Puddnhead Wilson and Other Tales : Those Extraordinary Twins, the Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (Oxford World's Classics)

Rating:
Summary: Superb Puddn
Review: Twain was interested in twins and the problem of identity. His pen name "Twain" is an archaic word meaning two. In this enertaining novel he starts out to write about siamese twins who are opposites in taste and temperment, a humorous farce. As he gets on with the story other themes and characters develop and he decides to pull the twins apart, making them ordinary twins, and develop the story into a comedic tragedy. Twain leaves, for whatever reason, plenty of evidence in the story that the twins were siamese. The twins speak of themselves as an only child, are always together even in bed, and are exhibited in Europe for two years when they were children. One twin when explaining why he risked himself to save his brother from murder says "If I had let the man kill him, wouldn't he have killed me, too?. I saved my own life you see." The larger part of the story fixes on Puddnhead Wilson, a local unemployed lawyer, and focuses on the pattern of a folktale of switched infants: the slave child becoming master and the master's child a slave. Roxy, an almost pure white slave, switches her baby for her masters baby so that her boy will escape slavery. Early in the story Tom Driscoll learns that he is really Valet de Chambers a slave and not the son of the leading citizen York Driscoll. Twain uses this novel to slam the stupidity and evil of slavery as well as throw some light and mockery on other foolery of society. Wilson sorts things out due to his passion for finger printing over the years. Sayings from Puddnhead Wilson's calender preface every chapter and are highly enertaining. At the conclusion of this superb novel Puddnhead Wilson comes out on top, but he is about the only one. Possibly Twain's most honest book, a masterpiece!