The Parallel Lives

On February 15, 1885, 140 years ago next week, Mark Twain’s best work of fiction, “Huckleberry Finn,” was first published in the United States.

     Critics berated the book. In Concord, Massachusetts, commissioners recommended that the town’s library ban the book. They described the novel as “racist, coarse, trashy, inelegant, irreligious, obsolete, inaccurate, and mindless.” Yes, it is all those things. It is all too-human.

     Huck and a runaway slave named Jim are together on a raft sailing down the Mississippi River. By keeping Jim hidden away from the authorities, Huck knows he is breaking the law.

     Yet, Huck likes Jim, who ran away because Jim’s owner, Miss Watson, intended to sell Jim to a slave trader for $800 and send him alone down the river to New Orleans.

     Jim was a grown man with wife and two children, Elizabeth and Johnny. 

     Huck was fourteen years old, without a comforting mother. His dad, Pap, was an abusive alcoholic who beat Huck, who said, “But by and by Pap got too handy with his hick’ry. stick, and I couldn’t stand it. I was all over welts.” 

     On occasion, on the raft, Huck awakens and hears Jim muttering sad words.

     Huck explained, “When I waked up, just at daybreak, Jim was setting there with his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. I knowed what it was about. He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick.

     “I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so. 

     “He was often moaning and mourning that way, nights, when he judged I was asleep, and saying, ‘Po’ little ‘Lizabeth! ‘po’ little Johnny! it’s mighty hard; I spec’ I ain’t ever gwyne to see you no mo’, no mo’!”

     In pre-Civil War years, slaves had no rights. They were property, expected to work for free, without wages. Daily the men and women suffered enormous injustices, physical and emotional abuses, and yet they tried to adjust. They married, they had children, and most survived. 

     Slaves had Sunday’s off and Christmas Day. I suspect that given the unrelenting work expected, there were only fleeting tender thoughts between husband and wife on Valentine’s Day.

     Indeed, “it’s mighty hard,” when written laws kept the labor force in chains, turned into slaves who were worked to death, to an early grave, and subject to the whims of a rich white man.

     Abraham Lincoln’s birthday approaches. He was born February 12, 1809, 2016 years ago. It was Lincoln, who, in the midst of a bloody civil war, set the slaves free, by Proclamation.

     On February 12, 1909, the date of Lincoln’s 100th birthday, a group of African-American leaders, headed by W. E. B. DuBois, and certain white progressives joined together to form the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Its mission: 

   “To promote equality of rights and eradicate caste or race prejudice among citizens of the U.S.” 

     Late in 2024, officials at “New York Times Book Review” voted Percival Everett’s new book, “James,” one of the five best fictions books last year. Everett, an English professor in California, dared to re-write “Huckleberry Finn” to focus upon Jim, rather than upon Huckleberry.

     In one sobering scene, Everett places Jim, or James, in a cabin where he teaches six black children, including his own Elizabeth and Johnny, how to talk when among white people. 

     “Don’t make eye contact,” a boy said. “Never speak first,” a girl said. “Never address any subject directly when talking to another slave,” a tactic called, “Signifying.” Lizzie, or Elizabeth, said, “We must let the whites be the ones who name trouble.” 

     In 2024, I listened to the audio version of “James.” I found Percival Everett’s book nearly as entertaining as Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn.” Certain scenes, like the above, stand out. 

     My favorite of Huck Finn’s quotes, “Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.” Tell ‘em, Huckleberry.