A review by criticalgayze
Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins by Mark Twain
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.