Jane Smiley

[Rosalind]

Has anyone read Jane Smiley's article on Huckleberry Finn, 'Say It Ain't So, Huck'? It's extremely critical, and also very interesting. I thought that by the end, Smiley has essentially destroyed her credibility on the subject, but it makes enough good points that it keeps nagging at me. So, I was wondering--anyone have thoughts?

Btw, the article is availabe on several websites, including here: http://www.shs.issaquah.wednet.edu/teachers/olson/Say%20It%20Ain't%20So.htm

[ennison]

Smiley's book on reading novels was a very disappointing read for me last year but I still respect her as a writer.

[JGL57]

Has anyone read Jane Smiley's article on Huckleberry Finn, 'Say It Ain't So, Huck'? It's extremely critical, and also very interesting. I thought that by the end, Smiley has essentially destroyed her credibility on the subject, but it makes enough good points that it keeps nagging at me. So, I was wondering--anyone have thoughts?

Btw, the article is available on several websites, including here: http://www.shs.issaquah.wednet.edu/teachers/olson/Say%20It%20Ain't%20So.htm

Huckleberry Finn was a first person fictional autobiographical tale told by a, what, 12 to 14 year old boy? So what if it was not the definitive anti-racism novel of its time? So what if Uncle Tom's Cabin was? I see this as apples and oranges, since Twain was writing as entertaining (and commercial) a novel as he could. Maybe getting across a moral point was secondary to him. So what? If enough people enjoy his book to a great enough extent - and they have - then it is a great book in fact.

I never read Uncle Tom's Cabin. I probably missed something – so shame on me. But I read Huck Finn and, as I stated on another tread on this board, it certainly helped me in leaving racism behind - it certainly did anything but make me more complacent.

If Ms. Smiley thinks Huck Finn could have been great but wasn't, and that people SHOULD admire Uncle Tom's Cabin much more and give it an order of magnitude more praise than they do Huck Finn, then so what? Literary criticism is as subjective as sports team affiliation - and, in the end, just about as meaningful.

[melissapurcell]

There is such good local dialect in Huck Finn. Does anyone know of any other good novels with a lot of local dialect that would be appropriate for an 11th grade classroom?