Our leading postmodernist novelist turns his iconoclastic eye to a great American classic in this sequel to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn .
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Our leading postmodernist novelist turns his iconoclastic eye to a great American classic in this sequel to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn .
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1st edn 1st printing. 8vo. Original gilt lettered orange/cream cloth (VG), dustwrapper (VG in protective cover, not price clipped). Pp. 308 (no inscriptions).
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Fine. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 320 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
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New. Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 320 p. In Stock. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Brand New, Perfect Condition, allow 4-14 business days for standard shipping. To Alaska, Hawaii, U.S. protectorate, P.O. box, and APO/FPO addresses allow 4-28 business days for Standard shipping. No expedited shipping. All orders placed with expedited shipping will be cancelled. Over 3, 000, 000 happy customers.
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Good. FORMER LIBRARY COPY. Former Library book. hardcover 100% of proceeds go to charity! Good condition with all pages in tact. Item shows signs of use and may have cosmetic defects.
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Very Good in Very Good jacket. 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. 308 pages. There are no marks or writing in the book. Corners are square. Gilt on spine is bright. Spine is tight and there are no loose pages. Dust jacket has light shelf wear. Cover colors are bright.
Robert Coover's novel "Huck Out West" (2017) is written as a sequel to Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" and places these characters in the middle of a story of the American West. Many years ago, I enjoyed Coover's "The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Prop.", but I was much less taken with this recent book.
Coover's book begins where Twain's books leave off. It follows the fortunes of Huckleberry Finn and his friend during the Civil War and through 1876. The book is a melange of history and of the adventures of its characters and of the fate of their childhood friendship. Huck is the first-person narrator. The novel shows Huck and Tom as riders for the Pony Express and follows their adventures through the Civil War. The two are present for the hanging of 39 Sioux Indians in Minnesota in 1862. (President Lincoln had meticulously reviewed the records for 300 Indians scheduled to be hanged and commuted the sentences for all but 39.) Huck and Tom soon go their separate ways as Tom returns home to fulfill his ambitions of material, political, and sexual success while Huck remains out West and tries to get by. In the latter sections of the book the two are united while their characters and the differences between them have become much more pronounced than was the case when they were young. Tom is a go-getter, ambitious, and none-- too-- scrupulous while Huck is introspective and tends to go with the flow, try to get by, and maintain his independence.
The book captures a great deal of Western history with its treatment of the early Dakota settlers, the discovery of gold, the large influx of settlers, and the wars with the Sioux. It depicts many historical figures including General George Custer and concludes with the destruction of Custer at the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn.
Huck is a loner who doesn't fit in. He leaves his community and lives with the Sioux for many years, with an Indian wife and a dear friend, Eeteh, who is also a loner who doesn't fit in with in his Tribe. Huck and Eeteh plan to ride to Mexico in search of freedom and away from the constraints of the ongoing Indian wars and the restrictions of their respective cultures. Eeteh regales Huck with stories taken from the Sioux religion about a figure named Coyote. When Huck meets up with his former friend, Tom is a representative of power, success, and law and order. He and Huck have their serious differences.
I found the story of Huck and Tom and the story of the American West was an ill-fit in this book. The writing too is mixed and does not hang together well.. With some clear and effective scenes, the novel is full of bluster, odd word use, and strange events in what is sometimes described by the markedly unhelpful and pedantic term "magic realism" which is neither magical nor realistic. In its "postmodern" style, the tone of the book is sharp and caustic and also relativistic -- while making virtually absolutistic moral criticism of the West and its settlement. As with many Westerns, the book pits the life of freedom and independence against the encroachments of American society and law. The book is highly deflationary and critical of what it sees as values formed by American power structure and by the incoming settlers. The book is written to puncture what it sees as myths that the book believes people hold about the West and about the United States.
The genre of the American Western, while once a staple of the popular novel and of film, has never gone away and has proved adaptable to many uses and to many literary techniques, including the "magic realism" of this book. There still is life remaining in the old genre. In reading "Huck out West" I thought of an earlier genre Western, A.B. Guthrie's 1947 novel, "The Big Sky". Although set in the pre-Civil War West, Guthrie's book has many of the same themes as Coover's, including conflict between cultures, the significance of discovering markedly different religious mythologies and beliefs among different peoples, the need to overcome tribalism and ethnocentricity, and the conflict between freedom and society or, as Huck would put it, "sivilization". The following comment by Huck in Coover's book would not have been out of place in Guthrie's novel.
"Tribes"... They're a powerful curse laid on you when you get born. They ruin you, but you can't get away from them. They're a nightmare a body's got to live with in the daytime." (p. 215)
Guthrie's book is written from the perspective of what once was thought of as secular liberalism and shows a love of country and of the West with all their flaws. While saying many of the same things, Coover's reading of the West and of the United States of which it is part is scathing and rejecting. The tone is snarky and one of mockery.
There are many enjoyable, informative books about the West, both histories and novels. Many books may help the reader see America with a broader and less harsh perspective than might otherwise be the case by following only contemporary skepticism, anger, and irreverence. The West may be explored both through histories and through fiction, while "Huck out West" is an uneasy combination of both. In the sense that "Huck out West" captures the less than flattering view of the United States that many Americans currently share of their country, it is backward-looking and takes a position that may itself be in need of revision. The West and our country deserve better.
