What's Elizabeth Reading? ...Mark Twain

With the spring semester going, I am no longer choosing my own reading material, unless surfing the Internet counts.  This does not mean that I am reading a textbook, though.  I am an English major, and that means I get to read lies, otherwise known as fiction.  It's fun, if you like that sort of thing.

My American Lit. class has me reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.  I read this book a few years ago, but my memory of it is a bit fuzzy, meaning it is almost like I am reading something new.  Or like I am watching a movie I have heard about all over the place.

I am a little antsy about reading this particular book for school, and the reason why is found at the beginning of the novel:

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. - BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR

Wouldn't you be a little antsy, too?  To be completely honest, though, I absolutely love that Twain opens the book this way.  I can only wish I had thought of it first.

I just read the chapter where the duke and the king show up, but so far my favorite thing about this novel has to be Twain's language.  It is so alive and beautiful in its reality.  If I ever need to explain to someone what voice is in writing, I will tell them to read Mark Twain and be done with it.  It's not just in the spelling, but it's in the word choice, the phrasing.  The words come to life; there really is no better way to explain it.  Take this section, and hopefully you will see what I mean.  This part made me laugh out loud.  It's in Chapter 15, and Jim and Huck are discussing King Solomon.

"But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point -- blame it, you've missed it a thousand mile."  "Who?  Me?  Go 'long.  Doan talk to me 'bout yo' pints.  I reck'n I knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as dat.  De 'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a whole chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a whole chile wid a half a chile, doan' know enough to come in out'n de rain.  Doan' talk to me 'bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back."  "But I tell you you don't get the point."  "Blame de pint!  I reck'n I knows what I knows.  En mine you, de real pint is down furder -- it's down deeper.  It lays in de way Sollermun was raised.  You take a man dat's got on'y one er two children; is dat man gwyne to be waseful o' chillen?  No, he ain't; he can't 'ford it.  He know how to value 'em.  But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million chillen runnin' roun' de house, en it's diffunt.  He as soon chop a chile in two as a cat.  Dey's plenty mo'.  A chile er two, mo' er less, warn't no consekens to Sollermun ..."