I like Twain as quote-worthy curmudgeon. I like his cynical way of writing. But, alas, I don’t really like Tom Sawyer.

It’s a melodrama that, while purporting to narrate Tom’s story and take Tom’s side, both condescends to its protagonist and never really gives a sense of motivation. Rascally, sure, mischievous, but why? We see hints of Tom’s conscience from time to time, but the grief he puts his elders through seems nothing short of sociopathic at times.

Intriguingly, this story reads like a play. Give this some thought as you read the book. Scenes are clear-cut, action relatively confined in space, and entrances and exits highlighted (over fences, into caves, etc.).

What is appealing to me is the treatment of absolutely non-children’s issues in the novel. Widow Douglas is absolutely threatened with rape. Murder happens. Racism. The children themselves act much more grown up than the preadolescents I know today–able to cook for themselves, boat, sleep in the open, drink and smoke–enough that I spent a lot of the time wondering just how old Tom was supposed to be. At times he seemed seven, at times fifteen.

This early wending into adulthood reminds that this bucolic drama is not entirely innocent: it deals with heavy topics; it takes place in a wilder time. It’s an important document of Americana, just don’t ask me to enjoy it too much.

Tags: 19th century, american, fiction, literature, novel

Been catching up on my reading, as you might imagine. By the way, have I ever mentioned that I have a peeve with certain “book reviews.” I absolutely hate it when a book review is not a book review but instead a synopsis. Especially when it gives away the ending. Sheesh. This following review goes as far down synopsis lane as I ever go. OK, so I admit that I give away that the novel ends darkly. But that’s a given from the very start. Within the first few pages. I promise.

p.s. Having just read a biography on Andrew Jackson was perfect for enjoying this book!

Thirteen Moons: A Novel by Charles Frazier

With a vivid sense of place and history, Frazier’s second work in many ways is more charming and entwining than his first (Cold Mountain), more personal and engaging. Eulogizing the mountain home of the Cherokees in engrossing language throughout the novel, Frazier’s narrator frames the plot with the land itself at all times. The novel is tactile, visual. But not just setting.

Frazier’s protagonist is an interesting, remarkably sensitive orphan who effectively builds himself alone, starting from age 12, when he is thrust into the wilderness by an alarmingly disaffected aunt and uncle with little more than a key and a vague map. Heck, they didn’t even have maps for the place he was supposed to go–a frontier trading post, to which he is bound (again by the unscrupulous family members) for seven years.

Here in this shack-store not even within American boundaries, he builds a life woven of the southern Appalachian landscape and the local Cherokees. He is adopted as a son by Bear, a sweet and lamentable elder. He meets a girl who smells like lavender, briefly, and falls terrifically in love.

But, as all things for the Cherokee went in the 1830s (bad), so do a lot of things here. Expect love and beauty and sinuous plot, but not joy. Frazier’s pace through the first half or two-thirds of the novel crescendos in a page-turner fashion, dragging you, the spectator, through many phases of the thirteen moons along with the characters. You see lovely things. Brief and beleaguered happiness. Knowing nothing good will come of this.

The last third of the novel feels like a dirge, winding down after an action-packed denouement. The greatest flaw of this story is its unwillingness to stop. You keep tumbling through the protagonist’s life until you wonder what you’re headed toward. Pain outweighs optimism at every turn. Each happiness leads to fifteen sorrows.

A beautiful book. Well worth reading and savoring. Expect to feel the mountains around you, dripping on you. Don’t expect redemption.

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Tags: 19th century, historical fiction, reading, south

Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics) by Charlotte Brontë

Funny how a book written 160 years ago can be this eyebrow-raising. I actually found myself saying to myself (almost out loud): “Oh no she didn’t” and “She slept where?!” and “He said what?!” Compared to Austen (who, granted, wrote 40 years earlier), which I’ve been reading lots of lately, this is raunchy stuff.

It’s also remarkably plot-driven, much to my relief. And the plot (again to compare to Jane Austen) broaches the boundaries of mere courtships and the quotidian. A few true twists happen. There are indeed still long passages of description (enjoyable, still) and religious reflection (less enjoyable to me), but mostly, we’re talking page-turner here.

In true Victorian literature fashion, expect some improbable coincidences and melodrama. But what Brontë excels at here–I mean really excels!–is character development. Some of the dialog in Jane Eyre is so good it’s obvious that no one would ever actually SAY that, but it’s still so good. Brontë manages to make middle-aged Rochester kind of hot, and then there’s the surprisingly full-sketched figure of St. John Rivers.

All in all, I can say this wasn’t what I expected, and mostly in a good way. Having read Dickens, Thackeray (contemporaries) and Austen (earlier) this year, Brontë really stood out on her own, with a strong, engaging style. ( )

Tags: 19th century, british, read, reading, review, victorian