Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884)

"All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn," Ernest Hemingway said in 1935 (wrote, actually, in The Green Hills of Africa). Hemingway went on to undercut his case by saying everything in the ostensible boy's book can be disregarded after "the [N-word] Jim is stolen from the boys." If I understand what Hemingway is complaining about here I agree with him, but I see the problem starting earlier than that, including at the start in the early chapters. Hemingway also, in a typically clod-footed way, inadvertently raises another issue, perhaps the single biggest at this point in the 21st century—the wanton use of the N-word, a much less serious problem in 1935 or 1884. It's clod-footed because, in the first place, "[N-word] Jim" is 100% Hemingway's locution. Twain never uses the term, even as first-person narrator Huck Finn. While it is possible to make a case that Twain on balance means well, and a more strained one that he is not a "real" racist, the N-word is used liberally all through this highly regarded classic of American literature. At the price of one wince per use it gets to be a pretty expensive book to read. The introduction in my Delphi kindle version says Twain's novel "is regarded as a scathing look at entrenched attitudes toward racism." Well, maybe—certainly mocking racist attitudes is part of it, though maybe more nuanced than we would like now. Huck, for example, can't believe in one scene that Tom Sawyer would sink so low as to help a runaway slave. It is gentle satire, you see, and Huck has already shown his regard for Jim (and thought poorly of himself too for helping a runaway slave). Normalized racism can come along at any time and even dominates the story. Huck is seen playing heartless tricks on Jim, taking advantage of Jim's ignorance. He means Jim no harm, perhaps, but he's quick to use his racist social advantages. Overall Twain is plainly loath to condemn racism as such, willing only to mock it when it is convenient to do so. He doesn't want to offend, and that is disheartening. The only good parts of this book as far as I'm concerned are when Huck and Jim are alone on the raft on the river together. All the rest of it is foolishness and gentle satire, sliding back and forth at its convenience across the borders of toxic racism. The first appearance of the con men "king and duke" signals the end of what's worth reading beyond historical interest. You also have to wade through some chapters in the beginning before you get to Huck and Jim on the river. Maybe a third of Huckleberry Finn is thus worth the wincing. Admittedly it's good stuff—the beauties and wonder of wilderness as only a few American writers can do (and American writers do it best), including Hemingway, William Faulkner, Jack London, and others (many problematic themselves one way or another, usually). The good stuff here is right up there with the best, you just have to pick your way through a lot of crap getting in and out of it. I'm still enamored of Twain's steady-rolling voice—and Huck Finn is more likable and closer to Twain's heart than Tom Sawyer—plus the narrative predicaments here can be clever business. But content warnings to one and all are sadly now in order for Huckleberry Finn.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic. (Library of America)

"The Necklace" (1884)

Read story by Guy de Maupassant online.

There's a kind of inevitability now about the future of the short story in reading Guy de Maupassant's "The Necklace" (also translated as "The Diamond Necklace"). I'm speaking of the twist ending, of course. Maupassant is probably best known for the device, in his own time and later, a master or at least frequent retailer of it. O. Henry caught the drift later in the US, and for much of the 20th century surprise endings were a regular feature in short stories everywhere, even the sole reason for many to exist. It's presently seen most in short-short stories, or flash fiction, or sudden fiction. or whatever these microscopic forms are traveling by now ("twitterature" for 140-character stories)—a novelty, which is probably as it should be. Maupassant was also considered a naturalist and you can see that here in the attention to the long-term effects of class constraints, the other reason this story may be so widely anthologized. The twist here, after all this time, is not actually hard to see coming, and it's more on the order of heavy-handed moral irony. The main character, Mathilde Loisel, is hard to make out and deceptively complex. You think she is one thing but she is another, and while she eventually becomes sympathetic she's never exactly likable (compare Madame de in Madame de...). The story may not surprise us much, but it's only incidentally shallow. Henry James, W. Somerset Maugham, and Vladimir Nabokov all paid literary tributes to it. There are interesting currents at play in it: pride, humility, integrity, and a kind of secularized faith are all issues raised in a story short enough that it works almost more like a parable. But the moral is not simple. It has many deceptive layers. "Be true to yourself," you might reduce it to. But that is both in the sense of acting truly on who you are, and of taking responsibility for your actions. If you're so inclined, you can read elements of punishment into it even as you read elements of transgression. But none of those judgments have to be there at all either. It can simply be, down at the base level of literary naturalism, the human beast and human psychology running their endless cycles.

The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant