tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687975489922145220.post4962087755066084144..comments2023-08-10T04:03:44.387-04:00Comments on This Book and I Could Be Friends: On a Troublesome, Hot-Button, Deeply Complex ClassicEileenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11058705381647529328noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687975489922145220.post-70679053624120211822009-03-19T07:15:00.000-04:002009-03-19T07:15:00.000-04:00Wow, some serious typos and usage issues there; we...Wow, some serious typos and usage issues there; well, that's what comes of a parentage of bizarrely slow computers, an I-refuse-to-roll rolly chair and three escorted trips (3?!) to the lav for two (2!) boys all in 40 minutes...Mrs. Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00398436173535554878noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687975489922145220.post-50447803532473821242009-03-18T14:21:00.000-04:002009-03-18T14:21:00.000-04:00Hi, child. I have been waiting and waiting for an...Hi, child. I have been waiting and waiting for an opportunity to read and respond to this review; today I have the great pleasure (that two-word phrase to be read fair DRIPPING with sarcasm!) of spending 40 minutes with two hooligans--direct descendents, no doubt, of Tom Sawyer--in in-school suspension, and so the gift of time.<BR/><BR/>I answer the central question here unequivocally--from my subjective POV, ain't no way in hell this is text designed to enlarge the racist tendencies of the reader, though I'll warrant that could certainly be an outcome: I'm regularly chilled by the ignorant and willful misinterpretation of AMERICAN HISTORY X, for example, by my blatantly neo-skin-head teenyboppers, who, I assure tham, have been abused and neglected by their parents who would raise children to be so loudly and proudly elitist...<BR/><BR/>In the case of ...HUCK...I look only to the nobility of trhe characters. Jim is so far and away the most honorable of the denizens of the text. And make no mistake: this is NOT an ignorant man. His very survival, minute by minute and mile by mile, is inextricably tied to Huck's better nature (fo'sho' better than TOM'S--what an ASS that kid is!)and he knows it and he manipulates it and he coddles it until (Lawd, make it so!) he gets his way to SAFE! And he helps to grow Huck's honor and nobility in the process--there is no question that he is the better father to Huck than Pap ever could think to be...<BR/><BR/>Now, though, manipulate is an interesting term--and I tell my students all the time that it is not necessarily a BAD thing, right? Heck no! We need to be aware of it's play in our own lives, both as agents and as "victims," right? And so the honorable Jim manipulates the very heck out of Huck--knowing from the get go that Pap is dead, Jim won't tell Huck--not I say, out of kind consideration of the child's feelings, but rather because Jim cannot budge an inch off that island without Huck as the license for transport. Huck may be a kid, but at least he's the right COLOR--Jim needs that kid by his side if not exactly ON it if he has any chance at getting free.<BR/><BR/>Bell has just sounded; I gotta go! But seriously--you should teach. You got it goin' ON! <BR/><BR/>BTW. my word is "unduck"--as in be unafraid; don't duck the issues--as you never really do!Mrs. Chttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00398436173535554878noreply@blogger.com