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Bezig met laden... Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894)door Mark Twain
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Dos niños nacen el mismo día en la misma casa en una pequeña población del viejo Sur: Chambers, hijo de la esclava Roxy, y Tom, hijo del amo Driscoll. Los dos son en apariencia blancos y casi idénticos. Aterrada ante la perspectiva de ver a Chambers `vendido río abajo`, Roxy intercambia a los niños, convirtiendo al esclavo en amo y al amo en esclavo. The court case at the end saved this story. I found this book to be very predictable with no characters that I could really latch on to, whether for good or evil. Everyone seemed to be a supporting character with no one stepping up to be a star until Pudd'nhead takes on that final case. It is a short story (139 pages) and an easy read. Entertaining, but far from exceptional. Two babies are switched in their infancy. One is pure white blood and heir to an estate. The other is 1/16 black, and a slave, although he looks as white as any. The slave child's mother switches the infants, to guarantee that her own son is never "sold down the river" but will instead inherit an estate. The character of the two boys becomes clear as they grow older, and the imposter child (now educated and dignified) is clearly the one lacking in empathy and moral integrity. When that young man commits a heinous murder, it is up to "Pudd'nhead Wilson," a local eccentric who has always wanted to be a lawyer, to find the murderer. The upsetting aspect of this book was that Twain seems to be suggesting that Roxy (the 1/8 negro mother) and Tom (the 1/16 negro boy) were as awful as they were because of their black heritage. Far from being an indictment of the "one drop" rule - this story seems to encourage that idea. Roxy and Tom are the clear villains of the story, and they are both considered black, because they have trace degrees of "black blood" in them. The underlying theme of the book seemed racist to me, and therefore not something I would recommend. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
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At the beginning of "Pudd'nhead Wilson" a young slave woman, fearing for her infant's son's life, exchanges her light-skinned child with her master's. From this rather simple premise Mark Twain fashioned one of his most entertaining, funny, yet biting novels. On its surface, "Pudd'nhead Wilson" possesses all the elements of an engrossing nineteenth-century mystery: reversed identities, a horrible crime, an eccentric detective, a suspenseful courtroom drama, and a surprising, unusual solution. Yet it is not a mystery novel. Seething with the undercurrents of antebellum southern culture, the book is a savage indictment in which the real criminal is society, and racial prejudice and slavery are the crimes. Written in 1894, "Pudd'nhead Wilson" glistens with characteristic Twain humor, with suspense, and with pointed irony: a gem among the author's later works. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)813.4Literature English (North America) American fiction Later 19th Century 1861-1900LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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I didn't like this book as well as some of Twain's others. It felt unfinished. The title character didn't get much airtime. It's hard to judge how effective the denouement with the fingerprinting would have been to a contemporary reader. It may have been a clever revelation, since using fingerprinting as evidence was brand new at the time. But to a modern reader, the outcome of Pudd'nhead's hobby of taking fingerprints is obvious from the beginning.
This book feels dated, where most of Twain's other works have stood the test of time. But it's still Twain. ( )