خود دوتا داستان یک طرف، توضیحاتی که مارک تواین درباره نوشتن و رابطه این دوتا داستان میداد یک طرف

Pudd'nhead Wilson tells the story of two babies, one white, one a slave, switched by the slave's mother. The story follows those boys as they grow up, and even includes a good old fashioned murder mystery. It is a fantastic read. My favorite parts of the book were the short calendar entries that begin each chapter, a few examples:

July 4 - Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.

The true Southern watermelon is a boon apart, and not to be mentioned with commoner things. It is chief of this world's luxuries, king by the grace of God over all the fruits of the earth. When one has tasted it, he knows what the angels eat. It was not a Southern watermelon that Eve took: we know it because she repented.

He is useless on top of the ground; he ought to be under it, inspiring the cabbages.

When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to a better world, I am moved to lead a different life.

Pudd'nhead Wilson is a brisk concoction; mixing adventure, mystery, and social commentary. Mark Twain trains his wit upon the arbitrary nature of 19th-century slave laws and rightfully skewers that wicked institution. But even as Twain's righteous humor often finds the mark, he nearly as often proves his naivete, as when he appears to condone another brutish custom; 'honorable' duels to the death.

Elsewhere, Twain cleverly explains the forensic power of fingerprints (before they were commonly used in criminal investigation) but also ascribes scientific power to the flimflammery of palmistry. Even the title feels odd; the nominal Mr. Wilson isn't the main character. He's an educated man who solves the mystery during the denouement, but he doesn't get that much page-time and doesn't drive the action. This novel would be more appropriately titled; Whiny Villain Tom Driskoll.

But this is still an entertaining read; there's no shortage of drama or action (though the numerous turns of fate often feel arbitrary.) And the courtroom climax makes for a smashing conclusion.

Edited 9/30/2020

surprisingly hilarious. Twain gets my humor I suppose cause I rotfl. also very deep, nice societal message and Wilson is an icon

“A home without a cat—and a well fed, well petted and properly revered cat—may be a perfect home perhaps, but how can it prove title?” ~Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson

It is ironic that this book was first banned by institutions that thought Twain was promoting southern racist tenets, and then later banned by those who realized he was lambasting those tenets in exaggerated parody. Such is the nature of exquisite satire. Twain was a beacon of sanity in an era of ignorance and inhumanity. If I believed in the existence of God I would thank him for gifting us this witty and insightful genius.

ويلسون المغفل
مارك توين

صمويل لانجهورن كليمنس الشهير باسمه المستعار "مارك توين"، ولد عام ١٨٣٥م، ينتمي إلى مدرسة الفكاهة الأمريكية، واجه مارك توين مصاعب كثيرة في حياته، منها: إفلاس دار نشر كان مشاركاً فيها، موت زوجته واثنتين من بُنياته، كان حس الفكاهة نابعاً لا من الفرح بالحياة بل من النظرة التشاؤمية والنزعة العدمية مما حوله إلى فكاهيٍ ساخر، وهذا الحس من الفكاهة يتجلى في المسحوقين تحت وطأة الحياة الثقيلة .

أما روايته ويلسون المغفّل أو مأساة ويلسون الأحمق كما في ترجمتها عن العنوان الأصلي (١٨٩٤م) ، فقد كتبها في إطار الدفاع عن حقوق العبيد في أمريكا كما يُقال، لكن مارك توين يؤكد في هذه الرواية على أن انحطاط الإنسان ورفعته يكون بسبب عرقه، لم يكن هنا مدافعاً عن الإنسان بشكل موضوعي بل كان يؤكد باستمرار انحطاط جنس العبيد وأن الغدر والخيانة والكذب موجودة في جيناتهم ولا يمكنهم التخلص منها، فهو يذهب إلى أن الأخلاق تورّث .
تميّزت الرواية بالحبكة والغموض والجو البوليسي مع التشويق .
توفي مارك توين عام ١٩١٠م . وهو علامة فارقة ومميزة في الأدب الأمريكي .

للاستزادة حول مارك توين، تفضل بالاطلاع على:
- موجز الأدب الأمريكي، طبعة وزارة الخارجية الأمريكية، ص ٤٨
- أدب الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية، ماركوس كنليف، ص ٢٧٥
- قاموس الآداب الأجنبية، ماهر شفيق فريد، ص ١٢٤٠

Mark Twain’İn böyle bir eserinin olduğunu bilmiyordum doğrusu, sahafta karşıma çıktığında konusundan ötürü aldım. Siyahi bir kölenin çocuğunu kurtarmak için efendisinin çocuğuyla değiştirmesiyle başlayan bir roman. Ana hikaye bu iki çocuk üzerinden gelişiyor. Enteresan olanı hem 19. yüzyılda romanda köleleri bu şekilde kurguya dahil eden bir kitap olması hem de parmak izleri ve her bir parmak izinin farklı olduğunun anlatılması. Bu kitabın yazıldığı dönemde suçluları yakalamak için parmak izlerini kullanmak uygulanmıyormuş o yüzden Twain’in parmak izi bilgisini polisiyeye uyarlaması oldukça zekice. Kendisi stand up tarzı konuşmaları da yaparmış ve Nikola Tesla’nın yakın dostuymuş. Emperyalizm karşıtlığı, kadınların oy haklarını savunması derken zamanının önünde bir yazar olduğu rahatlıkla söylenebilir. Kitapta siyahileri olaylara bu kadar dahil etmesi bile cesurca keşke sosyal mesaj verme amacı önde olsaymış ama yazıldığı dönem için yine de cesur kalıyor. Çok güzel başladı ama devam ettikçe beğenim de azaldı. Sonlarındaki mahkeme kısmını da beğendim. Büyük bir bekleniye girmeden okumak lazım yazarı sevenler bakabilir.

Before I go into my review, if you have a list of books to pick from for a class and this is on there, choose this book. It’s fairly easy to understand considering the fact that it’s a classic and I wish I could’ve read this in school as opposed to books like The Scarlet Letter and The Odyssey.

I am doing a challenge for myself this year that has prompts for what books I should read. One of those prompts was ‘a book written over 100 years ago’ and that’s why I read this book. I hate classics and although this one was easier to understand than others, I still didn’t like it much.

This book is essentially about a slave who switches her baby with her master’s baby. Her baby then gets to live the privileged life while her master’s baby becomes a slave. Later in life, the slave’s child learns about who his true mother is and a series of events happens after he learns about who he really is.

This book felt like a lot of backstory to characters without too much action. I did appreciate Wilson though because he felt sort of like the geeky guy who people don’t really like, but he’s actually really smart and has a nerdy hobby.

The ending of this book felt very unsatisfying to say the least. I really wanted to see more emotion at the end and more of the story being fleshed out as opposed to speeding through the end of the story.

Thirty years ago, or so, when asked the question, "If you could have dinner/chat with anyone, living or dead, who would you choose?" I typically answered Mark Twain. I have always been a fan of his writing, wit, and wisdom. It's been a while since I have read any Mark Twain, and this novel was a great reminder of why I would always answer Mark Twain to the above question, and still would.

Twain acknowledged that this is essentially a two-part novel - comedy (1st half) and tragedy/mystery/detective (2nd half). The comedy part reminded me of why I enjoy Mark Twain so much, but I was surprised at how well he wove in the tragedy/mystery/detective part. After having just read two Dickens novels, I enjoyed reading a novel that was written with no added fluff. Just the basics to understand the characters, plot, etc.

Read quite a few years back but never forgot it.

"There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and
the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1—to tell him
you have read one of his books; 2—to tell him you have read
all of his books; 3—to ask him to let you read the
manuscript of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his
respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries
you clear into his heart." —Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

"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."
-Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

Nothing like some good ol' Mark Twain quotes.


This story is very short for a Twain novel and also very somber. It has his classic wittiness in it, but it is as its original title suggest, a tragedy. Mark Twain at this point had become as leftist as he would be in his career. He was deeply anti-imperialist (which made him a harsh critic of Presidents McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt) and he was much more liberal on race than many in his day (despite serving in a Confederate militia for a few weeks, he would marry into an abolitionist family and would be outspoken in near-equal rights for African-Americans) and his experiences with Slavery in his youth (his father was a part-time slave trader) would haunt and guilt him for much of his life and present a sort of dual nature within him.

This book is set in Missouri (Mark Twain's home state) and makes great use of standard Twain motifs like the Steamboat, the Mississippi River, and smart-ass dialogue; it is extremely different in its seriousness and heart-breaking look at slavery. The institution is the real villain here because it implicitly and explicitly touches and destroys the lives of almost everyone involved in this story.

Also this book, I think, breaks barriers because the title character is a Scotsman and I can't think of any American title in which the big character is from the northern part of Great Britain. I also am very keen on how this novel reminds me of Leo Tolstoy's short stories and I don't know any other Mark Twain work-not even The Mysterious Stranger-to use so many tropes from the realist genre and it makes me wonder if Twain was aware of it since he is much strongly influenced by the more popular Victorian style that dominated the Anglo-sphere and is what he primarily worked out of.

In the end this novella, partly inspired by a Black woman who lived on as neighbor to one of his in-laws, is to me a more serious,somber look at slavery than "Huck Finn" and anyone who wanted a substitute to that book ought to take a look at this one.

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example."
-Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

"APRIL 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three hundred and sixty-four."
-Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

"October. This is one of the particularly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The others are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February."
-Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

P.S.: Each chapter begins with one or two sayings from Dave "Pudd'nhead" Wilson's Almanac/Calendar. They are all hilarious.

My reading experience moved from “wow! This is such a great critique of the invention of race” to “oh no this is pretty racist” very quickly.

Still, funny in places. Silly ol’ Twain, you maniac.