A NOTE ON THE SPOILERS
A while ago I got a comment tantrum from a semiliterate rando because apparently some people are too stupid to understand a SPOILER WARNING, so I thought I’d elaborate on my exact definition of a spoiler. I AM GOING TO SUMMARIZE THE ENTIRE BOOK, INCLUDING THE ENDING. Think of me as a very niche Wikipedia. If you have a problem with that, you are welcome to stop reading at any time. I don’t make money from this content. I don’t care how many people read it.
This is your legacy, Fedup: an extra line on an obscure book blog that probably doesn’t even have ten followers. It’s not exactly a Nobel prize, but it’s still quite a nifty little achievement. Your parents must be so proud. Please seek help.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Mark Twain
You’re off the edge of the map, mate. Here there be spoilers. Other reviews in this series can be found here.
Wow, I usually don’t give one-stars. Early in the book I thought it might end up at a solid three, but then it got knocked down to a two, and then a second after I’d put that into goodreads I asked myself, “Why does it deserve that second star?” Clearly I had no answer. This book got an even lower rating out of me than Mirror Mirror (Gregory Maguire), and that’s really saying something.
Now: in addition to just flat out hating the book, I have a grave sin on my soul. I read the Tom and Huck books out of sequence, and it’s bothering me. I never ever never read series in anything other than their intended order, unless the prequel is published after the fact. But in this case it’s been 149 years since Tom Sawyer was published and 141 since Huck followed him, and I have no excuse except that I was originally only planning to read Huck in preparation for Percival Everett’s James, which is the flag on the hilltop. James is the reason I read Huck Finn and Huck Finn is the reason I picked up Tom Sawyer, and I hope it’s all worth it in the end.
(Presumably) born and raised in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, Thomas “Tom” Sawyer is an orphan who lives with his younger half-brother, Sid, and their Aunt Polly and cousin Mary. His childish japes take up about half of the book, but suffice it to say that he lives to cause trouble and has a flair for overblown tragedy, as seen when he allows the entire town – including his own grieving aunt – to think he drowned in the Mississippi and then casually saunters into the consequent funeral just for sheer dramatic effect. His other exploits include cheating his way to the top of his Sunday school class in order to win one of the coveted Bibles that are given out as prizes to the most accomplished students, only to immediately demonstrate his own ignorance of Scripture; falling out of love with his one-time fiancée, Amy Lawrence, and replacing her with Becky Thatcher, the daughter of the prominent Judge Thatcher; and persuading his two besties, Joe Harper and Huckleberry “Huck” Finn, to run away to a small island in the middle of the river in order to become pirates. This escapade lasts for several days, until the boys become lonely and bored, and it is in fact the precursor to their decision to gatecrash their own funeral. In summation, Tom tends to think his pranks are funnier than they actually end up being, and, aside from one truly hilarious incident in which he convinces his schoolmates to pay him for the privilege of doing his chores for him, the first half of the book isn’t much worth recounting.
The actual story concerns a botched grave robbery carried out by Dr. Robinson, Muff Potter, and Injun Joe (I am so uncomfortable typing that name, but it is what it is), a doctor and two layabouts who won’t say no to extra cash. Dr. Robinson had hired Muff and Joe to dig up a grave for him in order to steal its corpse, but Joe murders him to settle an old score, then frames Muff and almost gets him hanged with his false testimony. Unbeknownst to all of them, Tom and Huck witness the whole thing. Their guilt and their affection for Muff drive them to bring him small comforts while he is imprisoned, though their fear of retribution is so great that they decide not to contradict Joe’s testimony; however, Muff comes dangerously close to the gallows, and Tom finally testifies in his favor. Joe flees town while Muff is acquitted, but his vengeance remains a constant threat in the back of Tom’s mind.
Despite Tom’s fears (and Joe’s reputation for holding a grudge), nothing happens, and Tom and Huck happily start their summer break by hunting for buried treasure. Their quest leads them to a reputedly haunted house, where they witness the resurrection of Joe, who has returned to town disguised as a deaf-mute Spaniard. Together with his partner, he begins to bury some stolen silver in the house, but changes his mind when they dig up a hoard of gold coins. While Joe and his partner – known only as “the ragged man” – carry off both silver and gold to hide them in one of Joe’s lairs, Tom and Huck decide to steal the treasure, and set to tailing both men. When their hunt seems to come up empty, Tom takes a day off to go on a communal children’s picnic with Becky, but their leisurely day turns traumatic when they become hopelessly lost in McDougal’s cave.
While Tom and Becky struggle to survive, Huck follows Joe and the ragged man in the hopes of finding their hidden treasure, but instead learns that Joe plans to mutilate the Widow Douglas in retribution for the abuses inflicted upon him by her husband, a now-deceased justice of the peace. After appealing to another resident (this one known merely as “the old Welshman”) for help, Huck falls gravely ill, and is nursed back to health by the rescued widow. Meanwhile, Tom manages to find a way out of the cave, though he ends up five miles down the river from its entrance, and he and Becky return in triumph. This isn’t happy news for everybody: Joe was still in the cave at the time that Tom and Becky left, and he had no way of knowing that Judge Thatcher had ordered that the cave’s public entrance be reinforced and locked. By the time Tom learns of the improvements to the safety of the cave, it’s far too late, and Joe has long since starved to death. His grave becomes a tourist attraction because people are gross and always have been, and Tom and Huck return to the cave in search of the treasure, which they finally find.
The rest of Tom’s story serves as a lead-up to Huck’s. The boys return home with over $12,000, which they split evenly between them. The widow and the judge invest their findings on their behalf, giving them each a considerable daily income, and the widow adopts Huck, which makes him absolutely miserable. After a few days of clean clothes and daily prayers he runs away and resumes his old life, bemoaning his sudden wealth, but Tom persuades him to return to civilization, bribing him with membership in a really high-class robber gang. (Oh, and the ragged man washed up dead a little while ago, and is generally assumed to have drowned.)
If you, like me, read the Adventures books out of order and came out of Huck Finn with a healthy dislike of Tom, this book will not change your mind. I’m going to be charitable and say that I am not its intended audience, in the same way that I am not the intended audience for The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger), which I suspect would produce a similar reaction. I just have no patience for the character of Tom, who is roughly sweet at his best and selfishly, infuriatingly obtuse at his worst. I won’t go so far as to say that he intentionally hurts the people he loves – and he does love his family, make no mistake about that, or at least he loves most of them except for Sid – but he never looks before he leaps into the next prank, because he is perennially convinced that they’ll love his tricks as much as he does. (Spoiler alert: they don’t.) The internet claims that he matures over the course of the book, particularly during the misadventure in the cave, but I happen to disagree. As far as I can tell, he learns nothing and he behaves in exactly the same way when he gets to Pikesville, and I personally don’t call that growth. If anything, I would say he gets worse because in Pikesville he’s actually playing with a life other than his own, and I hate it.
While Huck Finn did give Tom more airtime than I thought it should have, its saving grace was its other characters – chiefly Huck and Jim – who were endearing enough to carry me through. That isn’t the case with Tom Sawyer, which is 218 pages of Tom Sawyer being a little shit. Aunt Polly and Mary play barely any role, except to function as the aggrieved womenfolks; Sid is always looking for ways to get Tom in trouble; Becky is always complaining about something, and when she’s not complaining she’s throwing a passionate fit (don’t get me started on Tom’s attitude towards women); even Huck is a disappointment, as he baldly tells Tom that he considers the company of slaves to be beneath him, but that he will still endure it if it means they’ll give him free food.
And yet, for all that grief, this book is just boring. I am so grateful that Twain was at least a concise writer, unlike some others I could name, because if I’d had to go through another 200 pages of this shit I’m pretty sure it would’ve been a DNF. It moved quickly enough for me to get through it in a reasonable amount of time while also being slow as molasses, and I don’t even know how that works. I’m sure part of this has to do with my own lack of nostalgia for a time and a place that is so clearly gone, a childhood I will never know, but Tom is just not an interesting character. His impishness is tiresome rather than endearing, and he never seems to learn from his mistakes, though he always feels sorry in the aftermath of his own terrible decisions. He is never content to pull these stupid pranks by himself, but always has to drag in his friends, after which he always manipulates them into staying with him until he’s decided he’s done.
Unfortunately, I cannot add this book to the Glad I Didn’t Spend Money On It list because I bought the new edition that came out in June, whose cover matches my edition of Huck Finn. It soothes my feelings somewhat to know that I’ll have a matched set, even if I currently have no intention of ever rereading Tom Sawyer. I have read and loved Mark Twain in the past, so this fairly extreme reaction to possibly his best-known work is surprising, to say the least. On the other hand, I am not a boy and I never will be, so perhaps its charm is simply lost on me. Whatever the case, this cloud isn’t without a silver lining: the book is over, and now – at long, long last – I finally get to read James.
