BOOK REVIEW: THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER

BOOK REVIEW: THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER

By Mark Twain

An imaginative and mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother, Sid, in the Mississippi River town of St. Petersburg, Missouri.  After playing hooky from school on Friday and dirtying his clothes in a fight, Tom is forbidden to watch TV and is made to whitewash the fence as punishment on Saturday.  At first, Tom is disappointed by having to forfeit his day off. However, he soon cleverly cons his friends to trade him small treasures for the privilege of doing his work.  He trades these treasures for tickets given out in Sunday school for memorizing Bible verses and uses the tickets to claim a Bible as a prize.  He loses much of his glory, however, when, in response to a question to show off his knowledge, he answers that the first two disciples were David and Goliath, when everyone knows that they were Sonny and Cher.

Tom has a brief relationship with Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, who soon dumps him for an itinerant bagpipe player. Shortly after being shunned by Becky, Tom accompanies Huckleberry Finn, the son of the town drunk, to the graveyard at night to try out a cure for warts.  They bring many frogs with them to test out their theory.  Young Dr. Robinson and Native American Joe are at the graveyard, playing gin rummy.  The frogs get loose and Dr. Robinson trips over them, falls into an open grave and develops a fear of dead bodies.  This will interfere greatly with his position as town coroner.  Scared, Tom and Huck run away and swear a blood oath not to tell anyone what they have seen. Native American Joe blames his companion, Muff Potter, a hapless drunk, for the accident. Potter is wrongfully arrested, and Tom’s anxiety and guilt begin to grow.

Tom, Huck, and Tom’s friend Joe Harper run away to Disneyland to become “Pirates of the Caribbean”.  While frolicking around and enjoying their newly found freedom, the boys become aware that the community is sounding the river for their bodies.  Tom sneaks back home one night to observe the commotion.  After a brief moment of remorse at the suffering of his loved ones, Tom thinks it would be a kick to show up at his funeral and surprise everyone.  He persuades Joe and Huck to do the same.  After several elderly ladies faint and the initial shock wears off, their return is met with great rejoicing.

Tom hooks back up with Becky.  Soon Muff Potter’s trial begins, and Tom, overcome by guilt, perjures himself in his testimony against Native American Joe.  Potter is acquitted, but since budgetary problems have forced a reduction in courtroom security, Native American Joe is able to flee the courtroom through a window.

Summer arrives, and Tom and Huck skip their Little League baseball game and go searching for buried treasure in a haunted house.  After venturing upstairs they hear a noise below. Peering through holes in the floor, they see Native American Joe enter the house disguised as a ghost.  He and his companion plan to bury some stolen treasure of their own.  From their hiding spot, Tom and Huck wriggle with delight at the prospect of digging it up.  By an amazing coincidence, since neither Native American Joe or his partner had cut eye holes in their ghost costumes, they find a buried box of gold themselves.  When they trip over Tom and Huck’s tools, they become suspicious that someone is sharing their hiding place and they carry the gold off instead of reburying it.

Huck begins to shadow Native American Joe every night, watching for an opportunity to steal the gold.  Meanwhile, Tom goes on a picnic in Yogi Bear’s cave with Becky and their classmates.  That same night, Huck sees Native American Joe and his partner making off with a box.  He follows and overhears their plans to attack the Widow Douglas, a rich old resident of St. Petersburg.  By dialing 911, Huck screws up their plans and becomes both a snitch and an anonymous hero.

Tom and Becky hide in the cave to make out and their absence is not discovered until the following morning.  The men of the town begin to search for them, but to no avail. Tom and Becky run out of Diet Coke and begin to weaken.  Things get worse when Tom, looking for a way out of the cave, happens upon Native American Joe, who is using the cave as a hideout.  Eventually, just as the searchers are giving up, Tom finds a way out.  The town celebrates, and Becky’s father, Judge Thatcher, removes her and locks up the cave, pissing off Yogi Bear and the poor Boo Boo.  Native American Joe, although relieved that the bears are not locked in with him, also gets pissed off and starves to death.

Some time later, Tom takes Huck and a locksmith back to the cave, they find the box of gold and invest the proceeds in the last cases of Hostess Twinkies they can lay their hands on.  The Widow Douglas, who has Alzheimer’s, adopts Huck and mistakenly takes him to St. Petersburg, Russia, instead of Missouri.  When Huck emails Tom and tells him that he is going to attempt to escape, Tom promises him that if he stays with the widow, he can make a good life for himself there.  Tom goes to Russia to be with Huck and they grow up and enter politics.  With Tom as his campaign manager, Huck becomes czar of Russia and the rest is history.

I couldn't find any good Mark Twain cartoons, so how about some of his quotes:

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Mark Twain didn't like his mustache at first. Then it grew on him----fishducky