Huckleberry Finn

Bedtime reading: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Clemen's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer had its fun and fine moments, but too much of it was spent on longwinded digressions and editorializing, with plenty of fifty-cent words thrown in to sound impressive; I found myself cutting a lot of the prose  and almost all of the adult satire out (not because it was shocking but because it might go over children's heads). Huck Finn is almost the polar opposite--it's a pleasure to read out loud, because Huck's way of speaking is the way most people round these here parts speak anyway; plus he has a common-sense attitude that's downright refreshing. I tend to read the passages exactly; take a word or phrase out, and the beautiful rhythm of the sentence, sometimes the whole paragraph, is ruined, somehow.

Final note: Huck's accent was a lot thicker in Tom Sawyer than it is in his own book. I suppose Clemens had to tone it down for the long haul.