Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a book review

Twyane, Mark. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Tom Sawyer’s Comrade (Orinda CA: Wolfe Press, 2018). 100^th Anniversary Collection with original fonts and illustrations. I picked this venerable work randomly, aware that I may not have read it in my younger days and should have, simply because it is held as a classic piece of Americana. I enjoyed the fact that it was printed in its original form, first published in 1884, and so I appreciated the style of English the author employed.

Huckleberry Finn is a story of early America, before the Civil War. It follows the adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a teen age boy, who finds it necessary to abandon his father who treats him in a brutal manner, all this reflective of the wretched conditions of many Americans seeking a livelihood out in the frontier. Moreover, Finn escapes in the company of a child slave who is also looking for a better life and so the two sail down the Missouri River on a raft and eventually reach the Mississippi and still they keep going.

Mark Twayne’s story consists of a series of encounters that the two lads come upon. Their multifaceted conversations, as they sort one experience from another, echo the values that they hold and live by, one white and the other a run-away black. Interestingly, the reader learns that Finn’s views about slavery are ill formed at first and they evolve as the two bond on the basis of their experiences. Huckleberry Finn fully deserves its status as an American classic and hopefully all Americans, young and old, immigrant or not, find the opportunity to read it and discuss it with their loved ones because there is much to discuss. 

A Wampanoag Indian in Harvard or Caleb’s Crossing, a book review

Brooks, Geraldine. Caleb’s Crossing (New York: Penguin Books, 2011) pp. 318. Caleb’s Crossing is one of the most satisfying books I have had the pleasure to read.

It opens our eyes to the earliest encounters between English settlers and local natives, the Wampanoags of Martha’s Vineyard, in the 1660’s to be more precise. Even though the engagements described are nonviolent and, in the case of Caleb, the main Indian character, hospitable enough, the author makes known to the reader that those relationships cannot become anything but sad and unjust in the end.

While we know that America’s relationship with its indigenous peoples is both asymmetrical and ruthless, here we find a personal example. The story is based on a real-life Caleb, a young and precocious native who becomes involved with Bethia, the daughter of a preacher who ministers to the local aboriginals including Caleb’s people. This is how he reveals his intellectual capability and thereby enters the road toward assimilation (he crosses over) which also gains him a recommendation to enter Harvard’s special program for native students. With Bethia’s help, Caleb completes his education with great sacrifice but tragically succumbs to the dangers present in early colonial life.

Brooks is an excellent story teller and she does so with a keen sense of humanity and understanding.

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, a book review

Gwynne, S. C. Empire of the Summer Moon. Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History (New York: Scribner, 2010), pp. 371. This book is about war and the way it was conducted in American and northern Mexico territory between whites and Indians before 1875. For this reason, the reader will come across details that may be unsettling.

The overlapping drama in Empire of the Summer Moon is the riveting history of European-origin people overpowering native Americans, the Comanches in this case. They were the most powerful Indian tribe in North America, as the subtitle informs us, and they came to an end at the hands of white Americans moving west. Sad to say, it is but one of many such North American tragedies, not counting parallel calamities in the other parts of the western hemisphere marked by white people crushing dark skinned natives.

Even though I am familiar with the clash of cultures and civilizations in the Americas, Gwynne’s story entranced me nevertheless because of his contention that the Comanches arose in the late 1600’s as the most powerfully aggressive nation in the North American continent, more than the fierce Apaches. They could fight and kill on horseback more effectively than anyone else, including our Cavalry, at least up to the 1870’s. They employed this grisly facility to protect their buffalo hunting grounds in the Great Plains south of the Dakotas.

Comparing the war making capacity of American Indian tribes constitutes another fascinating subtheme in this book.

In between these powerful strands of early North American history the author artfully weaves the story of the Parker family which is intertwined with the descent of the Comanches. The Parkers, a prominent settler family, arrived in west Texas on the eve of this descent and two of them, Cynthia Ann and her son, Quanah, became braided-together with the Comanches in astonishing ways. Each played a role in what would be the Comanche’s finale as the lords of the Great Plains. This is truly an exceptional American story sadly ignored by most Americans.

Blood Meridian, a Book Review About Ethnic Cleansing in the West

McCarthy, Cormac. Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West (New York: First Vintage International Edition, 1992) pp. 351.  Considered an American classic, this novel tells the story of racial and ethnic cleansing in western America and northern Mexico in the 1850’s, and it employs a writing style that is both unique and frustrating, to say the least.

The reader learns, well into the story, that certain governors in northern Mexico engage a veteran American officer in the U.S.-Mexican War to lead a corps of ruthless cowboy tramps to find and kill Indians in the Texas-Arizona-Chihuahua region, Apache in particular. All 351 pages are devoted to this bloodstained enterprise that encourages an equally gory response from the Apaches themselves. The collection of dried out scalps becomes the proof of a job well done. Each pursuer collects his own grisly scapulary.

In following the trail of these hired murderers McCarthy offers an unending description of the land they cross and the sky that looks down on them, giving the author plenty of opportunities to demonstrate his unstinting writing ability. I concluded that he must have traced their pathways in order to recreate the details he presents.

The author does not flinch in presenting the gruesome depictions of people killed, be they Indians, Mexicans, or Americans. Sorry to say, the entire scenario in this novel corresponds with information about the region provided by historical research which confirms the bloody contests that finally came to an end about the time that this novel covers.

“The Alienist” or Youth homicide in New York City, a book review

Carr, Caleb. The Alienist (New York: Random House, 1994), pp. 498. Corruption and youth homicide in New York City in the late 1890’s play an intertwining role in this book. The author also writes about the city from various angles and so his knowledge comes to the fore in this gripping tale about influential men exploiting boys while city authorities look the other way. And although Teddy Roosevelt plays a minor role in this story, as the police commissioner, his part, nevertheless, fits in quite well. In this novel he is considered a reckless upstart reformer as he begins his government career giving undercover support to search for the murderer. History informs us that Teddy transferred this zeal to the highest office of the nation.

A famous clinical psychologist, a New York Times reporter, an aspiring woman detective and two police investigators partial to the latest findings and methods in forensic science make up the rest of the heroic team. The author’s knowledge of the city contributes to a plethora of urban detail that is interwoven into the search for the murderer of teenage male prostitutes who work in the city’s brothels. His remarkable grasp of criminal psychology also adds to the ring of authenticity that makes this tale nonstop reading.

A MULATA SLAVE GIRL GOES FROM HAITI TO NEW ORLEANS, A BOOK REVIEW

Allende, Isabel. La isla bajo el mar (New York: Vintage Español, 2010) pp. 511. See English below.

Fácilmente esta es una de las mejores lecturas que he hecho recientemente. La portada de este libro anuncia que la autora es “una de las narradoras mas populares de nuestro tiempo” y yo lo confirmo.

La autora nos ofrece la historia de Zarité, una esclava mulata traída como niña a la isla de St. Domingue ahora conocida como Haití donde crece y sirve a Toulouse Valmorain, un finquero francés que le da un hijo y una hija. Los detalles que pintan el mundo de Zarité como esclava sobresalen ante mis ojos porque los encuentros históricamente auténticos. Esto incluye el papel que matiza la autora acerca de los esclavos cañeros dirigidos por un agrio capataz y el rol de las mujeres esclavas curanderas.

La relación entre dueño y esclava antecede la revolución haitiana que sabemos fue provocada por la revolución francesa. En todo caso, logran sobrevivir el caos sangriento y el desgobierno consecuente. Y como miles de finqueros de azúcar y esclavos, Valmorain traslada sus bienes y su familia a Cuba y después a Nueva Orleans incluyendo a Zarité.

Alli Valmorain establece una nueva plantación de azúcar y esclavos pero diferente a la que tenía en Haití. Las relaciones entre dueños y esclavos, por ejemplo, sufren ajustes requeridos por la esclavitud norteamericana que resulta un poco menos malvada que la versión haitiana. Allende nos ofrece también excelentes detalles de lo que fue la esclavitud en Luisiana.

La isla bajo el mar es nada menos que un tesoro literario debido a la historia humana que presenta y además está bien preparado y escrito, fácil de leer. [May 2022]

Allende, Isabel. Isla bajo el mar (New York: Vintage Spanish, 2010) pp. 511. This is easily some of the best reading I’ve done recently. The cover of this book announces that the author is “one of the most popular storytellers of our time” and I confirm it. The English language version is known as Island Beneath the Sea. I read the Spanish version.

The author brings us the story of Zarité, a slave mulatta brought as a child to the island of St. Domingue, now known as Haiti, where she grows up and serves Toulouse Valmorain, a French plantation owner, who gives her a son and a daughter. The details that sketch out Zarité’s slave world stand out in my opinion because they appear historically authentic to me. This includes the living and working conditions of the slaves who cut sugarcane driven by a testy foreman and the merciful role of female slave healers.

The relationship between Valmorain and Zarité predates the Haitian revolution which we know was triggered by the French revolution. In any case, they manage to survive the bloody chaos of the revolution and the consequent misrule. And like thousands of other sugar slave owners, Valmorain moves his family and everything he owns to Cuba and later to New Orleans, including Zarité. There he establishes a new sugar slave plantation. However, the relations between everyone, including owners and slaves, are subject to adjustments required by an American slavery system that turns out to be a little less evil than the Haitian version.

Isla bajo el mar is nothing less than a literary treasure because it offers a story of human relations which is also well-written, easy to read.

Growing up Vietnamese-American, a book review

Vuong, Ocean. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, A Novel (New York, 2021, Penguin Books), pp. 246. Mr. Vuong is presented as a new voice in national letters with this work. His novel strikes me as autobiographical, and it takes the form of a long letter written by a Vietnamese immigrant to his mother. It unveils remembrances of their lives together, his father being absent, from the time he was a boy arriving in Hartford, presumably New Jersey, to the time he became twenty eight in the 1990’s. His reminiscences reach back to Vietnam and move forward to an unfriendly inner city vis-à-vis Asian immigrants. It is a story of plucky defensiveness and survival even as he discovers his being gay and embraces his sexual identity despite all.

A woman gets even: “Gone Girl,” a book review

Flynn, Gillian. Gone Girl, a novel (New York: Broadway Books, 2012). I found this book in a neighborhood book box. It achieved the New York Times bestseller list and is praised as “spectacular” and “sardonic.” It is a good example of modern day American pulp fiction. Flynn tells the story of a love marriage that turned into a shotgun marriage, almost literally. A manipulative woman who puts her man in his place. Women readers may have helped boost Gone Girl to the level of bestseller. It is entertaining. It was made into a film in 2014.