Pagina principaleGruppiConversazioniAltroStatistiche
Cerca nel Sito
Questo sito utilizza i cookies per fornire i nostri servizi, per migliorare le prestazioni, per analisi, e (per gli utenti che accedono senza fare login) per la pubblicità. Usando LibraryThing confermi di aver letto e capito le nostre condizioni di servizio e la politica sulla privacy. Il tuo uso del sito e dei servizi è soggetto a tali politiche e condizioni.

Risultati da Google Ricerca Libri

Fai clic su di un'immagine per andare a Google Ricerca Libri.

Sto caricando le informazioni...

The Doings of Raffles Haw (1891)

di Arthur Conan Doyle

Altri autori: Vedi la sezione altri autori.

UtentiRecensioniPopolaritàMedia votiCitazioni
691381,277 (3.21)2
Classic Literature. Fantasy. Fiction. HTML:

Although Arthur Conan Doyle is best remembered as one of the originators of the mystery and detective genre, his prodigious imagination was not limited to the case histories of super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes. The Doings of Raffles Haw is a fantasy novel that explores the nebulous origins of the fortune of a mysterious millionaire, delving into the shadowy scientific process that Raffles Haws has used to amass his extravagant wealth.

.… (altro)
Aggiunto di recente daJonathan_Wilson, ChelseaWorden, purplefuzzy, RaggedyMe, CriticalHit, kamintra, cns1000
Biblioteche di personaggi celebriSir Arthur Conan Doyle
Nessuno
Sto caricando le informazioni...

Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro.

Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro.

» Vedi le 2 citazioni

Raffles Haw is a scientist (his name may have inspired that of A. J. Raffles, the gentleman thief created by E. W. Hornung, Doyle's brother-in-law) who has amassed a fortune and intends to use it to better the world. So of course I'm interested here, given my tracing of the scientist character in Victorian literature, but there's not much to interest me in Raffles. Most scientist characters have their epistemology realized in the form of vision: they see the world differently than non-scientists, not even metaphorically, but literally.

Raffles, however, does not see differently, and the root of this lies in the fact that he's a chemist: he says at one point, "Chemistry is to a large extent an empirical science, and the chance experiment may lead to greater results than could, with our present data, be derived from the closest study or the keenest reasoning" (94). Raffles does not see, he does.

It's also just dull. Basically the premise of the book is that Raffles shows off all the inventions he will use to change the world for, like, a hundred pages (he has, gasp, an electric elevator!), but then he's persuaded not to do it because helping people out of their problems destroys their self-reliance: a local villager has his roof blown off in a storm, and back in the day he could have fixed it himself, but since becoming accustomed to Raffles's assistance, all he is able to do is send off letters and wring his hands helplessly. So don't help poor people; the status quo is all: "he dimly saw that vast problems faced him in which he might make errors which all his money could not repair. The way of Providence was the straight way. Yet he, a half-blind creature, must needs push in and strive to alter and correct it. Would he be a benefactor? Might he not rather prove to be the greatest malefactor that the world had seen?" (130). Raffles's problem, then, turns out to be that he does not see, that he only experiments: but experimenting with society is much more dangerous than experimenting with chemicals.

I have my philosophical objections to this conclusion: how can the solution to making the world a better place possibly be leaving it as we found it? Especially given that the world's problems don't descend from Providence, they're problems that we made with the way we built society. But it also makes for a boring book. He does resolve that perhaps he can help out people in slums because their situation "was the result of artificial conditions, and it might well be healed by artificial means" (131). But then he hears that the love of his life is engaged to another man, and (spoiler alert) the shock kills him (even though it's all just a misunderstanding). The end. So it all turns out to have been pretty pointless.
  Stevil2001 | Dec 24, 2015 |
nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione

» Aggiungi altri autori (2 potenziali)

Nome dell'autoreRuoloTipo di autoreOpera?Stato
Arthur Conan Doyleautore primariotutte le edizionicalcolato
Bailly, LouisIllustratoreautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato
Campbell, James B.Embellishmentsautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato
McCall, Paul M.Illustratoreautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato
Shaw, John BennettPostfazioneautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato
Devi effettuare l'accesso per contribuire alle Informazioni generali.
Per maggiori spiegazioni, vedi la pagina di aiuto delle informazioni generali.
Titolo canonico
Titolo originale
Titoli alternativi
Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi. Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
Data della prima edizione
Personaggi
Luoghi significativi
Eventi significativi
Film correlati
Epigrafe
Dedica
Incipit
Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi. Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
"I'm afraid that he won't come," said Laura McIntyre, in a disconsolate voice.
Citazioni
Ultime parole
Dati dalle informazioni generali inglesi. Modifica per tradurlo nella tua lingua.
(Click per vedere. Attenzione: può contenere anticipazioni.)
Nota di disambiguazione
Redattore editoriale
Elogi
Lingua originale
DDC/MDS Canonico
LCC canonico

Risorse esterne che parlano di questo libro

Wikipedia in inglese

Nessuno

Classic Literature. Fantasy. Fiction. HTML:

Although Arthur Conan Doyle is best remembered as one of the originators of the mystery and detective genre, his prodigious imagination was not limited to the case histories of super-sleuth Sherlock Holmes. The Doings of Raffles Haw is a fantasy novel that explores the nebulous origins of the fortune of a mysterious millionaire, delving into the shadowy scientific process that Raffles Haws has used to amass his extravagant wealth.

.

Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche

Descrizione del libro
Riassunto haiku

Biblioteca di un personaggio famoso: Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle ha una Legacy Library. Legacy libraries sono le biblioteche personali di famosi lettori, aggiunte dai membri di LibraryThing che appartengono al gruppo Legacy Libraries.

Vedi il profilo legale di Arthur Conan Doyle.

Vedi la pagina dell'autore di Arthur Conan Doyle.

Link rapidi

Voto

Media: (3.21)
0.5
1 1
1.5
2
2.5
3 4
3.5
4
4.5 1
5 1

 

A proposito di | Contatto | LibraryThing.com | Privacy/Condizioni d'uso | Guida/FAQ | Blog | Negozio | APIs | TinyCat | Biblioteche di personaggi celebri | Recensori in anteprima | Informazioni generali | 203,227,573 libri! | Barra superiore: Sempre visibile