| Twain's colorful and darkly funny critique of the antebellum American South is no less stinging (and no less controversial) 125 years after it was first published. Its satire of race relations, vigilantism, hypocrisy, and romanticism may remain just as relevant, but it's Huck and Jim's travels down the Mississippi River - the quintessential journey to reinvent oneself - that makes Huck Finn the decisive Great American Novel. |