Those Extraordinary Twins

By Mark Twain

Those Extraordinary Twins came about because they were original characters in Twains other novel Puddin’ Head Wilson, but seeing that they detracted from the novel, he deleted all scenes that held the twins, and this novel is their story that was taken from Puddin’ Head Wilson.

Luigi and Angelo Capello are conjoined twins that move into the house of a widow and her daughter. They share peculiarities, such as the fact that when Angelo drinks, only Luigi gets drunk, and when Luigi is sick, only Angelo is able to take the medicine to make him well. The twins also share this peculiarity: Only one of the twins can control the body for one week at a time. This strange and oddly entertaining story is the kind of satirical nonsense you expect from the sarcastic Twain. While not feeling like a true novel, and being more of a series of stories about the Twins. It’s strange. It’s funny. It’s plain confusing at times. It was enjoyable at times and boring at others. I don’t  think I’d recommend this one to just anybody, probably just literature lovers that are familiar with and enjoy Twain’s writing.

I give it a 3 out of 5

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

By Mark Twain

 The Great American novel about a boy and a runaway slave on the Mississippi river dodging the law, and meeting many charismatic people along their way.

 

This is one of those classics that if you didn’t read it in high school, it’s on your list of to-reads sometime in your life.  This was my second time around with this one and of course, since I’m older I got different things out of it.  When I started I couldn’t remember how it ended, which seemed strange to me, but when I got to that humdinger ending I could see how I blocked that out. With such a rich and morally stimulating book you get to the last part and you are thrown back into ridiculous and painful low comedy and you have to wonder if Twain just got sick of writing or if he did it on purpose. Anyway, this book is a wonderful read and I heartily believe that everyone (especially people from the U.S. ) should read this at least once. It is a classic for a reason.

 

I give it 4 out of 5