The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) (The Adventures of Tom and Huck, #1) by Mark Twain

There's a pretty common, easily identifiable process guiding decision-making in most human societies: We identify the ends at which we mean to arrive, we make certain decisions and engage in work to get there, and, hopefully, the process concludes after some time has passed, and we arrive at our desired destination.

As adults, we spend the vast majority of our lives operating within these processes. Some take place over decades of time, others months, or even weeks. "I want that promotion". "I'm saving up for a house". Even something as trivial as "I need to finish eating these bananas before they get overripe". Of course, these goal-oriented life processes don't always conclude in the manner in which we had hoped—Sometimes our boss is just an oblivious asshole who doesn't realize how valuable we are to our team. And nobody wants to eat more than one banana at a time, right? But typically with enough moxie and fastidiousness, and with reasonably conceived goals, we get where we're looking to go.

We often underestimate the intelligence of children. You can go downtown during summertime and see them all eating ice cream and getting it all over their face like some kind of fool. Or witness your son falling off a step while doing something stupid and hurting themselves. Any parent will tell you that they've thought (probably more than once) the words "Jesus Christ, my kid is a goddamn moron". But children are often just as intelligent as we are. They are definitely far more observant than we are. And they are, without a doubt, far, far more imaginative.

Twain's writing of children subtly grasps both their strengths and pitfalls. Tom Sawyer is an extremely clever, imaginative young man. He understands what makes people tick and often manipulates it to his advantage. He operates under the same aforementioned process we adults do—he identifies what he wants and operates in accordance with these goals. The difference is that oftentimes he doesn't arrive where he wants to go.

That's because, for children, there's a key element of this process that's missing: Experience. They're capable of crafting their own goals—"Skip school today", "get Becky to like me", "get out of whitewashing this fence", "make my Aunt miss me". But they often go about accomplishing these in a clumsy, sub-optimal manner—Sometimes to such an extent that they hurt those around them. They lack the experience of fully formed adults, so they're often unaware of how their actions could potentially affect others around them, and they fail to account for the inherent irrationality of human beings. For example, Tom manipulates Becky into liking him, but it all implodes when she realizes that he's not been completely genuine with her. Or, he runs away from home in order to garner an emotional response from his Aunt and Sid, but is surprised to find them honestly distraught when they assume he's dead—or worse. Tom is not stupid—quite the opposite; his cleverness is a joy to read throughout the story. But his lack of experience in dealing with people is often apparent in episodes like this. Twain has such a firm grasp on what it is to be a child: you're operating in this weird world of adults in which everyone seems to know the rules except you. So Tom longs to run away, to fish and play and shirk his responsibilities, because he knows the rules of those worlds—or, rather, he's free to make them up as he goes along.

Twain nails the writing of children in a way I haven't very often, if ever. The strength of his prose is remarkable, too. And his usage of local, contemporary slang brings a heightened sense of sincerity to the novel. But it does have its faults.

The vignettes that populate most of the book are expertly crafted, enjoyable, and affecting, but the lack of a strong overarching narrative until the final quarter of the book left me with an experience that felt like reading a group of short stories rather than one cohesive novel. It feels like Twain decided to write a novel, but had no strong 'glue' to hold it together. It still works pretty well as a novel, but don't expect a strong plot to keep you shuffling along.

Another criticism—perhaps more important—is the lack of any strong characters outside our lead. Most of the adults in the story are token or weak, from the cliched down-and-out drinker Muff Potter, to the awful evil-because-he's-part-Native-American Injun Joe. I realize that this is a pretty tight book and there's not too much space to flesh these people out, but it still left me feeling like they were a bore to read about. Even his steadfast companion Huckleberry Finn felt like more of a token orphan than a fully realized secondary character.

The strength of this book is in its character interactions and its dialogue. And that's enough. But with just a little bit more, I could have liked it a whole lot better.

⭐⭐⭐