Tour à tour typographe, pilote sur le Mississippi, chercheur d'or, journaliste et conférencier, l'écrivain Mark Twain (1835-1910), également inventeur, était fasciné par les nouvelles techniques. Il s'essaie ici au périlleux apprentissage de la bicyclette, découvre les propriétés explosives des paratonnerres et lutte avec une machine à écrire dont les défauts semblent l'emporter sur les qualités. Curieux et maladroit, incorrigible et tenace, l'auteur d'Huckleberry Finn livre ici, avec l'humour qui l'a rendu célèbre, un aperçu réjouissant des affres d'un pionnier face aux grandes inventions de son temps.

Dompter la bicyclette et autres déboires

Lakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants, and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West. It had church accommodations for thirty-five thousand, which is the way of the Far West and the South, where everybody is religious, and where each of the Protestant sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was unknown in Lakeside-unconfessed, anyway; everybody knew everybody and his dog, and a sociable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere.

Saladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal store, and the only high-salaried man of his profession in Lakeside. He was thirty-five years old, now; he had served that store for fourteen years; he had begun in his marriage-week at four hundred dollars a year, and had climbed steadily up, a hundred dollars a year, for four years; from that time forth his wage had remained eight hundred-a handsome figure indeed, and everybody conceded that he was worth it.

The $30,000 Bequest

Les Aventures de Tom Sawyer (titre original: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer) est le premier romanN 1 de Mark Twain, publie en 1876, d'abord en Angleterre en juin puis aux Etats-Unis en decembre. Mark Twain y raconte les peripeties d'un garcon du sud des Etats-Unis, Tom Sawyer, avant la guerre civile, dans la ville fictive de Saint Petersburg (Missouri) aux abords du Mississippi. Pour une part autobiographique, lieux, personnages et aventures sont inspires de la vie de l'auteur, de sa famille et de ses camarades d'enfance. Ce roman est le plus celebre de Twain, et il est egalement son plus grand succes de librairie, de son vivant et jusqu'a aujourd'hui. Considere comme un classique de la litterature de jeunesse, il serait plus exact, en suivant le jugement de l'auteur, de le qualifier de roman pour enfants pour adultes N 2, N 3. Ce roman, avec d'autres de ses oeuvres a caractere humoristique, a contribue a releguer l'auteur dans des genres litteraires juges mineurs et a negliger ses qualites et ses innovations litteraires. C'est seulement plusieurs decennies apres sa mort que Twain a commence a etre lu comme un ecrivain americain majeur, et meme comme l'un des fondateurs de la litterature americaine.

Les Aventures de Tom Sawyer

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer revolves around the youthful adventures of the novel's schoolboy protagonist, Thomas Sawyer, whose reputation precedes him for causing mischief and strife. Tom lives with his Aunt Polly, half-brother Sid, and cousin Mary in the quaint town of St. Petersburg, just off the shore of the Mississippi River. St. Petersburg is described as a typical small-town atmosphere where the Christian faith is predominant, the social network is close-knit, and familiarity resides.  Unlike his brother Sid, Tom receives "lickings" from his Aunt Polly; ever the mischief-maker, would rather play hooky than attend school and often sneaks out his bedroom window at night to adventure with his friend, Huckleberry Finn ­ the town's social outcast. Tom, despite his dread of schooling, is extremely clever and would normally get away with his pranks if Sid were not such a "tattle-tale."  As punishment for skipping school to go swimming, Aunt Polly assigns Tom the chore of whitewashing the fence surrounding the house. In a brilliant scheme, Tom is able to con the neighborhood boys into completing the chore for him, managing to convince them of the joys of whitewashing. At school, Tom is equally as flamboyant, and attracts attention by chasing other boys, yelling, and running around. With his usual antics, Tom attempts to catch the eye of Becky Thatcher, a new girl in town, and persuades her to get "engaged" by kissing him. But their romance collapses when she learns Tom has been "engaged" previously to Amy Lawrence. Shortly after Becky shuns him, he accompanies Huckleberry Finn to the graveyard at night, where they witness the murder of Dr. Robinson.Excerpt:"TOM!" No answer. "TOM!" No answer. "What's gone with that boy,  I wonder? You TOM!" No answer. The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or never looked through them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service—she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but still loud enough for the furniture to hear: "Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll—" She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat. "I never did see the beat of that boy!"

Amérique, vers 1840. Le jeune Tom Sawyer n'a qu'une idée en tête : faire l'école buissonnière et partir en quête d'un trésor caché. Avec son fidèle compagnon Huckleberry Finn, ils sont tour à tour pirates, aventuriers, cow-boys. La découverte d'un crime nocturne met leur courage et leur raison à l'épreuve.

Les aventures de Tom Sawyer - Cycle 3

" Il n'y a rien de plus bas dans la race humaine que les Français ". Mark Twain haïssait la France avec passion, si l'on en croit ce mot péremptoire. Entre ironie et provocation, sarcasme et mauvaise foi, l'humoriste américain attaque allègrement la morale, l'histoire et la politique françaises qu'il juge en touriste, en puritain et en écrivain. Dans ce recueil de textes qui mêle un essai comparatif entre Français et Comanches, le récit d'un voyage dans la nation de Napoléon III en 1867, un faux reportage sur un grand duel de Gambetta sous la Troisième République, un conte saugrenu autour du peintre Millet, des notes piquantes sur Paris et les Parisiens, ou la relation d'une cure thermale à Aix-les-Bains, on goûtera la verve, l'invention et parfois la cruauté dont sait faire preuve Mark Twain dans ce portrait de la France et de ses drôles d'autochtones à la fin du XIXe siècle.

Damnés Français !

Roughing It is a book of semi-autobiographical travel literature by Mark Twain.

It was written in 1870-71 and published in 1872, as a prequel to his first travel book The Innocents Abroad (1869).

The book follows the travels of young Mark Twain through the Wild West during the years 1861-1867.

(from wikipedia.org)

Roughing it

Tom n'aime rien tant que l'ecole buissonniere, les expeditions avec ce voyou de Huck, la vie de pirates sur une ile du Mississippi, sans oublier la petite Becky. Mais sa tante Polly ne voit pas cela d'un tres bon il ! Et si elle savait que Tom et Huck, caches dans un cimetiere pendant une terrible nuit, ont vu tuer un homme."

Il giovane Huck, pur avendo un tesoro in banca, rimpiange la vita libera di untempo. Così ritorna a vivere nella sua botte fin quando il padre ubriacone che loaveva abbandonato, riesce a ottenere custodia e denaro. Huck però, insieme alloschiavo Jim, fugge con una zattera scendendo lungo il Mississippi.

Dompter la bicyclette et autres déboires

Résumé

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