(np) HF, the payoff of not being completely d*ckish...

[Albert Rolls]

Well, of course, the reader knows more than the narrator or others in the story. I didn't think I said that that wasn't the case. You raise some interesting points, and I'll need to go back and read the text to see if I will be persuaded by them. For now let me just say that our not accepting Huck's superstitions is different from our not accepting what he says about what is in front of him, though novelists write characters who misinterpret what is in front of them all the time. The text, however, has to tell us, if only obliquely, that what the character says about what he perceives is untrustworthy. In any case, you raised some interesting points. I'll have to reread the book to see if I buy them, not having read HF in a couple of years, but working from memory, one could argue that Jim does not necessarily perceive a spooky night. Huck is actively listening as he waits for Tom's signal, while Jim hasn't been as far as we know, so all those sounds that lead Huck to describe the night as he does might have gone unnoticed by Jim. Further, the spookiness does not prevent Huck from venturing into the darkness so why does it necessarily prevent Jim, if he perceives it, from sleeping. In any case, if I am not persuaded, it's not that big of a deal. We'll disagree, not even actively: at some point, sooner rather than later, this discussion will be dropped.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>
>Sent: Mar 18, 2012 2:38 AM
>To: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>Subject: Re: (np) HF, the payoff of not being completely d*ckish...
>
>> . .  . this argument doesn't demonstrate that Jim isn't asleep; it asserts that someone other than Jim wouldn't have fallen asleep. Jim is either asleep or some words in the text make the reader understand that he is awake and deciding to let Huck get away for some fun. It has been a couple of years, but I don't recall anything that made me as a reader believe Jim is awake.
>>
>
>I'm big on people knowing stuff & not letting on.   I did a paper on -
>egads, I just realized I did 3 different papers on different books for
>different classes, with that premise each time.
>
>so I might be predisposed to thinking so here also!
>
>
>But anyway, as to believing everything Huck says...
>
>Huck puts forth several "facts" such as killing a spider is bad luck
>and so forth.  He's as superstitious as he believes Jim to be, and
>maybe Jim is.  Huck's first person narrative is meant to wander around
>the truth and approach it humorously and from many directions.
>
>I think we are supposed to know more than he does, at least sometimes.
>
>The text gave me this description of Jim falling asleep:
>
>"So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom.  He leaned his back
>up against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most
>touched one of mine.  My nose begun to itch.  It itched till the tears
>come into my eyes.  But I dasn't scratch.  Then it begun to itch on
>the inside. Next I got to itching underneath.  I didn't know how I was
>going to set still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven
>minutes; but it seemed a sight longer than that.  I was itching in
>eleven different places now.  I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a
>minute longer, but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try.  Just
>then Jim begun to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore—and then I was
>pretty soon comfortable again."
>
>Using my imagination to picture what's in the text carried me further:
>
>he's so close their legs are almost touching.
>
>It's only a couple minutes.  No way is he sleeping.  No way did he not
>see them.
>
>Black slaves in antebellum Missouri had more reason than most people
>to be "practiced in the arts of deception".
>Having one's owners think one stupid had survival value.
>
>A man muddled enough to fall asleep in six or seven minutes after
>hearing a prowler and not being fully satisfied that he's  safe, would
>be somebody who could be sold down the river before he knew it.
>
>But that's not what happens to Jim...as we know...
>
>
>I'm not going to push this any harder, as if I haven't already...
>
>it's an enticing possibility but, sticking closer to Huck's
>perception, let's just say that it's a mournful spooky night -- and
>really really dark -
>and Jim is in the doorway listening to the same sounds that have Huck
>in a "brown study":
>
>"the leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl,
>away off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill
>and a dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind
>was trying to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it
>was, and so it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the
>woods I heard that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to
>tell about something that's on its mind and can't make itself
>understood, and so can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about
>that way every night grieving."
>
>the kind of a night that spooky things happen in!  that's why he
>couldn't sleep...assuming he's as superstitious as Huck...and so
>forth...
>
>
>Anyway, Jim undeniably makes a small happening into a big story, and
>embroiders it noticeably even to Huck -
>
>"Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a
>trance, and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the
>trees again, and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it.  And next
>time Jim told it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after
>that, every time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by
>he said they rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death,
>and his back was all over saddle-boils.  Jim was monstrous proud about
>it, "
>
>But this is a thing, this is the beginning of Jim as a person to
>reckon with.  This incident de-objectified Jim.
>
>Imagine being a slave...would I have the courage to challenge that
>interpellation?  I doubt it, unless somebody egged me on.  Or some
>story, true or even fictional...