steven_nobody's review
5.0
Pudd'nhead Wilson is an underrated classic. Roxy is super fierce in a way that reminds me of Kunti from the Mahabharata. Another thought that occurs to me is how Wilson is super clever; his mind works like no other in the village. I think he's autistic.
I don't recommend The Extraordinary Twins. It was nice of Twain to include this material but it should have been left in a file drawer. Fortunately, it can be skipped.
I don't recommend The Extraordinary Twins. It was nice of Twain to include this material but it should have been left in a file drawer. Fortunately, it can be skipped.
rachelmatsuoka's review against another edition
2.0
What Mark Twain was trying to depict about the one-drop rule in the antebellum South was more interesting than the story he ended up writing. The critical essays were better than the actual work of literature here.
bickleyhouse's review against another edition
4.0
I read this at the recommendation of one of our youth librarians. I wouldn't have selected a "critical edition," but it was the only copy our library has, so that's the one I read. Apparently, the story of Pudd'nhead Wilson is difficult enough to find in print, and even more so with the added edition of Those Extraordinary Twins.
Both tales were originally meant to be one, and it was originally mostly about the Siamese (I believe we call them "conjoined" now?) twins, Luigi and Angelo Cappello. But the bit about David "Pudd'nhead" Wilson grew to the point that Twain extracted it and made it it's own story. And, in the extraction, seems to have made the twins separate people.
In this volume, Pudd'nhead is first, followed by Those Extraordinary Twins.
Pudd'nhead Wilson is an entertaining story. It seems to be considered a "tragedy" by most folks, and I might agree with that, although it has its hilarious moments. It is a little odd, in that Wilson seems to be far from the major character in the story. And, judging from the critical essays following the two stories, there is no great agreement on who is the main character. In my opinion, it seems to be Roxy, the slave of one Percy Driscoll. In the spirit of the local culture (the story is set in Dawson's Landing, "on the Missouri side of the Mississippi"), Roxy appears to be white, but is one-sixteenth Negro, which is enough to make her not white. "To all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one-sixteenth of her which was black out-voted the other fifteen parts and made her a negro."
Roxy's role in the household is, essentially, as nanny to the child of Percy Driscoll, one Thomas a Becket Driscoll. She also had her one child, named Valet de Chambre, who had "no surname - slaves hadn't the privilege." The main plot of this story (again, my opinion, as there are several plots) involves Roxy's switching of the two babies, in fear of her own child being "sold down the river." The thought occurred to her after Mr. Wilson opined that, without clothing on, the two babies could not be told apart.
At some point, the twins (again, seemingly not conjoined in this version) come on the scene and have their own piece of the plot.
It is, indeed, a tragic tale, but told with a serious amount of comedy, as well. Part of the comedic element involves chapter headings, allegedly taken from Wilson's calendar, which was a project he was working on. For example, the heading of chapter 2 reads, "Adam was but human - this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he only wanted it because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then, he would have eaten the serpent." Chapter 16 sports one that says, "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." And, at the head of chapter 21, "April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four."
The stories are entertaining, Pudd'nhead probably more so than the Extraordinary Twins, as Twins has a rather odd ending. However, the telling of the duel between Judge Driscoll and one of the twins (and, since they remain conjoined in the second story, both twins were involved in the duel, albeit one unwillingly) is most hilarious.
I basically skimmed through all of the reviews and critical essays. Some of them captured my interest more than others. Several opined that Pudd'nhead Wilson was, in fact, Mark Twain, himself. I found it amusing that almost every critical essay quoted one or more of the other reviews or critical essays. At least one of the essays seemed to be more about the other essays than the subject story. There did seem to be a general agreement that Dawson's Landing was none other than Hannibal, Missouri, Twain's childhood home.
As previously stated, there are differing opinions on who is or are the main character(s), and, more pointedly, who the villain is in the story. It is my opinion that the villain is none other than Roxy the slave, who deceptively and greedily (not without good reason, nonetheless) switches the identities of her baby and the Driscoll baby. "Tom" (actually her baby) grows up with white privilege, but becomes a very nasty person and has great disdain for Roxy (of course, he does not know that Roxy is his real mother until later in the story), as well as a nasty gambling problem which winds up getting him disinherited more than once.
It is easy to see Tom as villain, but he is truly the victim of circumstances. At the end of the story, after all is said and done, it is Tom/Chambers who gets punished, but I still feel that Roxy is the villain. Some of the critical essays agree with my opinion.
Both tales were originally meant to be one, and it was originally mostly about the Siamese (I believe we call them "conjoined" now?) twins, Luigi and Angelo Cappello. But the bit about David "Pudd'nhead" Wilson grew to the point that Twain extracted it and made it it's own story. And, in the extraction, seems to have made the twins separate people.
In this volume, Pudd'nhead is first, followed by Those Extraordinary Twins.
Pudd'nhead Wilson is an entertaining story. It seems to be considered a "tragedy" by most folks, and I might agree with that, although it has its hilarious moments. It is a little odd, in that Wilson seems to be far from the major character in the story. And, judging from the critical essays following the two stories, there is no great agreement on who is the main character. In my opinion, it seems to be Roxy, the slave of one Percy Driscoll. In the spirit of the local culture (the story is set in Dawson's Landing, "on the Missouri side of the Mississippi"), Roxy appears to be white, but is one-sixteenth Negro, which is enough to make her not white. "To all intents and purposes Roxy was as white as anybody, but the one-sixteenth of her which was black out-voted the other fifteen parts and made her a negro."
Roxy's role in the household is, essentially, as nanny to the child of Percy Driscoll, one Thomas a Becket Driscoll. She also had her one child, named Valet de Chambre, who had "no surname - slaves hadn't the privilege." The main plot of this story (again, my opinion, as there are several plots) involves Roxy's switching of the two babies, in fear of her own child being "sold down the river." The thought occurred to her after Mr. Wilson opined that, without clothing on, the two babies could not be told apart.
At some point, the twins (again, seemingly not conjoined in this version) come on the scene and have their own piece of the plot.
It is, indeed, a tragic tale, but told with a serious amount of comedy, as well. Part of the comedic element involves chapter headings, allegedly taken from Wilson's calendar, which was a project he was working on. For example, the heading of chapter 2 reads, "Adam was but human - this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he only wanted it because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then, he would have eaten the serpent." Chapter 16 sports one that says, "If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man." And, at the head of chapter 21, "April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four."
The stories are entertaining, Pudd'nhead probably more so than the Extraordinary Twins, as Twins has a rather odd ending. However, the telling of the duel between Judge Driscoll and one of the twins (and, since they remain conjoined in the second story, both twins were involved in the duel, albeit one unwillingly) is most hilarious.
I basically skimmed through all of the reviews and critical essays. Some of them captured my interest more than others. Several opined that Pudd'nhead Wilson was, in fact, Mark Twain, himself. I found it amusing that almost every critical essay quoted one or more of the other reviews or critical essays. At least one of the essays seemed to be more about the other essays than the subject story. There did seem to be a general agreement that Dawson's Landing was none other than Hannibal, Missouri, Twain's childhood home.
As previously stated, there are differing opinions on who is or are the main character(s), and, more pointedly, who the villain is in the story. It is my opinion that the villain is none other than Roxy the slave, who deceptively and greedily (not without good reason, nonetheless) switches the identities of her baby and the Driscoll baby. "Tom" (actually her baby) grows up with white privilege, but becomes a very nasty person and has great disdain for Roxy (of course, he does not know that Roxy is his real mother until later in the story), as well as a nasty gambling problem which winds up getting him disinherited more than once.
It is easy to see Tom as villain, but he is truly the victim of circumstances. At the end of the story, after all is said and done, it is Tom/Chambers who gets punished, but I still feel that Roxy is the villain. Some of the critical essays agree with my opinion.
criticalgayze's review against another edition
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Well y'all, I had to do this to an independent author, but it's time for me to absolutely tear this "Mark Twain" to shreds.
Just kidding, but I really do want to leave a slightly more thorough review than I normally do for classics, because this is one I know wasn't on my radar before I read this for school this summer.
Mark Twain is funny. I think, whatever other baggage may come with a discussion of Twain, that as a fact is hard to rebut. I did laugh a good bit while reading this one. This one also had a compulsive quality about it that reminded me a lot of Dickens, which made sense after some research since Pudd'nhead was also written in the serialized format of A Tale of Two Cities. While never really quite pinning down his exact thoughts, I also found some of the characterizations and the subversion of expectations to be really interesting here, especially the way Roxy seems to worm her way out of all trouble by people's underestimation of her.
Now for my qualms: First, I don't think that this one shows Twain's normal adeptness at capturing dialect. Beyond some overly offensive "local color" language for the Black characters, I found Twain's normal adept at writing language to be missing. As alluded to earlier, I also felt that some of the reasonings and purposes and outcomes are a little muddled. Twain's thoughts on race seem nuanced for most of the book, but the one dark-skinned Black character we have significant exposure to is painted as lazy and overly ignorant. Twain also doesn't clue us in to whether or not his story is supposed to be a commentary on nature or nurture when it comes to the reason Tom and Valet end up growing up the way they do, and this leads to a troubling feeling as to the racial politics of the text.
All in all, I think you're getting exactly what you want from a Twain here: the things that make him "America's greatest writer" but also the things that cause him to chafe up against our present moment.
Just kidding, but I really do want to leave a slightly more thorough review than I normally do for classics, because this is one I know wasn't on my radar before I read this for school this summer.
Mark Twain is funny. I think, whatever other baggage may come with a discussion of Twain, that as a fact is hard to rebut. I did laugh a good bit while reading this one. This one also had a compulsive quality about it that reminded me a lot of Dickens, which made sense after some research since Pudd'nhead was also written in the serialized format of A Tale of Two Cities. While never really quite pinning down his exact thoughts, I also found some of the characterizations and the subversion of expectations to be really interesting here, especially the way Roxy seems to worm her way out of all trouble by people's underestimation of her.
Now for my qualms: First, I don't think that this one shows Twain's normal adeptness at capturing dialect. Beyond some overly offensive "local color" language for the Black characters, I found Twain's normal adept at writing language to be missing. As alluded to earlier, I also felt that some of the reasonings and purposes and outcomes are a little muddled. Twain's thoughts on race seem nuanced for most of the book, but the one dark-skinned Black character we have significant exposure to is painted as lazy and overly ignorant. Twain also doesn't clue us in to whether or not his story is supposed to be a commentary on nature or nurture when it comes to the reason Tom and Valet end up growing up the way they do, and this leads to a troubling feeling as to the racial politics of the text.
All in all, I think you're getting exactly what you want from a Twain here: the things that make him "America's greatest writer" but also the things that cause him to chafe up against our present moment.
raegiff's review against another edition
5.0
Twain is always and forever one of my favorite authors. His use of irony to showcase the horrors and absurdity of American thinking in the 1850's is amazing.
softcover_sarah's review against another edition
3.0
Twain's trademark humor finds a comfy home with the character of Pudd'nhead, but the issues of slavery, identity, race, and privilege stand in contrast to such. This book poses interesting questions for the reader to consider, including the tension between nature (how we are born) and nurture (how society/privilege/environment shapes us) and how the stark lines we place between racial difference are more feeble than we believe.
auntie_social's review against another edition
4.0
Typically, you only get Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer as a student, but this book gave me all the reason I need to respect Twain. There are certainly some technical flaws in the writing, but the story is engaging and full of social commentary veiled to various extents. Where else would cross dressing be a metaphor for the fallacy of racial essentialism? As misanthropic as Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but more focused on the immediate issue of slavery and reconstruction.
caitlinyhodges's review against another edition
4.0
This is the first book I have finished this year! FINALLY, I had time for some (school) reading. That is the joy of being an english major.
I flew through this book, and I loved how Twain poked fun at ridiculous laws/ traditions.
I flew through this book, and I loved how Twain poked fun at ridiculous laws/ traditions.