Re: RARA-AVIS: Public Acclain & "Masterpeices"/Chandler & Plots

From: Bob Toomey ( btoomey@javanet.com)
Date: 28 Apr 2000


Keith Alan Deutsch wrote:
>
> I agree with everything you said, except for "in like FINN." It is picaresque, but
> if doesn't have a good plot--I'm heading out for the territories.!

Picaresque the novel is, maybe the best ever written by an American, but plotted it is not. In fact, it's at its best drifting aimlessly down the river, and at its absolute worst in the end when Twain makes a stab at plotting by bringing an insufferable Tom Sawyer in from left field to resolve matters.

But don't take my word for it. Here's Twain's own NOTICE up front:

"PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. "

BobT

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