The Adventures of Lhiadan Raghnall

I came, I saw, I conquered. And by conquered I mean I completed my first long, serious voice program in France. It was quite an experience. Being away from home was easier than I thought it would be, and coming back was harder than I thought it would be. But, honestly, I'm so happy to be amongst my Montreal friends and family and to be starting my first semester of my Master's program.


While I was away I actually didn't do much reading at all, which was a little shocking to me. But I already blamed this, and I still do, on the lack of a reading routine in Europe. Normally I read in the metro (hence "Metro Reader") and there ain't no metro in Périgord, France.


I did complete Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene (review to come) and half the short stories in Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House. Now I'm half-way through The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. It's... good. But it's hard to read sometimes because Twain writes in the southern dialects of his characters Huck, Jim and the many... interesting... characters they meet on the way. I'm not a huge fan of reading phonetically so I can easily lose patience with Huck. Mind you, this is an incredibly smart book and is filled with Twain's usual "nuggets of truth"--the little political speeches given by peripheral characters which profess Twain's own views of things. Some of it is incredibly amusing and for all the crummy grammar and funny accent of little Huck he really is an admirable character and a very decent, intuitive young man. And his friend Jim, a runaway slave, is just awesome.


I shall keep everyone abreast of my reactions to Huck's adventures as they continue. So far my favourite parts of the book are when he cleverly escapes from his dad's cruel clutches, and when the duke recites his version of Hamlet's famous speech "To be or not to be".


Here's a little dialogue between Huck and Jim I thought quite amusing. Jim starts:

"Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?" "No, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said--not a single word." "Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?" "I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy--what would you think?" "I wouldn' think nuffn; I'd take en bust him over de head--dat it, if he warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat." "Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know how to talk French." "Well, den, why couldn't he say it?" "Why, he is a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's way of saying it." "Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout it. Dey ain' no sense in it." "Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?" "No, a cat don't." "Well, does a cow?" "No, a cow don't, nuther." "Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?" "No, dey don't." "It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other, ain't it?" "Course." "And ain't it natural and right for a cat and cow to talk different from us?" "Why, mo' sholy it is." "Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a Frenchman to talk different from us? You answer me that." "Is a cat a man, Huck?" "No." "Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a man?--er is a cow a cat?" "No, she ain't either of them." "Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like either one er the yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?" "Yes." "Well, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he talk like a man? You answer me dat!"