Whether you’re just relaxing for spring break or hunkering down away from hordes to avoid contracting the coronavirus, it’s a wonderful time to read a good book.
Earlier this month, I presented a lecture at the St. Helens Club in Chehalis about the written word, which is how I’ve earned a living most of my life. Our theme this year is masterpieces, and I’ve yet to write my masterpiece. However, I was honored recently to learn that “Washington Territory’s Grand Lady: The Story of Matilda (Glover) Koontz Jackson,” was a finalist for the Western Writers of America’s Spur Awards.
I wasn’t always a reader, although our mother found the local library whenever we moved to a new town. She also read to us from the Junior Classics. We especially liked the red book, volume 1, on “Fairy Tales and Fables.”
One year at school, each student was allowed to pick a free Scholastic book. I selected “Susan” because I thought the girl on the cover looked like me, although she had dark hair and mine was auburn. The book, originally titled “Wigwam in the City,” focused on a family that moved from an Indian reservation in Oklahoma to a city. It opened my eyes for the first time to discrimination.
But … I still didn’t like to read. In eighth grade, after moving to a new town in southeast Colorado, we were told to write a book report. I picked a book based on a television show, Room 222, because I knew the characters. I believe the statute of limitations has passed, so I can admit I read only the first and last chapters and wrote a report.
However, that year proved a turning point in my life. My eighth-grade English teacher, Mr. Willard R. Stevens, taught us to diagram sentences, which I found fascinating. He also served as advisor for the Las Animas Junior High newspaper, and I joined the staff. It’s amazing how much one good teacher can influence a life.
The following summer, we moved to Vancouver, Washington. Everyone was running around in shorts, but we were freezing. The humidity seeped into our bones. The first week of school, my little brother and I both stayed home, sick with strep throat.
Bored, I wandered the house, picked up a book, and started reading. This book changed me from a nonreader into a voracious reader. I never knew reading could be so fun, entertaining, and engaging.
It was a masterpiece, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” written by Samuel B. Clemens, better known as Mark Twain. Through the years, Huck Finn has been banned many times. It was first banned in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1885, a month after its publication, described by librarians as “trash and suitable only for the slums.” More recently, the bans have focused on the use of the “n-word,” which occurs more than 200 times.
Preparing for my St. Helens Club presentation, I reread the book, trying to figure out why it captured and intrigued me so much. It’s the voice. The narrator drew me into the story, and I traveled down the Mississippi River with Huck and Jim, floated beneath the stars, and scrambled into the bushes during the day to hide from searchers.
My fascination with “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” prompted me to read everything I could find. I kept a list, jotting down more than a hundred titles that first year. Among those books were “Johnny Tremaine” and “Young Mac of Fort Vancouver.” I even found a copy of “The Happy Hooker” under my parents’ bed and read it.
At the beginning of that year, standardized testing showed I was in ninth grade with an eighth-grade level of vocabulary and grammar and seventh-grade reading comprehension. A year later, those same tests showed I was 12th-grade-plus in both vocabulary and grammar, and 10th grade in reading comprehension. One year of reading jumped my vocabulary and grammar by four grade levels, my reading comprehension by three.
I don’t condone the use of the “n-word.” Period. That said, I believe this book does show how far we’ve come as a society. Sanitizing history can diminish or obscure the struggles and prejudices people endured. For example, when I published “Washington Territory’s Grand Lady,” about Matilda Koontz Jackson, an early pioneer, I added this note at the beginning:
“Readers today may find the word Indian objectionable when referring to Native Americans, but in a history about a nineteenth-century pioneer, using modern, inclusive terms would be distracting and historically inaccurate, suggesting a racial tolerance not practiced at the time.”
I think the same applies to “Huckleberry Finn.” I hate to think other potential readers would be robbed of the opportunity to have their lives changed as mine was. Despite the controversy, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” appears on most lists of masterpieces in literature, such as Goodreads and GreatestBooks.org.
Merriam-Webster defines “masterpiece” as “a work done with extraordinary skill, especially: a supreme intellectual or artistic achievement.”
The characteristics of a masterpiece are:
· Artistry. A sense of beauty.
· Suggestiveness. Emotions and imagination.
· Intellectual value. Realize fundamental truths about life.
· Permanence. Endures through the ages.
· Universality. Appeals to a great number of people.
· Style. The author’s unique way of expressing his or her thoughts.
· Spiritual value. Motivates and inspires.
It amazed me that some of the books I consider classics, such as “Gone with the Wind” and “Little Women,” don’t appear on lists of masterpieces. Neither do many books that won Pulitzer Prizes. But they’re still great reads.
Lists just go to show that many times a masterpiece is in the eye of the beholder.
Most of these books are available through Timberland Regional Library … if the library remains open during the coronavirus scare. I’d just wipe them off after picking them up. If nothing else, use the Libby App to order the ebook versions digitally, which will keep you safe from any germs.
Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at chaptersoflife1999@gmail.com.
