The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

Twain's 1894 novel of two nearly identical brothers raised on opposite sides of the race line (one as white, one as black) isn't nearly as strong as his more famous works. The author's political ambitions--critiquing American attitudes on race and class--are too nakedly displayed, and the plot creaks like an old melodrama. But it's still Mark Twain, and that means more wit than half a dozen other authors, delivered in shrewd, folksy language. And it's possible that Michael Prichard's delivery works better than reading it on the printed page. Prichard shifts dialect to match Twain's acute ear for regional differences, and he brings a widely diverse cast of characters vividly to life. G.T.B. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

November 15, 2003
This novel's central character is not the eponymous Pudd'nhead but Roxy, a mostly white slave in 1830s Missouri who is so desperate to rescue her baby son from slavery that she switches him with the baby of her widowed master. She then watches her natural son become a spoiled and heartless slaveowner and eventually a criminal. The climax comes in a spectacular murder trial in which lawyer Pudd'nhead exposes Roxy's terrible secret. This is not Twain's best work but is worth listening to because it is his most direct attack on slavery and ideas about "race." Moreover, in Roxy he drew his strongest female character; it is also one of the first books to use fingerprints as a plot device. Michael Prichard's narration is competent, but the material calls for a reading with greater passion.-Kent Rasmussen, Thousand Oaks, CA

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