Monday, March 28, 2011

The Mysterious Stranger

by Mark Twain

This story is about three boys in a small village who stumble upon a stranger in the woods one evening. This, the mysterious stranger, turns out to be an angel and when questioned what his name was, he replied that his name was Satan. Following this encounter the boys' life are changed and so too the whole village as the stranger stays in the town and meddles with the affairs of the villagers. He does this to highlight the Moral Sense of humanity and how trivial the sense of right and wrong and how hypocritical the human race really is.
A full synopsis of the story can be found here on wikipedia.

It really is an amazing story and surprising how relatable this story is even though it was written about 100 years ago. It is the sort of story I hope to write in terms of the theme and plot. It also shows me that books do not really need to be scenic and full of descriptive prose to fully-colour the world. Twain here has very efficiently created his world in broad strokes and allow the reader to fill their own worlds with their own details, I would analogize this to a minimalist artist but still not cause a wanting of more description.

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