This Paperback Book item from Modern Library was reviewed on 1-Aug-2008.
Search ISBN:0812966228 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins (Modern Library Classics) Reference Book. Classifications : Twain, Mark Classics United States World Literature Literature & Fiction Subjects Books 19th Century United States World Literature Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Classics General Literature & Fi . Click the following link to view the cover of Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins (Modern Library Classics). Related topics: Twain, Mark. Classics. United States. World Literature. Subjects. Books. 19th Century. United States. World Literature. Subjects. requestid: a0eabc24-ce7f-470f-bf80-bdb1d74288da
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1) Paperback Book Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins (Modern Library Classics) by Modern Library. Given the brevity of this book, I feel a little absurd claiming it as my favorite work by Twain, but it is indeed my new favorite, even over Huckleberry Finn (which is really saying something).
The ideas concerning race are deeply involved and the question about how much of our "make up" is inherent and how much is indoctrinated is one that occurs over and over again.
Some claim this to be a racist text, but it seems to me that Twain is simply pointing out the absurdities of racism and slavery. Furthermore, his depiction of Roxy, a black slave mother with very white skin, is a serious one. This novel and its characters, while often times coming off as very humorous, deserve a serious perusal.
I could not put this one down and read it virtually cover to cover. Even the epigraphs that head every chapter are amazing.
Read this one! If you like Twain, you will love this. Guaranteed.
Also, I strongly recommend the Modern Library edition of this book, because, unlike some other editions, it includes "Those Extraordinary Twins." The latter work is the idea from which "Pudd´nhead Wilson" springs.¤ 2) Paperback Book Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins (Modern Library Classics) by Modern Library. Previous reviews referred to this Twain novel as "great," "superb," and a "masterpiece." Even conceeding there is no accounting for tastes, I truly have to wonder if I read the same book. The story development is based on child-like maturity and imagination. The pace is breathtakingly slow, especially for a Twain novel, and finally, both the slave talk jargon and the events left this reader not really wanting to continue reading.
It took me about 9 months to read this book, not because I´m that slow of a reader, but because I had to make myself read it. I´m going through a law and literature reading list and this was near the top of the list. I hope the rest are much better. Anyway, I´ll hit on a couple of examples (non-spoiler) that will illustrate my points above.
The title character is given his name due to an idiotic remark made one day in town. He is a lawyer who opens up his practice in the small Missouri town, but finds that due to his remark, he can´t find legal clients. So, he finds other work and indulges himself in his hobby, that of taking fingerprints. The remak he made in town is obviously stupid, but from a literary standpoint, the events unfold as if they were written by a 9 year old, with a 9 year old´s intelligence and imagination. Its sort of like listening to elementary aged kids joke around and then writing those jokes down as adult authored humor. It doesn´t work.
While others might see it as a plus, I find Twain´s thick accented slave character dialog increadibly hard to read and very disconcerting. It would be one thing if it were in bits and pieces, but in this case, there is at least one chapter where the majority of the dialog is in this jibberish. It could have been written another way that kept the spirit of the characters alive.
The ending was fairly swift and not terribly dramactic, at least to me. I can forgive Twain for both ignoring legal details and obviously writing a specific legal drama in an age a century or more before certain aspects of the justice system were even really well developed. However, putting all that aside, the final sequence was not well researched or thought out. Logical reasoning steps were skipped that even the novice legal observer could feel unfulfilled.
I don´t recommend the book unless you are reading it for a list like I am.¤ 3) Paperback Book Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins (Modern Library Classics) by Modern Library. I read Puddnhead Wilson in an English Class in college. It was the first book that I had the chance to read by Mark Twain and thought the characters in the story as humorous. I would highly recommend to anyone who hasn´t had the chance to read this book to give it a try and enjoy reading about the lives of Twain´s characters.¤ 4) Paperback Book Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins (Modern Library Classics) by Modern Library. Puddnhead Wilson is a very short book that can bear repeated reading. Not because it is a great literary work (it is) or because it is so important (which it is), but because in it Mark Twain exposes himself -- his nostalgia, his bitterness, his resignation, and his hope for his own life and for post-Civil War America with brutal frankness, and yet humorous approachability. The novel may be called "Puddnhead Wilson" but the most memorable character is a highly intelligent slave woman named Roxana. Through Roxana and the rest of the townspeople living in a pre-Civil War Missouri, we find some of Mark Twain´s most oft-quoted statements among biting characterizations of the American mentality. I cannot recommend this little book enough. It has its weaknesses (so many critical essays have been written about them that it´s unnecessary to discuss them here) but they are really minor and certainly do not detract from the sheer enjoyment and contemplation that it gives the reader. Not to mention that the apologetic forwards to both Puddnhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins are brilliant short letters from Twain on writing. I cannot speak about Those Extraordinary Twins because I´ve never been able to get into it, or read past the first chapter. It´s extremely odd, being about a circus freak -- siamese twins joined at the hip -- with each side having the complete opposite philosophy and constitution than the other. That is, one side drinks alcohol and doesn´t feel affected while the other side gets drunk; each side has different taste in clothing; etc.¤ 5) Paperback Book Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins (Modern Library Classics) by Modern Library. It seems like hardly anybody reads Mark Twain anymore, which is a shame, because he has so much to say about American society and human nature. "Pudd´nhead Wilson" is unquestionably one of his greatest books, maybe even his best. It´s at least the equal of "Huckleberry Finn," which I had the good fortune to read with a superb high school English teacher in 1975, a year before her department banned it from the school´s curriculum because of its supposedly racist portrayal of Jim. "Pudd´nhead Wilson" manages to be a social satire, a murder mystery, a compelling commentary on race and racism, a brief against slavery, a courtroom drama, and a lifelike portrait of a particular time and place in American history, all packed into a short novel of some 170 pages. The story moves along quickly, hilarious in places and appalling in others. It´s hard to understand why this easy-to-follow, entertaining and instructive novel isn´t more widely read and appreciated, especially given the importance of race as a topic for thought, discussion and historical inquiry in the United States. "Pudd´nhead Wilson" is set in a small Mississippi River town in the slave state of Missouri in 1830-1853. The critical event of the story occurs early on, when Roxy, a slave woman caring for two infant boys of exactly the same age, one her son and the other the son of one of the leading citizens of the town, secretly switches their identities. This deception is possible because her son is only 1/32 African-American and appears white (his father is in fact another leading citizen), yet by custom if not by law, the boy is a slave. The deception results in Roxy´s son growing up in privileged circumstances, treating blacks with contempt, having the other boy as his personal slave, and attending Yale; yet the son, despite having all the advantages, develops no moral grounding whatsoever, and spends much of his adult life stealing, drinking and gambling. At one point, aware of his true identity but desperately needing money, he sells his own mother "down the river," into a more southerly cotton-growing region where the overseers are said to be especially cruel. Twain gives us fewer details about the fate of the boy who in reality is all white, but we are made to understand that the boy´s upbringing is typical of male slaves: he grows up with violence and degradation, illiterate, and with few skills either for making a living or existing in white society. This proves to be a cruel fate when the deception is exposed. Though he eventually comes into a substantial inheritance, he is never comfortable with or accepted by the town´s respectable citizens, yet the prevailing racial code prohibits him from associating too closely with the blacks with whom he grew up. Pudd´nhead Wilson, a lawyer, exposes the deception during a murder trial. Wilson, the town oddball, is an amateur fingerprinter, and it turns out that he kept the fingerprints he took of the boys before their switch, and is able to prove both their true identities and the identity of the killer. Wilson is the only halfway honorable character in the book; most of the rest, black and white, are exposed as dishonest, selfish and corrupt. Mark Twain published "Pudd´nhead Wilson" in 1894, but its meaning still resonates today. A book that says so much about the ironies of appearance vs. reality, about the injustices of a rigid racial classification system, about the importance of values and upbringing rather than skin color in the formation of character, and about the realities of American slavery, deserves a more important place in our national literature.¤ 6) Paperback Book Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins (Modern Library Classics) by Modern Library. Featuring the brilliantly drawn Roxanna, a mulatto slave who suffers dire consequences after switching her infant son with her master’s baby, and the clever Pudd’nhead Wilson, an ostracized small-town lawyer, Twain’s darkly comic masterpiece is a provocative exploration of slavery and miscegenation. Leslie A. Fiedler described the novel as “half melodramatic detective story, half bleak tragedy,” noting that “morally, it is one of the most honest books in our literature.” Those Extraordinary Twins, the slapstick story that evolved into Pudd’nhead Wilson, provides a fascinating view of the author’s process.
The text for this Modern Library Paperback Classic was set from the 1894 first American edition.¤ Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 29-Aug-2008, 08129662289780812966220, 300-020-820-180-640-240-220-450-300-280-8 
Pudd'nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins (Modern Library Classics), Book, Image © Modern Library
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