Customer Reviews

Uncle Tom's Cabin (Dodo Press)

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People who don't like this book see it as racist and patronizing. And in today's time, they aren't far off. But what one needs to remember is the time and context that this book was written in. It was a bold book for its time.

Yes, I read some parts of this book with a tongue-in-cheek reaction. I almost snickered to myself as I read about Marie St Clare's comments about her slaves unable to love their own 'dirty' babies as much as she loved her dear little daughter. Some people today would take some of the passages as extremely condescending or patronizing, especially certain parts of the ending. But again, the time and context that this book was written in needs to be kept in mind. When you set your objections aside and read this book from a less critical angle, it's actually a pretty good read and deserves to be a classic.

After all, reading this book and understanding its mindset - and understanding your own views of that mindset - is a valuable way to understand and appreciate history and the lessons it teaches. I bought the Oxford Classics version of this book and that particular version is highly recommended.

Uncle Tom's Cabin was an incredibly long, dry read to get through. It may be written as a novel, but Stowe uses any and every opportunity to preach about the wrongs of slavery and how wonderful Christianity is. Her characters are one dimensional and shallow, and at times go into long (three or four page long) speeches which are just plain tedious.

six year old dear sweet Evangeline really got to me. If I had to read one more paragraph about 'Dear, sweet Eva' with the deep/blue/spiritual saint-like eyes, beautiful golden locks of hair, noble forehead, transparent skin, and how pretty and charming and christlike she was, I was going to throw the book out the window and never look at it again. Normally, the little girl wouldn't have bothered me, but Stowe lays it on thick- too thick- and 'Dear, sweet Eva' is a totally unrealistic six year old, though Stowe makes the point quite plainly that she is "Mature for her age."