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Indlæser... The Rise of Silas Lapham (original 1885; udgave 2011)af William Dean Howells
Work InformationThe Rise of Silas Lapham af William Dean Howells (1885)
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Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. If the plot of this novel doesn't quite hold up to the passage of time, it is still fascinating as a social study. The two intertwined plots follow Silas Lapham's fortuitous rise to immense wealth and his fall due to a combination of naiveté and high principles. The secondary, less satisfactory plot, which more or less takes over the novel, follows a romance between Tom Corey, the son of an old Bostonian family and one of the Lapham daughters. Howells's reproduction of the speech modes that differentiated regions and especially classes is fascinating, but paradoxically lessened the interest of the book to me because so very much of it takes places in dialogue, and so much of the dialogue relies on innuendo and indirection that the movement of the plot is slowed enormously. Still, it is only because of the inhibiting strictures on social speech at the time that the romantic misunderstanding that anchors the love plot could happen. ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse
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Classic Literature.
Fiction.
HTML: William Dean Howells' 1885 novel, The Rise of Silas Lapham tells the story of its protagonist's materialistic aspirations; his rise from rags to riches. Despite making a fortune in business, Silas feels he lacks social position; he banks on the marriage of his daughter to an aristocratic family to change this. But Silas faces a moral quandary when his business partner suggests dodgy business dealings. .No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Indlæser... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.4Literature English (North America) American fiction Later 19th Century 1861-1900LC-klassificeringVurderingGennemsnit:
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The book starts out slowly with a magazine writer interviewing Silas Lapham about his rise to success. Silas has had the good fortune of having a “paint mine” on his farm in Vermont, from which he’s been able to produce paint of such high quality that it has made him a fortune. The interview gambit serves to introduce the main characters and set up some of the tension that will play out through the book. After that slow start the plots start boiling.
The nouveau riche Laphams have relocated to Boston, and, owing to their country ways, they’ve stayed to themselves and haven’t tried to climb the social ladder to Boston’s high society. That all changes when a young man from a well established family seems to take an interest in one of their two daughters, and then flatters Silas by asking to come to work for him.
What follows is a series of misunderstandings, both in business and in love, between the honest country bred Laphams and the Boston Brahmins they find themselves mixing with.
The book stands the test of time. The language is perhaps formal, but not too formal. The style is perhaps dated, but not too dated. The humor comes through clearly. I often had a smile on my face as I raced through the pages. There are things going on in this book that make it “important” enough that it is still taught in some classrooms. But it is very accessible and easy to read as entertainment.
Reading this today, in 2022, with its young lovers and its social climbing, the whole thing struck me as being kind of an American version of Bridgerton (the TV show - I’ve not read the book). Or perhaps Bridgerton, being the later creation, is a British version of Silas Lapham. I guess the comparison is inevitable for a male reader like me, as Howells is often seen as a “women’s writer”.
As is true today, the primary audience for fiction in the 1880s was women. Howells knew that, and that is likely why he's given a prominent role to Silas's wife Persis Lapham. She is both a moral guide in business to her husband (and an equal partner in the early years), and the one the family looks to for guidance through the thicket of etiquette and expectation in Boston society. She is a fully fledged, complex character with both strengths and flaws.
Howells was also known as a “realist”. As to his place in American writing, he is sometimes said to fall between Mark Twain and Henry James. He was friends with both. James said of him that “[h]e adores the real, the natural, the colloquial, the moderate, the optimistic, the domestic, and the democratic...” That sensibility is, I think, the main reason this book has held up so well.
It doesn’t feel right to me to put Star ratings on classics like this. I recommend this book. I found that I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. “Silas Lapham” sounds like such an old-fashioned name that it does the book it's attached to a disservice. The book holds up much better than that old-fashioned name.