Miriam Cihodariu's Reviews > Huck Out West

This continuation of stories Mark Twain planned to write himself was very much in line with what we could have expected him to write if he ever got to it. But that includes all the mixed feelings which come with the original authorship.

I liked the Pony Express references and the nods to a very Western social history of the United States. It's all presented in its questionable, sad, racist and convoluted glory.

It's a bit shocking to see your childhood heroes grow up to be murderers (Tom) and prostitutes (Becky) or simply do very disappointing things (like selling Jim into slavery etc.). But I guess it contributes to the grown-up feel of the story.

At other times, the story is over the top - like a parody of a Western. Huck is about the be hanged and Tom saves the day by riding in and shooting the rope by which Huck was already hanging. Come on, really?

I completely dislike what the author did with women - no effort put whatsoever in delivering a bit of empathy or trying to paint them in a more complex light. They're just presented as devious, aggressive whores who are out to get you. Very disappointing.

Any effort into understanding otherness seems to be poured into Indians and especially Huck's friendship with Eeteh, though. By and large, that's a good thing and somewhat redeeming, of course, but it feels overdone at times. Huck's complete spiraling into Indian myth and spirituality is not very believable, for example. But I have to admit that it's beautiful nonetheless. Some of my favorite parts:

'Eeteh went on telling stories. He says he couldn't stop himself, it was a kind of sickness. If it WAS a sickness - him telling stories, me listening - it was a sickness we'd both die of, because wasn't nuther of us going to stop.
[..] I was glad to see them go, and I says so, Eeteh nodded and says all stories is sad stories, but not all the time.'