A few years ago I saw a Broadway revival of “Sunday in the Park with George,” and the first act, set inside the painting, was the most magical act of theater I’ve ever seen.  So when the second act, set in contemporary London, started up, I wanted to raise my hand and shout, “Put me back in the first act!"  It’s akin to how I felt rereading the great American novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."  Each time Huck and Jim stepped onto the mainland I wanted to raise my hand and shout, "Get back on the raft!"  Because when Huck and Jim are together, alone, on the raft, floating down the Mississippi, unmoored from political geography and personal history, they are safe and free, and the novel is a vivid, unsentimental portrait of the friendship between two men.  As soon as they tie up the raft somewhere the novel turns into an action- and dialogue-packed satire of other genres (particularly romance), other writers (particularly Dumas), other southerners (particularly Arkansans), and other people (particularly royalty).

I’m admiring of Twain’s sense of humor, and how effortlessly he switches styles.  There’s something anarchic and irreverent in the structure of the novel that might be deeply American.  But there is nothing as joyous and lyrical as the passages when Huck and Jim are alone together on the raft, lying on their backs, staring up at the sky, and letting it take them wherever it will.  The sense of emotional and physical ease they conjure is what I’ll take with me from the book.  I spent some time in the south this summer and got a glimpse of how powerful the Mississippi River and its tributaries are, and how its seasonal risings threaten crops and roads and life.  In "Huck Finn” the river transports Huck away from an ugly childhood and Jim from slavery.  It gives them trouble, and then it gives them life.