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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- Narrated by: Nick Offerman
- Length: 7 hrs and 52 mins
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The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
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Publisher's Summary
"Being paid to perform such a gratifying activity as reading Mark Twain aloud felt powerfully akin to Tom Sawyer hoodwinking other boys into paying him for the privilege of whitewashing a fence. Let's keep that between us." (Narrator Nick Offerman)
With The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, not even Twain could have known that when he introduced readers to the inhabitants of the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri, he would also be introducing two characters - one a clever and mischievous scamp, and the other a carefree, innocent ragamuffin - whose stories would ultimately shape the course of American literature. But whereas its sequel and companion piece, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, would harken an end to childhood, the story of Tom Sawyer is one that depicts the excitement and adventure of boyhood along the Mississippi.
Revisit this enduring classic and you will be struck not only by Twain's skill at capturing a time and place so vividly but also by his uncanny ability to crystallize those oftentimes tumultuous and conflicting emotions that a child experiences at the precipice of adulthood: a longing to be free from the rules and obligations of adults while enjoying the laxity inherent in childhood; a love of all things macabre, like blood oaths, cemetery cures, and haunted houses, that reveal a true innocence - an unawareness of real-life consequences and one's own mortality; and the pangs of guilt when knowing the right thing to do and doing the right thing appear to be at odds.
A natural storyteller and raconteur in his own right - just listen to Paddle Your Own Canoe and Gumption - actor, comedian, carpenter, and all-around manly man Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) brings his distinctive baritone and a fine-tuned comic versatility to Twain's writing. In a knockout performance, he doesn't so much as read Twain's words as he does rejoice in them, delighting in the hijinks of Tom - whom he lovingly refers to as a "great scam artist" and "true American hero" - while deftly delivering the tenderness and care Twain gave to his own characters.
Critic Reviews
"Offerman's Illinois-raised voice and actor's talent suit him ideally to channel Mark Twain and his archetypal American Puck (that "P" isn't a typo), who played pirates with an archetypal American Huck, conned his pals into whitewashing the fence, fell in love with Becky Thatcher and showed up alive at his own funeral." (The New York Times)
"Nick Offerman reading Tom Sawyer is just as charming as you’d hope." (The Verge)
"There’s something about his wry Midwestern merriment that aspires to Twainishness." (Men’s Journal)
What listeners say about The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Vishnu Virgamia
- 27-09-23
LEGENDARY!
Amazing Story, one of the best and perfectly portrayed the life of Kids! Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are some of the best characters I have the pleasure to know about.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Tushar
- 27-02-19
A Childhood Favorite Worth Revisiting
I'll be honest... I'm a little biased toward this book. Tom Sawyer was one of the first novels I read, (though I now suspect I had a heavily abridged version), and it has been one of my favorite books ever since.
Like Mark Twain says in the foreword, much of these adventures are based on his own boyhood experiences with his friends. The story itself is deceptively pedestrian. Given it was written in a different century on a different continent, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it must be unrelatable today.
You'd be wrong.
You see, the book focuses on the absolute joy of being a kid. It's a children's book first and foremost, but Twain intended for it to appeal to adults too and remind them of the way they once used to think. You can't help but grin ear to ear as you read him recount the tense negotiation of a live bug for a broken tooth. You'll know what the stakes are for a kid, even if you've never been involved in such a transaction in your life.
I'm not gonna lie, it's not perfect. The adventures are disjointed. There are pacing issues and the humor is definitely uneven. But like I said: it's a childhood favorite and I'm more than willing to overlook these flaws for nostalgia's sake.
Now for my second bias: I'm a huge fan of Nick Offerman. Most people who've seen *Parks and Recreation* are. Casting him for this book was a stroke of genius. His quintessentially American baritone is perfectly suited to narrate a quintessentially American story. (A nice break from the typical British narrators, I must say.)
Offerman, though primarily a comedy actor, has great range. So I was expecting him to show off. Instead, he goes for a restrained, almost deadpan delivery. You need to listen to believe, but this makes the material unexpectedly funnier. (It's also worth mentioning that his scary voice for Injun Joe is genuinely chilling.) It's definitely one of the greatest audiobook performances I've ever listened to.
TL;DR - It's an enduring children's classic, so a discussion about the merits of the story is moot. All you need to know is that it holds up well even today and Nick Offerman, one of the most inspired casting choices I've ever seen, gives a superlative performance.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Lavi
- 09-05-22
timeless classics
narrator really made this book very interesting, he just didn't read but enacted the characters, how they would actually conversed, good and entertaining.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Soumi Dutta
- 25-07-20
A classic needs better performance
I am not happy with the performance. Now and again it becomes dull and monotonous.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Vishwank J.
- 08-03-24
Not much of an adventure and definitely not the Harry Potter thing.
I found it a bit slow and couldn’t find any adventure. Or excitement. Maybe for kids but nothing much of what i had thought it to be.
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