Yet another Hacker News

The Great American Rascal: Tom Sawyer at 150

23 points beatstop 1 hour ago 4 comments

reliabilityguy 42 minutes ago | parent

First book I've ever read start to finish when I was in school. I remember that we've read a chapter a day in class, each one couple lines until the chapter was done.

ErroneousBosh 11 minutes ago | parent

I used to get in trouble doing that because I'd never look at the book.

I'd have finished it, some of them before we'd even be assigned them, and I'd read up the bit we were going to do that day, have my delivery and timing, have my voices all lined up.

Our teacher I think wanted everyone - reading - each - word - at - a - time - like - this, but I couldn't be bothered with that crap. Make the words live! Make the people real!

And now some forty-some years later, I hear my six-year-old reading his books in his bedroom out loud, trying different voices for different characters until he's got one he likes. I'm going to get so many emails from his teacher, aren't I? But I'm not ever going to tell him to stop.

madrox 16 minutes ago | parent

To the article's point, I grew up in the 80s. Even though I lived a different life from Tom and Huck it wasn't so different that I couldn't relate to it. I wonder how many more generations we can go before that's all gone, or if it already has. There's still a lot of value in it as a work of literature, but I don't know if it has the same intuitive understanding it had in the 20th century.

I don't think that's a bad thing. We shouldn't put the past on a pedestal, but it makes me wonder who the Tom Sawyer of the 21st century is. I just hope it isn't Katniss Everdeen or Edward Cullen.