What If Mark Twain Were on Twitter?

Washington Teacher Calls for Ban on Huck Finn

"The time has arrived to update the literature we use in high school classrooms," Ridgefield, Washington high school teacher John Foley wrote in a guest column this month for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States, and novels that use the 'N-word' repeatedly need to go."

It's very sad that the so-called controversy still rages on after so many years, but apparently, it still does. Foley claims that he is tired of having to rationalize the book to offended students and parents, yet still claims to be "passionate" about it. Oh yeah, and he also wants To Kill a Mockingbird and Of Mice and Men dropped from the curriculum as well, because of their repeated use of the word "nigger", and their supposed demeaning depiction of African Americans as "ignorant".

How unfortunate that these sentiments would be coming from an educator, and that that educator would be using the historic election of Barack Obama--which Twain himself would more than likely have welcomed joyously--as a justification for the abandonment of Twain's greatest work. That a man who claims to be "passionate" about the novel is unable to comprehend its true message and the means to bestow that message upon his students. All he sees is that word, regardless of context and meaning. Now that's ignorant.

Want to find a demeaning use of the word "nigger"? Try listening to some of the music that those very high school students he's trying to "protect" are listening to on their iPods.

Foley's editorial was met with a largely negative response by readers of the Post-Intelligencer, as well as fellow educators. That, at least, I can take solace in. For the entire report, go here.

College Buddies Re-Enact Huck and Jim's Mississippi Trek

Two intrepid students from the University of Northern Colorado have followed in the "footsteps" of the main characters in Mark Twain's most beloved novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

According to a story in the Colorado Springs Gazette, 20-year-old Nathan Oligmueller came up with the idea after falling in love with Twain and his book in high school. He convinced his friend and fellow Twain fan Dave Brandsma to help him build an elaborate raft out of plywood and steel, using 30 plastic fertilizer barrels for flotation.

"We decided this was something we wanted to do while we were still young: the Huck Finn adventure - an American dream kind of thing," Oligmueller told the Gazette via cell phone from his raft (an amenity Huck and Jim could never have dreamt of).

Oligmueller's father and another college friend initially joined the boys for the 930-mile voyage from Iowa to Louisiana, but bailed out early after encountering Iowa floods.

For a month, Oligmueller and Brandsma made their way down the Mississippi in emulation of Twain's heroes, smoking corn cob pipes and watching the sun set from the roof of their cabins. They stopped every few days for gas and supplies, also managing a brief layover in Clemens' hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. As for food, the adventurers have relied on the help of kind strangers along the way, who were happy to take the boys in just to hear their amazing story. One man even drove them to a hospital to treat Brandsma's swollen foot.

To read more about the journey, check out www.bearnakedrafting.com--a website Oligsmueller actually created while aboard the raft, using a laptop computer plugged into a solar generator! Upon checking the site myself, I discovered that the boys had made it to Louisiana, and are on their way back to Colorado. Once they get there, they plan to write a book about the whole thing.

I applaud these two fine gentlemen for their dedication, ingenuity and sense of adventure. It's one thing to fall in love with Twain and his work--but it's quite another to go out there and live it.

Mark Twain on Trial for Racism

It's the old, tired war-horse of American literary/cultural criticism: Was Mark Twain a racist? From my point of view, anyone who has ever actually gone to the trouble of reading his work and studying his life knows that the answer is a resounding "NO". Yet the issue persists, due mainly to the The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it's treatment of the character of Jim, and its frequent use of the word "nigger".

Yet the matter will be dealt with in amusing fashion next week at Greeley, Colorado's High Plains Chautaqua festival, in which students will put Mr. Twain (played by popular Twain impersonator McAvoy Lane) on mock trail, on charges of racism.

In writing about "The Trail of Mark Twain" in the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza, Layne postulates a closing argument:

"Today, 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ is a problematical text that carries dynamics for trouble into today’s classroom with its emotionally loaded nomenclature. When you first encounter the offensive epithet that appears over 200 times in the novel, it sears the eyeball; makes you want to set the work aside and be done with it. In 1885 this word, which comes from the Dutch word for black, was a kinder word than the word 'slave.' But the word has become the most powerful secular blasphemy in our language today and has several times the preemptive force than it did in the 1880’s.

But if you can get through that word, not around it, but through it, I believe you will discover ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ to be a strong indictment against prejudice and racism, and a central document to 19th-century cultural America.”

Layne's words ring true, as they should for anyone of intelligence. The fact that the argument even still persists is testament to the superficiality and misplaced hyper-sensitivity of our times.

Big River Comes to Rapid City

Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn--the musical which debuted on Broadway in 1985--is currently being presented at Rapid City, South Dakota's Black Hills Playhouse, according to the Rapid City Journal.

Based on Twain's most celebrated novel, the Rapid City production kicked off last night, and will run until July 27. For more information, call the Black Hills Playhouse at 605-255-4141.