Re: Salinger & Burns (NOT George!)actually not, but Gatsby
Paul Kennedy (kennedyp@toronto.cbc.ca)
Mon, 20 Dec 1999 20:48:21 -0500 (EST)
Where ARE my books when I need them?!?!?!?
Further stream-of-consciousness drivel on the brilliance of HUCK FINN:
Emerson's eulogy on Thoreau contained a sentence that was obviously intended
as a bit of a put-down. It went something like: "He would rather have been
the leader of a huckleberry expedition than a captain of American
literature...." (Henry, I'm certain, would have taken it as a GREAT
compliment. He was always SO MUCH older and wiser than RWE--Which may be
why his writing seems so much younger and fresher than Emerson's, now. The
almost cliche exchange in the Concord jail house says it all: RWE: Henry,
what are you doing in there? HDT: Ralph, what are you doing out there?)
Is it possible that Twain was paying tribute to Thoreau by naming his most
memorable character after him?
Cheers,
Paul
OSR--Tim's point about Huck being a 19th century pre-cursor to Holden seems
almost self-evident to me, but that's maybe because up here in the Great
White North the two books are inevitably paired in high school English
courses...