Secular romance series we recommend
John Piper, in the article Can Christians benefit from secular books?, declares that all our readings, Christian or non-Christian, aim to better understand God, man, the ways of God and the ways of man, so that we may obey more. fully what God says and be more useful in achieving his purposes and glorifying his name. In this series “Secular novels that we recommend”, many theologians and pastors recommend good literature that every Christian should consider reading.
- “All modern American literature comes from a Mark Twain book called Huckleberry Finn.
- ” Ernest Hemingway said.
- “All American literary output comes from there.
- There was nothing before.
- Hasn’t there been such a good thing since?”.
The book, published in 1884, was the first novel written in a typically American dialect, presenting an epic journey through the American physical and social scene, written from a particularly American sensibility and exploring specifically American problems.
Unlike some classics, which a contemporary reader confronts with a sense of duty and reads with great difficulty, Huckleberry Finn’s Adventures brings back all the pleasures of reading. Mark Twain combines a story of suspense, adventure and melodrama with unforgettable characters, deep themes and devastating social satire. Isn’t Twain just a great novelist? He is one of the few authors who manages to be serious and fun at the same time. Readers of Huckleberry Finn’s Adventures will laugh as they cry.
The story is told from the point of view and voice of Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer’s heartbroken friend, and begins as a continuation of Tom Sawyer’s adventures, with more fun gameplay in the small Missouri town, until the plot becomes serious after Huck’s arrival. His father’s killer. In escaping from him, Huck also finds himself helping Jim, a slave, escape to freedom. They go down the Mississippi on a raft, encountering colorful adventures and characters along the way, families involved in fights in the Hatfields.
In Mississippi, does Huck learn not to see Jim as private property?How do you see it when they land? But as a human being, a friend who is willing to sacrifice himself for Huck. The novel is an in-depth treatise on the evils of treating other human beings as mere objects to explore, and is one of the most compelling accusations of slavery and racism in all literature.
Today, however, in an irony of Twainian proportions, Huckleberry Finn is not readable in many circles – and especially in public schools – because he is accused of racism. The book, like the 19th-century Southern language in which it is written, Jim, although it is the moral center of the novel, sometimes appears as a racial stereotype, with some of Twain’s humor, which seems to recall the old and racially offensive “menestreous programs” [1].
In this case, as is often the case, the style surpasses the content, with seemingly superficial details that prevent even people from seeing the underlying meaning. But if readers can’t spread the word “black,” I recommend postponing Huckleberry Finn’s reading. , it seems, the most difficult style figure to master; therefore, if readers only see racism in the novel and not in the way Twain attacks that racism, they are not ready to read it.
We often assume that children’s books are for children, but this is not always the case. In fact, there is much more than racism in the novel; things that would make modern parents tremble. Children who smoke. Children who drink. Children run away, children roam the city as they please, do dangerous things like swimming in the river and entering caves, behaving neglected by an adult (my childhood was more like Huck Finn’s than my children, who they are much more protected, that now they are even more protective of my grandchildren). As culture is, let Huckleberry Finn be a grown-up book.
But isn’t Mark Twain hostile to Christianity? Well, in his later years, Twain was a bitter man who cursed religion, while cultivating an almost Catholic veneration for St. Joan of Arc, but in Huckleberry Finn, he lashed out at the conflict between Christianity and cultural Christianity of his time. So is the Grangerford family friendly and kind, full of sincere Christian piety and good deeds?Apart from the fact that they are involved in revenge with equally pious shepherds, and kill the children of others for generations, although none of them remember how it all started or why they hate each other so much.
The novel’s turning point and turning point is when Huck decides to violate his conscience and everything he learned in Sunday school while helping Jim gain his freedom. It describes how he decided to change his life and follow the path of righteousness by giving Jim to his rightful owners. But then, seeing Jim’s humanity, Huck decides to help him escape, even if it was a robbery, and although this crime would certainly doom him forever. “Well then?” Huck decides. ? Am I going to hell? This section should excite any Christian. But one of the reasons we cannot be saved by our good works is that when we do them thinking that they will make us deserve heaven, it takes away any moral implications. Our sinful nature is such that we even do good works for a selfish reason. In Huck, the moral universe is so messy that a bad deed (cheating on a friend) is considered good and a good deed (helping a friend) is interpreted as bad. Rather than doing the right thing for eternal reward, is Huck doing the right thing? love and serve your neighbor ?, although I suppose it will pay you eternal punishment. Again, another irony that can confuse many readers. But in general, it is good for Christians to put up with satires against hypocrisy and their own non-Christian attitudes and behaviors. They help us to stay in a state of repentance.
In the latter part of the book, poor but virtuous and realistic Huck finds his friend Tom Sawyer and his middle-class status and highly romantic ideals. Hemingway says we should ignore this last part, which stuns and turns noble Jim into another. Clown. Just in the end, Huck decides to do what Americans always used to do after facing thorny problems: “escape to front territory. “Go west, head to the border, start a new life. This is essentially what Mark Twain did by traded the war-torn South for Nevada’s silver mines. The novel reminds the Christian reader that sin penetrates deeply into the human heart and society and enslaves us; and awakens a desire for freedom that can only come from Christ, who died to deliver us. Other people may not take it out of the story. But Christians will understand.
[1] NT :?Name by which was unveiled a type of popular American theatrical show that gathered images of cartoons, varieties, dance and music, first with white artists made up as black and, mainly after the Civil War, blacks with faces made up of black?. Source : Wikipedia.