular reviews…

Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Author: Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Illustrator: Edward Winsor Kemble (1861-1933)
Original Publication Date: 1884
Edition: New Riverside Editions (2000), pages 69 to 320 of 392 pages.
Genre: Adventure. Humour. Historical Fiction.
Ages: 14-17
First Sentence: You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” but that ain’t no matter.

I owe a great deal of the following information to the contextual material included in the New Riverside Edition, specifically ‘The Composition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn‘ by Victor A. Doyno and ‘Introduction to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1958)’ by Henry Nash Smith. Smith incidentally cautions against what I am about to do when he says “a book so clearly great, yet with such evident defects, poses a difficult critical problem. There is little profit in making a mere checklist of faults and beauties. We must try to see the book integrally.” There are apparently rules to reading Huckleberry Finn. I didn’t know this and it is now considerably too late for me to start playing by them.

https://thewesterncornerofthecastle.home.blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/057bb-mark-twain-.jpg — Mark Twain.

So to really understand the artistic debacle that is this novel, we have to start with a recap not of the plot, but of its very creation. Mark Twain began work on it in 1876, upon completing Tom Sawyer and got the plot well underway before losing steam and setting the manuscript aside for several years. In the meantime he went to Europe, got irritated at the aristocracy and wrote The Prince and the Pauper. Between 1879 and 1880 he returned to Huckleberry Finn and wrote the middle portion of the work, filled with feuds, charlatans and angry mobs. He also added a ‘Snicket Warning Label’ to the front of the book (more on that in a moment), presumably not willing to spend the extra time reworking part one to match up with his new interests and themes in part two. Then he lost interest and put the manuscript aside for another three years. Twain finally finished it up from 1883 to 1885, tagging on the ending – which is famously reviled even by those who in the same breath call Adventures of Huckleberry Finn the Great American Novel. To be fair, he also went back into the early portion and added the eerie sequence set on the wreck of the Walter Scott, which provides a window into what the whole book could have been had he pursued further revisions. Instead, he sent it to print and made some quick cash.

Now, about that warning label. NOTICE: Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. Does ironic self-criticism ward off or negate external criticism? It certainly seems to have worked for Twain, at least as far as the plot warning goes.

The plot I’m not supposed to look for begins in a very straightforward manner: Huck flees from his abusive father, runs into escaped slave Jim and they decide to drift down the Mississippi on a raft to the mouth of the Ohio River. Jim will then be able to make his way north to freedom, Huck will be safe from his father finding him and there’s just one problem: Mark Twain didn’t know about the Ohio, he knew about the lower Mississippi and that’s what he wanted to write about. His solution to this problem of plot versus intention was for Huck and Jim to travel in a fog, overshoot the Ohio and have to find a canoe to get back up the river. Fair enough, but Twain then ceased to care about his original story at all. For a large portion of the book they have acquired a canoe and yet they just keep drifting down the Mississippi against all logic because Twain was unwilling to go back and rework his early material to fit his new direction. He had also conceived an antipathy to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at some point in all this, which perhaps explains his slow work on the follow-up and certainly explains the new and improved Tom Sawyer we get in the finished product.

https://www.raptisrarebooks.com/images/52070/adventures-of-tom-sawyer-mark-twain-first-edition-signed-1876-rare.jpg — Tom Sawyer from the first edition frontispiece.

If you really loved Tom in his book, there is pretty much nothing for you here. The clever and admirable boy is completely gone and his superstitions and make-believe have now transformed into an inability to tell the difference between fantasy and reality. The problem is very obvious if you read the two novels close together: Tom explains quite cogently what “ransom” means at the end of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, while in the opening chapters of Huckleberry Finn he is suddenly clueless about the word, saying “per’aps if we keep them till they’re ransomed, it means that we keep them till they’re dead.” I read the scene carefully to see if maybe Tom was pranking his friends in some way, but no, it’s just a lengthy and not terribly funny joke on Twain’s part. Tom is now just as ignorant as his peers and can’t even comprehend the stories he so avidly devours. His pranks are cruel and actively dangerous. The boy who testified to save an innocent man from execution, delaying to the last moment from fear, now makes revelations for “dramatic effect.” His code, his better qualities, are all gone.

On the other hand, if you really thought Tom was just a brat in his book, but loved The Adventures of Tom Sawyer for the writing, there is still little for you here. Twain trades in the larger-than-life narration that was a big part of Tom Sawyer‘s charm and turns to the first-person American vernacular. This is a historic moment in American literature and I’m certainly not saying it’s a bad decision or the wrong choice to make – it just further distances the two volumes from each other. Many people read Huckleberry Finn first, or never get around to Tom Sawyer because “it’s just a kid’s book,” and I suppose doing so would negate several of my criticisms. Huckleberry Finn breaks so thoroughly away from its predecessor in form, character and content that being a sequel actually does it a disservice. Here’s a taste of Twain’s excellent use of the vernacular, from Huck’s time spent abducted and living up in the woods with his father:

He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off. We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the key under his head, nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the ferry, and traded fish and game for whiskey and fetched it home and got drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow she found out where I was, by-and-by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me, but pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn’t long after that till I was used to being where I was, and liked it, all but the cowhide part.
It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn’t see how I’d ever got to like it so well at the widow’s, where you had to wash, and eat on a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever bothering over a book and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the time. I didn’t want to go back no more. … It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it all around.

https://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/huck-solid-comfort.jpg — Huck having a good time, E.W. Kemble illustration.

After Huck escapes down the river with Jim he revels in his new freedom – a freedom that looks almost identical to the above passage, the ability to loll about and do nothing all day rather than build a new life for himself. Always moving but never going anywhere, and that’s before the raft gets hijacked by the so-called King and the Duke, a pair of charlatans that Huck and Jim put up with while they go from town to town playing a variety of con games. At this point in the novel, Huck and Jim have a canoe, they could easily give the charlatans the slip and make a getaway and they don’t because it’s too much trouble. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them have their own way. So they continue to clock in the miles down to Arkansas.

My opinion of this novel would actually be fairly high if I could believe that this was the point. After all, being worthlessly free on a raft and going south to go north have merit for satire, but none of this seems to have been Twain’s intention. I can’t find any critics taking up the idea that Huck and Jim are meant to be comic figures of incompetent fun. Twain doesn’t spend very much of his time mocking the two of them – they are the good guys in this story, society’s outcasts, and Twain clearly despises society. His Mississippi feels more like the River Styx a lot of the time. Twain’s disgust is very genuine – this is the man who expressed approval for both French and nascent Russian revolutions in the last years of his life – and this explains his treatment of Tom Sawyer as well. Tom can get along with society and succeed in it, which seemingly makes him part of the problem in Twain’s eyes.

The moral conviction of the book does have the desired effect at points. The Grangerford-Shepherdson feud is one of the best portions, with Huck arriving amongst the well-to-do Grangerford family and, with sincere admiration in his heart, accidentally ridiculing their lifestyle, including the Mortuary School of poetry, in the obituary verse and paintings left behind by a deceased daughter of the family. Huck pores over them and concludes: Everybody was sorry she died, because she had laid out a lot more of these pictures to do, and a body could see by what she had done what they had lost. But I reckoned, that with her disposition, she was having a better time in the graveyard. When the Grangerfords are wiped out in a day, Huck watching in horror from a nearby tree, it matters to the reader because it mattered to Huck. I ain’t agoing to tell all that happened–it would make me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn’t ever come ashore that night, to see such things. Emotional impact is similarly gained during the charlatans’ lengthy con of the Wilks’ daughters, because Huck cares for virtuous Mary Jane Wilks and hates to watch the game go down. This adds some tension to the tale, especially when he becomes proactive for her sake. There are things that are good about this book, but they are overshadowed more and more heavily by flaws as the plot progresses to its insane conclusion.

https://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/twain-huck-finn-kemble-28a.jpg — Poor Mary Jane gets put through the wringer.

Regarding the King and the Duke, Twain’s wholehearted commitment to satire on this outing damages one of the most successful features of Tom Sawyer, namely a credible villain. Injun Joe was a terrifying psychopath and far scarier than anything Twain serves up in this technically darker work, because now every evil is dished up with a load of vaudeville humour alongside. Pap is one of the worst fathers in literature, and Huck’s situation with him is grim and alarming, but pap is not that frightening because Twain is clearly showing him up as a slack-jawed moron the whole time. The charlatans are even worse, one introducing himself as “the rightful Duke of Bridgewater” and the other following up with saying he’s the “rightful King of France” and then he said it often made him feel easier and better for a while if people treated him according to his rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him “Your Majesty,” and waited on him first at meals, and didn’t set down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, and doing this and that and t’other for him, and standing up till he told us we might set down. This done him heaps of good, and so he got cheerful and comfortable. Twain’s humour in the previous volume relied mostly on verbal wit which was sophisticated enough to sail over kids’ heads much of the time. Huckleberry Finn features far more broad comedy, both backwoods humour and slapstick. If you like that better, you’re in luck, but from my point of view it’s not an improvement.

https://a4.pbase.com/g9/09/268309/3/160638773.xDDv4MGd.jpg — Huck and Jim asleep after a hard night’s drifting.

There is one single element of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that works perfectly: the evolving friendship of Huck and Jim, and Huck’s changed attitude regarding Jim’s status as a slave. Yes, Huck’s battle with his conscience is riveting and tremendously realistic. His famous decision to “go to hell” and commit to the crime of stealing a slave is a great moment in American literature. It’s also only two pages long. Alas, alack, the Huck and Jim relationship is a subplot. Everyone talks about it and I was going to pitch in with my praise but since I’ve broken the other rules of reading Huck Finn I might as well break this one too.

However, at least reading the book has finally cleared up one mystery for me. It is now very clear why the ALA continues to defend Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with such energy, when no other old children’s book qualifies; no, I do not consider a negative defense a real one. The story of Huck Finn is a blueprint for many of the young adult (and now middle grade) themes the ALA loves to champion: Huck is from a broken home, he must make his own way and pointedly not learn from his elders who are all morally compromised and/or bankrupt. Instead, he joins forces with an outsider in society, who is a far better role model in every way. Huck’s most important character trait is compassion (I would have said lying, but if the Jim story is the most important part of the book, Huck’s lies are incidental to his changed view of Jim) and being caring is today’s cardinal virtue, rather than being courageous, strong, intelligent, honest, hard-working or decisive. Meanwhile, white society is a rotten structure with racism just the cherry on top – unlike Tom Sawyer or Little House or other old books the ALA mostly ignores these days, where an independently reading child might not even notice the racism and prefer to admire the good qualities being shown instead. This is indeed remarkably modern.

Last things last, we come to the artist’s solution to his problem of plot. Keep in mind it took him eight years to come up with this. Spoilers beyond.

https://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/c34-293.jpg — The shed Jim gets stuck in for roughly a quarter of the novel.

Huck and Jim have drifted eleven hundred miles away from St. Petersburg, Missouri when the charlatans have a streak of bad luck and do the natural thing: hand over Jim for the “reward money” from an invented flybill. Huck has his final crisis of conscience and commits to saving Jim, tracking him to a little one-horse cotton plantation owned by one Silas Phelps. Then, in the most outrageous Dickensian twist I think I’ve ever read, this man turns out to be Tom Sawyer’s uncle and Huck gets mistaken for Tom, who just so happens to be expected down for a visit. Huck ropes in Tom to help free Jim and the infamously stupid jailbreak plot ensues – basically, to reenact the great escapes from The Count of Monte Cristo and the like. This is justly criticized; however, nobody ever gives Tom’s plan credit for at least being lightyears ahead of Huck’s proposal. The following paragraph is legitimately the funniest part of this whole book and I’ve bolded the important bits:

“My plan is this,” I says. “We can easy find out if it’s Jim in there. Then get up my canoe to-morrow night, and fetch my raft over from the island. Then the first dark night that comes, steal the key out of the old man’s britches, after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river on the raft, with Jim, hiding daytimes and running nights, the way me and Jim used to do before. Wouldn’t that plan work?“

I almost laughed till I cried. To think I complained about Tom’s drop in intelligence when Huckleberry Finn now has the collective I.Q. of a ham sandwich and a jar of mayonnaise.

https://i0.wp.com/huckleberry.pbworks.com/f/thinking_it_over.jpg — Please stop.

It would have been so, so easy for Mark Twain to fix this if he even pretended to care. JUST GET RID OF THE CANOE. Seriously, this book is supposed to be loaded with metaphorical significance, and what better than for the one thing that should be common along the river, the key to the north and freedom, to be so elusive that they are forced to drift south, sustained by the hope that today there’ll be an unguarded or drifting canoe that will turn everything around for them. This is the laziest fix possible – I can see why he might not have wanted to overhaul the whole thing by having Jim part with Huck at the Ohio, or turn the whole book on its head by starting down at Phelps’s plantation and going up the river, but he could have done something. Why are you asking me to accept this plot as the work of a genius? Oh right, because I’m not supposed to talk about the plot, I’m supposed to talk about Jim.

Anyway, Twain wasn’t done with his masterpiece yet. After Tom’s ludicrous escape plan is ruined, he gets shot in the leg and Jim gets recaptured. Tom then reveals that Jim’s been freed this whole time – his owner had a crisis of conscience on her deathbed – and Tom set the whole escape plan up just to have some fun.

Well, at least someone is.

But why limit yourself to one twist, or even just two, when you could really knock em down with a third whole plot twist? On the last actual page of this lunatic book, Jim reveals to Huck that his evil pap is dead – the body they found in an early night on the river, which Jim didn’t let Huck get a look at, was pap all along, and Huck could have gone home anytime after that. Who cares if the likelihood of stumbling over Huck’s dead dad was fairly minute? I mean, does probability even matter after the convergence of Tom, Huck, Jim and Uncle Silas on a patch of land in Arkansas? Who cares if this reduces Huck’s entire journey and the traumas he’s endured to a shaggy dog story? Who cares if this turns Jim, previously a caring father-figure to Huck, into a selfish manipulator of a poor child? Or maybe this was just Twain’s way of saying that there truly is nothing good in American society after all? What a twist!

End Spoilers.

It’s possible I would have a more favorable opinion of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn if I hadn’t already read Pudd’nhead Wilson, another of his late works where he did the exact same thing – started one story, lost interest, switched focus (this time completely) and instead of going back and starting over, he rushed his comedy-turned-tragedy-turned-detective-story to print for fast revenue. I am well aware that Mark Twain had financial difficulties. So did a lot of great writers, yet they somehow stuck to their artistry – often at the expense of family and friends, though some of them even had day jobs. Twain’s talent and innovation are here placed at the service of rank commercialism, for why else would he persist in a sequel to a work he had lost interest in? Because The Adventures of Tom Sawyer had become a popular novel, so much that he later knocked out two more short sequels starring these beloved characters, sequels which everyone agrees were pure commercial product.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/17/93/19/17931907345bc34062dafffd88db9567--huckleberry-finn-classic-books.jpg — The iconic first edition.

My personal response to this novel was so strongly negative that I find it impossible to fairly judge it as part of the Castle Project. I do not know what kind of a reaction it would get from young readers, beyond pointing out that many, many people do love this book and seem to find it a gripping story. The only thing I can state for certain is that it is a superfluous sequel in that outside of Huck himself, the second book offers no real continuation of the material in the first and is not necessary to complete the experience. If you stick to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer as a stand-alone, it’s not going to hurt anything.

Parental Guide, which I will keep brief.

Violence: Drunken abuse from pap, a family feud ending in massacre, a ghost story about a dead baby, a man shot down in the street, a couple of angry mobs forming, an incident of tarring and feathering, gold being hidden with a corpse in a coffin, casual references made to animal cruelty, murder, drownings, cruel pranks and crueller cons, much talk of slavery and copious quantities of the word “nigger.” I might be forgetting something. All is told in a tone of mixed humour and disgust not generally associated with youth literature until fairly recently.

Values: Black people are human beings and should no more be slaves than anyone else. Society is a disease. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another, as Huck thinks late in the book.

Role Models: Huck lies, steals and passively watches the King and the Duke rip off town after town before becoming proactive for the sake of Mary Jane. Jim briefly becomes the best character in the book right after the charlatans sell him, when he quite logically pays them back by spreading word about their con game, leading to them finally getting the tar and feathering they so richly deserve. Given that they betrayed a guy who could squeal on them and didn’t even have sense to blow town afterward, it’s extra satisfying. And yes, Huck and Jim together on the raft in harmony is truly a lesson to us all – though given how things literally go south for them I’m not sure I want to unpack that metaphor.

Educational Properties: Most people use this to discuss race relations in America but I expect you know by now what I’d suggest: a structural autopsy.

End of Guide.

There are two more (thankfully short) books in the Tom Sawyer series and I do already own them. Since the third volume, Tom Sawyer Abroad, gives me some Jules Verne vibes, I’m scheduling Around the World in Eighty Days for next month. This will hopefully give me some time to recover myself and gain some at least morbid curiosity for the remainder. I am genuinely shocked by just how much I hated this book, given how rewarding I found Tom Sawyer.

Up Next: I’m leapfrogging right over the 20th Century and into the 21st at last, with a work of historical fiction by Janet Taylor Lisle.

The Western Corner of the Castle

Category: Superfluous Sequels

Misty’s Twilight – Marguerite Henry

Sea Star: Orphan of Chincoteague – Marguerite Henry

Mystery: Tom Sawyer, Detective

Sentimental Fiction: Anne of Windy Poplars

Adventure: Tom Sawyer Abroad

Adventure Novels: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn