Tom Sawyer

I adore Tom Sawyer. I always have.

I read the book for the first time probably in middle school, if not around sixth grade. I knew the story before then though. My brother played Tom Sawyer in a one-act play when he was in middle school and he told me the whole story. Usually stories are better when told by my brother but I remember not at all being disappointed when I read TS.

I feel like TS evokes a lot of personal memories. I wonder if it's that way for everyone or just me... I was always adventurous and a dreamer. It would have suited me just fine to run off and be a pirate for a couple of days. (I ran away once when I was very young but only made it to my fort in the back because I remembered I wasn't allowed to cross the street without an adult and I was not about to disobey a rule.)

I love Tom's character, to start. He's clever and adventuresome and that perfect balance of a good-bad boy that I have always loved. Ten year old me definitely had a crush on Tom. I also love that the book is largely for entertainment value. I like Twain's ability to spend pages talking about totally normal things, like children's make believe Robin Hood games.

I chose TS for my Lead Respondent project because of my previous admiration for this novel. I could really go on and on talking about it, but since I already spent the majority of class talking about it, I will shall some of my favorite quotes from TS, something I wish I had discussed more. (For some reason I sort of skimmed over the quotes section and realized it after I had already sat down. Whoops!)

“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” (Twain 20)

“Now he found out a new thing – namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.” (Twain 139)

“She would be sorry some day – maybe when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die temporarily!” (Twain 59)

“There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.” (Twain 150)

I definitely felt the need to go off and have adventures and find treasure when I was little, so I resent this last quote is exclusive to boys. Although my mom jokes that I was raised by my older brother, who pretty much adored me the minute he met me and dubbed me "his baby" from then on. I was a total tomboy when I was younger, played with boy toys, watched boy cartoons and grew up to be able to kick any of my brother's friends' butts at several video games.

The latter is statement is rather sad, though. I feel like nowadays kids have their adventures through computers INSTEAD of living them. I appreciate that I was the bridge between the two, since computers came into popular/common use around middle school, so at least my elementary years were spent outside. My twelve year old nephew, however, has spent his entire childhood thus far staring at his glowing screen which I think is criminal. His birthday is in May... maybe I should buy him Tom Sawyer :)

The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

I giggled out loud reading "he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm" because it reminded me of Alan Rickman's portrayal of Professor Snape in Harry Potter, which I just watched yesterday.

One thing I enjoy about this piece and all of Mark Twain's works is that although his character are ridiculous, they are also so familiar. Don't we all know someone of the above description? Don't we all know of a reverend who gambles on everything, including whether or not a woman will pull through an illness? Didn't we all know a little mischievous boy who picked fights with everyone, such as Tom Sawyer? I feel like his characters are caricatures of people that Twain's audience know and that hasn't changed in the hundred years since Twain lived.

Twain's style makes me smile. (Are your corners twitching upwards because that rhymed? I hope so!) His works just scream "READ ME OUT LOUD! YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!" He writes as if he's speaking to rather than writing to you. For example, "...and kicking up m-or-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose." I so wish I could jump back in time and hear Mark Twain read any of his works at one of those "the trouble starts at 8" events.

The pup with no hind legs upset me a bit; I found myself grimacing at the mental image he painted. But, to Twain's credit, he always paints a vivid picture without at all overwhelming the reader with unnecessary adjectives.

I also admire Twain's ability to create stories out of the tiniest things, such as this jumping frog. I find the following line particularly amusing: "He can out jump any frog in Calaveras County." I just imagined the smug voice of Smiley, sounding like a proud parent gushing about his kid's math scores. After all, a frog SHOULD shine in the realm of jumping! And how does one even go about accurately measuring any one frog's jump against another's?

Ah, but the loveliness in Twain's lying characters. Twain must have found great joy in deception, as many of his characters have this bad-boy quality. I liked the ending of Jumping Frog for the simple fact that you can imagine future stories about Jim/Leonidas W. Smiley. The adventures never end for Twain's characters!

Introduction

This is my first blog entry!

The first reading for my Roman Traditions class with Scott Williams was an excerpt from Mark Twain's Innocence Abroad, which I found hilariously ironic considering I have never read a Mark Twain piece in college and all of a sudden he's popping up in all of my classes in addition to this class!