Since I read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as my classic this year, what better way to do the Remix square then to find a retelling of the book I had just finished. The original would be fresh in my mind and I’d have a place to jump off from. I found Finn at the local book barn, and since it was only $5.00 for the hardcover, what was the harm? The premise was intriguing….a whole book from Huck’s father’s perspective….and for full disclosure, I was taken in by the lovely cover. I’m not exactly sure how to rate this book. On one hand, it did a ton of things really well, but on the other, I just didn’t like it.
Finn gives backstory and a parentage to the basically orphaned Huckleberry Finn. Only his father is mentioned in the classic, and for those unfamiliar with Pap Finn, Huck’s father is a ne’r-do-well drunk who spends most of his time squandering his money on whiskey, abusing Huck when he remembers his son exists, and generally being a town problem. Huck’s plan to escape his father sets the classic’s plot in motion, and we don’t find out what happens to Pap Finn until the end. Clinch’s novel creates Huck’s family out of the small details of Twain’s original story: Pap Finn doesn’t get much page-time in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and Huck’s mother gets one line about her being dead, but Clinch uses Huck’s personality and descriptions of his father to flesh out his own main characters. All the major plot points of Finn match up to big moments in Twain’s original, culminating in a really satisfactory conclusion that explains Finn’s demise in the classic. It’s really a brilliantly structured novel; Clinch starts his story at almost the end, and then backtracks, with every other chapter switching between the past and the present until the past catches up. We learn who Huck’s mother is, how and why he essentially raises himself, and Pap Finn’s backstory provides some motive (I guess) for his continuously destructive behavior. Clinch also does an excellent job of realistically portraying the abuse and stifling lack of options women of color faced in 1840s Illinois/Missouri at the hands of white men, as well as what women in general suffered in an era where they had no basic human rights. So, why then, did I hate this book?
As much as the craft was fresh and clever, and it’s obvious that Clinch studied Twain’s original work with care and specificity, spending almost an entire novel in the head of a racist, misogynistic alcoholic was just no fun. I hated Finn, which while I know we’re supposed to, didn’t make the reading experience any more pleasurable. There were no bright spots to this story; literally nobody wins in the end (except Huck, maybe, because he escapes with Jim, and Jim’s awesome). I guess the book was just a little too close to reality for me to want to escape into it.
Maybe someone else would enjoy this book more, but as I don’t tend to like titular characters with no redeemable qualities, Finn just wasn’t for me.
1 star for the book experience, 4 stars for brilliant craft and careful characterization.
2.5 star average rating
Bingo Square: Remix
1st Bingo: Remix, The Collection, Own Voices, Rainbow Flag, Summer Read (diagonal left corner to bottom right)