The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (tom Sawyer's Comrade)

Speak,漂流记. That's what this book sounds like in your head: a boy's voice floating down the Mississippi on a makeshift raft, telling you things his way, in his words, for better or worse. Huck Finn has run away from the Widow Douglas's attempts to 'sivilize' him, from his drunken father who locks him in a cabin, from everything that smells like rules and Sunday school. What he finds is Jim, a runaway slave with a price on his head, and together they set loose on the great river, drifting toward a freedom that might not exist anywhere on land. The raft becomes a world: two outcasts watching the sunset, arguing about kings and Frenchmen, building something like family in the only space America hasn't claimed yet. But Huck is a child of his time, and the book never lets you forget it. His conscience tortures him over helping a 'nigger' escape. The humor cuts. The ending splits open. This is the novel that made American literature, and it still feels dangerous, still feels true.