The Devil and Tom Walker (Audible Audio Edition) Washington Irving John Michaels Spoken Realms Books
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The Devil and Tom Walker is a classic short story by Washington Irving. When you make a deal with the devil you have to shake his hand. At the time Tom made his deal, it seemed like a good idea, but as Tom aged and death approached, he became very pious and even carried two Bibles with him. But a deal is a deal as Tom would discover.
The Devil and Tom Walker (Audible Audio Edition) Washington Irving John Michaels Spoken Realms Books
Appreciated the noncreepy voiceProduct details
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The Devil and Tom Walker (Audible Audio Edition) Washington Irving John Michaels Spoken Realms Books Reviews
Fun older book. I bought it so I could use it as a source for a English Literature course I took. It amused me in the story that 5% interest was consider fiendishly high un-Christian interest to charge on a loan.
Read at the suggestion of my son, who is a high school junior in hate with his English class. This work is the only thing he has appreciated this school year. And I can see why! Very humorous!
This book has an ISBN but search results show it belongs to a Huck Finn edition. The paperback cover of the edition I have shows that it is a 2 for $1 special at a well-known retailer based in Arkansas. Contents include
Rip Van Winkle; The Author's Account of Himself; The Specter Bridegroom; The Wife; The Voyage; The Devil and Tom Walker; The Adventure of the Mason; The Governor and the Notary; The Grand Prairie -- A Buffalo Hunt; Rural Life in England; The Art of Bookmaking; The Widow and Her Son; The Mutability of Literature; Rural Funerals; Westminster Abbey; Stratford on Avon; Traits of Indian Character; English and French Character; The Tuileries and Windsor Castle; The Guests From Gibbet Island; and The Legend of Don Munio Sancha de Hinojosa.
Washington Irving is perhaps the most under-rated of the early American authors. His talent was appreciated more in Europe, where he lived much of his life, than in America.
Tom Walker is married to an absolute nightmare of a woman (he's no saint himself). They're both stingy as can be, sharing nothing with one another, and have the sort of physically and verbally violent rows that frighten the fauna out of the nearby flora.
One evening, Tom is walking in the local wooded morass, when he comes upon an unusual person. At first he thinks the person is a Negro, but then he realises it looks like someone who works in ashes and soot all the time.
Upon asking the person's name, he is told
"Oh, I go by various names. I am the wild huntsman in some countries; the black miner in others. In this neighborhood I am known by the name of the black woodsman. I am he to whom the red men consecrated this spot, and in honor of whom they now and then roasted a white man, by way of sweet-smelling sacrifice. Since the red men have been exterminated by you white savages, I amuse myself by presiding at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists; I am the great patron and prompter of slave-dealers and the grand-master of the Salem witches."
"The upshot of all which is, that, if I mistake not," said Tom, sturdily, "you are he commonly called Old Scratch."
"The same, at your service!" replied the black man, with a half-civil nod.
The narrator stops to say that if Tom seems to be taking meeting the Devil a bit better than you'd expect, it's because, after living with *his* wife, the Devil isn't all that frightening. Burn!
An offer is made for the whereabouts of a local treasure, in exchange for the usual in these situations as well as something that isn't specified. Tom needs to think on it and returns home where he actually shares this information with his harridan of a wife. She's all for it (what has she got to lose, right?) but he's unsure, so she marches off to cut her own deal.
After this point, Tom wishes to pursue a friendship of sorts with good old Satan, feeling he has done him a great kindness, and tries to find him, who plays hard to get like someone reading The Rules. He waits until Tom will agree to anything to be his BFF, only then showing himself. A deal is struck and Tom lives his life to the fullest, gleefully using the treasure the Devil gave him to make more money (one of the terms of the contract was that Walker had to become a usurer; he happily obliged.)
As he grows older, Tom begins thinking that, perhaps, selling his everlasting soul to the Devil wasn't the best idea. So he becomes a religious zealot. Praying louder and more obviously than the most devoted, life-long Christians.
Washington Irving's 'The Devil and Tom Walker' is a straightforward retelling of the Faust legend. This one is more in line with what I expected (as compared to Marlowe's Doktor Faustus), in that the devil strolls into the protagonist's life, makes no effort to dissuade him from the bargain and the protagonist doesn't care one jot for his everlasting soul until his death approaches. The protagonist isn't likable at any rate, actually. The Devil is the only character who isn't reprehensible in this story. You know exactly what you're getting with that guy.
As you'd expect from the person who gave us 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow', Irving is a master of creating atmosphere--the descriptions of the swamp were particularly well done. There was some humour, including schadenfreude, my personal favourite.
I don't know about Irving's feelings about Jewish people, but he really had it in for money-lending, which, at the time, was primarily associated with Jews so between that and the constant referring to the Devil as the 'black man' my brow was furrowed frequently whilst reading this.
Still, it's definitely worth the read for fans of the Faust legend or just of creepy stories.
Puritan writing at its finest. Tom Walker is a debased man, miserly and cruel to his fellows, and even to his wife. One day, he runs across the Devil, who shows him a grove of rotting trees, representing souls. They make the customary deal, with Walker becoming one of the richest men around. And Walker begins to work at keeping his soul, despite a lifetime of usury and the very deal to which he agreed.
If you're a fan of works like "The Scarlet Letter," this is probably just right for you. A definitely religious message, but with enough fantasy to draw in even an atheist reader, like myself.
This story is well into the public domain, so go look for some free sources. Project Gutenberg and Librivox are the prime candidates, but I listened to the free audio production available through PodCastle, and was quite pleased.
Nice and creepy! Reminds of the sleepy hollow idea. Great transcendental themes and play of the Faustian legend to boot.
Appreciated the noncreepy voice
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