Tom Sawyer

Posted on March 23, 2008 | Comments Off on Tom Sawyer

Mr. B. and I have been enjoying reading Mark Twain’s famous book as a bedtime story. I remembered the part where Tom persuades his buddies that whitewashing Aunt Polly’s fence for him is a far better thing to do than whatever else they might have in mind. But I forgot the part when Tom and Huck and Joe Harper run off to play pirates, and then attend their own funeral. I’d also forgotten when Tom finally decides to testify for Muff Potter by revealing Injun Joe as the murderer. Then Tom and Huck spend the rest of the book worrying about Joe coming back to take revenge on them. Mr. B. doesn’t understand Tom’s flirtations with Becky Thatcher, why a boy would want to waste time with a girl, but he has wisely decided not to worry about it. It’s a different world, antebellum Missouri, without processed food for sale on every corner, not everyone having a watch to tell what time it is, misbehavior in school getting you a whipping, and toys being things like old doorknobs, fish hooks and marbles.

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0 responses to “Tom Sawyer”

  1. jdallen's avatar jdallen | March 23, 2008 at 1:37 pm |

    I am very glad you appreciate the man’s work and are teaching your son well.
    I quit reading a fairly popular blog, and took him off my blogroll and never looked back, because he started in on Sam Clemens/Mark Twain and his use of politically incorrect language and terms.
    He was not, never could have been, never will be fit to shine Clemens’ boots, and he had the unbelieveable gall to disparage him for writing in the vernacular of his time, all the while never bothering to understand that the man was actually totally antislavery and pro-humanity.
    Thus are giants tripped by fools with the stature of mice.

  2. Dick Stanley's avatar Dick Stanley | March 23, 2008 at 3:59 pm |

    I always read around the phrases that bother the politically correct, mostly references to slaves or Negroes. It’s just easier not to get involved in controversy or to set Mr. B. up for some unfortunate confrontation if he should mention it in school. But Twain didn’t belabor this stuff in the story. Nor did he make the slaves foils for ridicule. His sympathy for them is obvious. People who can’t see it are morons. Or else just cowards who’d rather go along with the race hustlers than think for themselves.

  3. SnoopyTheGoon's avatar SnoopyTheGoon | March 24, 2008 at 2:09 am |

    “But I forgot the part…”
    Hmm… we are more or less of the same age, methinks, and I still remember most of the book 😉
    jdallen – this boils my blood too.
    Oh, and Dick – off topic – I have finished a revolting task, the results (in three installments) are up now. You will not enjoy it, but…

  4. Dick Stanley's avatar Dick Stanley | March 24, 2008 at 9:01 am |

    Snoop, it’s true I suffer occasionally from senior moments. In this case, however, it’s been more than forty years since I read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and that was in a college literature course. I’ve enjoyed the update. But I much prefer The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which also was in the course, and will be our next bedtime book when we finish Sawyer. I remember more of HF. On the OT, I saw your three-parter. Amazing stuff. Really sick.