Well, that was... painful

 WHELP.

I am getting ready to read James by Percival Everett (and the BIG RIVER movie musical), and so I am trying to re-read all the Mark Twain stuff as a refresher,... and boy howdy, is this a ROUGH read.

At the end of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck has had enough of "civilization" and its fake morality, and heads off to Indian Territory to go be with actual moral people. Which is what I thought this unfinished novel was about. I thought it was going to be the adventures of Huck Finn amongst new friends, set in the timeline between then and Tom Sawyer Abroad/ Tom Sawyer Detective. I thought it was going to be whimsical, silly, spoofy adventures.

BOY HOWDY, WAS I WRONG.

Since this novel was never finished, I am not going to treat this as canon, and am just going to pretend the idea I had about Huck cutting capers with his new friends is the real version.

Also, and this is just a side note-- the post-Adventures of Huck Finn novels do a great disservice to the emotional weight of the end of Huck Finn, because the whole part where Jim tells Huck he has to do right by his family, learning that he and Tom Sawyer are morally incompatible, etc. are completely undone. The whole point of the end of the novel is Huck having to grow up because Tom Sawyer won't. The whole point is that he wants to keep having adventures with Jim, and Jim tells him he has to free his family--so why are they going on hot air balloon adventures?! We DON'T love retcons lol.

Anyway, it was borderline unreadable and I think I am going to need therapy after that one.