Book 3: Post 3

If you are reading this, you must be interested in the question I posed in the last entry about Tom’s similarity to Holden (Check out Book 3: Post 2 to learn more about this question). After finishing the book, my prediction taking a toll for the worse, like Holden does for much of The Catcher in the Rye, does not happen. Although when I was reading this book, it did seem like Tom was getting worse off, by the end, it was a satisfying read due to the character development. I liked how Twain decided to end with Tom becoming a more mature adolescent, since I, as a high school student, can relate to it. Another thing I found interesting was something I discussed in my first post about this book. I did not see much of the included verbal slang in this book like I had with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. When I read about Huck Finn in that book, I just thought it was Mark Twain’s style to write in this way. But after reading this book about Tom Sawyer, where sentences such as, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Tom Sawyer” (Twain 158), are more prevalent then dialogue with the characters talking with a lot of slang words, I found that it was not Mark Twain’s writing style influencing that. To be honest, I did not enjoy this book as much as I did Huckleberry Finn because of the missing extravagance in the dialogue. I still thought it was a good book, especially because it was related to The Catcher in the Rye, but the regularity of the language detracted from the experience a little. Maybe I was expecting too much out of Twain’s writing style. I enjoyed Huck Finn more, but I would still recommend this to anyone looking for a classic read. Stay tuned for news on my next and last book!