1. For the joy of experiencing Tom’s delightful adventures, the wild and vivid imagination of a teenage psychology and the deeply felt young emotions thus reproduced.
(The brutes – Tom, Huck and Joe – cook up a recipe to attend their own funeral sermon!)
‘The convulsion of delight that swept his system shook him to his foundations.’ (convulsion – uncontrollable fit)
2. To marvel at the youthful spirit and Tom’s authentic relationships with his Aunt Polly and Becky – his lady love.
The brute of a boy, the crazy adventurer but a world-class soul of a friend and a lover, Tom Sawyer is a timeless hero. With his signature masterstroke of liberating philosophies and satire, Mark Twain in his novel paints the world of Tom in delicious metaphors we can’t resist to savour.
‘He was about to take refuse in a lie, when he saw two long tails of yellow hair hanging down a back that he recognized by the electric sympathy of love…’
3. To simply be amazed by the undiluted friendship of Tom and Huckleberry Finn, quarantined from the judgment of the society. –
The neon of the story remains the pure and soulful connection of Huckleberry and Tom unhindered by their class difference. They stand out as morally mature individuals in a civilization which even at their times, categorized its behavior and dispositions according to its own convenient understanding of social standing.
‘The social pariah of the village, son of the drunkard, cordially hated and dreaded by all the mothers of the town, because he was idle and lawless, vulgar and bad – and because all their children admired him so, and delighted in the forbidden society and wished they dared to be like him.’
The oxymorons, rich comedy and abundant usage of synonyms for a single experience (‘the furious blast roared’, ‘peal of deafening thunder’, ‘drenching rain’, ‘roaring wind’, ‘booming thunder blasts’), who needs a 7D experience in an IMAX Dome , when it’s all power-packed in one book!
(N.B – Reading assistance needed for 9 year olds. Comfortable read for 10 +)
( for summary of the book visit here)
*buy the book here