"This Amazing, Troubling Book"

3 November 2019: "The source of my unease reading this amazing, troubling book now seems clear; an imperfect coming to terms with three matters Twain addresses—Huck Finn’s estrangement, soleness and morbidity as an outcast child; the disproportionate sadness at the center of Jim’s and his relationship; and the secrecy in which Huck’s engagement with (rather than escape from) a racist society is necessarily conducted. It is also clear that the rewards if my effort to come to terms have been abundant. My alarm, aroused by Twain’s precise rendering of childhood’s fear of death and abandonment, remains--as it should. It has been extremely worthwhile slogging through Jim’s shame and humiliation to recognize the sadness, the tragic implications at the center of his relationship with Huck. My fury at the maze of deceit, the risk of personal harm that a white child is forced to negotiate in a race-inflected society, is dissipated by the exquisite uses to which Twain puts that maze, that risk." --Toni Morrison, on Huck Finn

I re-read this remarkable piece today, in preparation for class later this week. There is so much to admire here, from Morrison's impeccable close reading to the way she melds the personal and the academic and--what really stood out to me on this reading--her ability to find "rewards" in such a problematic and complicated novel. She is such a model for what it means to be an engaged, critical, charitable, and open reader.