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Chargement... Last Refuge of Scoundrels; A Revolutionary Novel (2000)par Paul Lussier
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Inscrivez-vous à LibraryThing pour découvrir si vous aimerez ce livre Actuellement, il n'y a pas de discussions au sujet de ce livre. 27 June 2001 Last Refuge of Scoundrels Paul Lussier This is a novel about the revolutionary war. It is loosely based on historical characters, and pretends to present the viewpoint of the populace and make fun of the pompous founding fathers. The protagonist is based on a southern rebel who eventually rode out in front of British gunners in South Carolina well after Yorktown, and in this book is an aide de camp to Washington. He is in love with a female spy for the colonies, who is also a colonel in disguise at bunker hill, and the link to the lower classes who, according to this book, really ran the war. Some scenes are hilarious, but others are mystical and the plot twists are unbelievable. aucune critique | ajouter une critique
Early critical acclaim from Pulitzer Prize-winning scholars and best-selling authors Studs Terkel, Jonathan Kozol, Robert Coles, Howard Zinn, John Ferling and Winston Groom: Last Refuge of Scoundrels is the bottom-up story of the American Revolution brought to life vividly, compellingly, suggestively. It's a story that gives America its past in a manner worthy of comparison to Tolstoy's effort to understand and render history and does so in a manner that's rich, rambunctious, exploding with vitality and bubbling with wild humor. A delightfully irreverent look at the Revolution, it tells the story of John Lawrence a naive young merchant's son who finds love and his life's purpose in Deborah Simpson, a spy working in collusion with George Washington to lead An unsung army of ordinary Americans against the self-interested Founding Fathers as much as the bumbling Brits. Last Refuge of Scoundrels weaves meticulous research and fantastical fable into a poetic tale that's at once a rollicking romp, a haunting love story and a revisionist historical epic. Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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Alas, this novel is neither historically accurate, informative, nor remotely entertaining. The main characters, John & Deborah, are unbelievable and unsympathetic. The plot is a disaster, so full of flashbacks, unnecessary complexity, and backfill (author to reader: "Oh, wait, I forget to mention ...") that it's almost incoherent at times. And themes/metaphors are inconsistent or laughably overused. (Honestly, if the author mentioned that danged turtle one more time ... possibly one of the most strained metaphors I've come across in my many, many years of reading!)
Worst of all, the author engages in so much hyperbole that any illusion of credibility (essential to good historical fiction) is rapidly dispelled. It simply isn't credible (much less entertaining) that ALL the founding fathers were uniformly venal, vain, and stupid; that ALL of the events of the revolution are wildly misunderstood; and that his heroine/whore ends up assuming a pivotal role in basically ALL of the major events of the revolution. This author appears so determined to prove that everything we know about the revolution is wrong, he's exaggerated his own thesis to the point of absurdity.
I get the author's premise: that the revolutionary war wasn't so much about revolting against England as revolting against the current social order. But it's one thing to make a point; another to do so convincingly. I do believe there's a good book to be written about this topic. Unfortunately, appears we'll have to wait until a less partisan historian - and more talented author - comes along. ( )