Riassunto
Riassunto di Re Abete Rosso, un romanzo
A chi è rivolto
Readers who love rugged adventure, forest lore and old logging songs will find a home here, along with anyone drawn to a young man's love story set against big business and the open north woods.
Che cos’è questo libro
King Spruce is a novel by Holman Day, an American writer who made the Maine woods his subject. It was written in the early twentieth century, when great timber owners ruled the north country and the forests were being cut faster than they could grow. The book gives you a tale of love, rivalry and hard labor, set among sawmills, logging camps, river drives and a struggle over who controls the water.
The King Spruce of the title is not one man. It is the name woodsmen give to the union of timber owners who hold the land, the dams, the booms and the courts. Its two faces in the story are John Barrett, a smooth millionaire, and Pulaski Britt, a roaring driver of men. Against them stands Dwight Wade, a young schoolteacher who loves Barrett's daughter and is driven out of town for it.
You will meet a rough and warm cast, from a tiny storekeeper to a drunken teamster, a hermit fire warden and a wandering bone-setter who calls himself a prophet. Songs of the lumber camps open each chapter and set the tone. Let us start in the small city of Stillwater, where Wade climbs a hill to the castle of King Spruce.
In questo riassunto
- 1A Teacher Faces the Timber ThroneFree
- 2A Father's Rage Drives Wade Away
- 3Two Rivals and a Fight in Castonia
- 4A Partnership and a Visit to Misery Gore
- 5An Eviction Lights a Forest Fire
- 6The Warden on Jerusalem Mountain
- 7Ghost Stories at Enchanted Camp
- 8The Fight for the Water
- 9What the Story Is Really About
Punto chiave 1 di 9
A Teacher Faces the Timber Throne
The story opens in Stillwater, a small Maine city where five sawmills howl along a canal. Dwight Wade, the young principal of the high school, climbs a sunny hill toward a big building the townspeople call Castle Cut Em. Inside is the office of the Umcolcus Lumbering and Log-driving Association, which the men of the north woods call King Spruce. They speak of this union of timber owners as if it were a living tyrant, and its power is real. The walls show a polished saw crossed by two axes, and a stuffed porcupine sits on the mantel.
In the waiting room Wade watches big, brown-faced woodsmen sit with their hats on their knees. They are stumpage buyers, men who need yearly contracts to cut timber on the owners' land. One of them storms out of the inner office, furious because the owner has refused to renew his contract. He cut honestly and left no waste, but he would not pay secret money to the agents who skim the profits. The others whisper that they will share a double contract with him so that he learns to play along with the graft.
Wade has come with a plan of his own. A few of his older students want to study forestry, and he asks John Davis Barrett to let them map a square mile of timberland for pay. Barrett is a millionaire, the mayor of Stillwater and the managing director of the association. He greets Wade warmly at first, because he remembers the young man as the center of the Burton College football team. Then he waves forestry away as poor guesswork.
Pulaski D. Britt bursts in on the talk. He is the association's executive in the north country, a red-faced former state senator with yellow eyes and a bark like a dog. He sneers that nature grows the trees without any help from professors. Barrett leans back and enjoys the sport of watching his friend bully the schoolteacher.
Wade leaves in a burning rage, but there is more under his shame. He is secretly in love with Barrett's daughter Elva, and he hoped this visit might soften her father. Instead he sees that he was only a prize puppy shown off for amusement. Britt, who loves gossip, guesses the secret and teases Barrett about it as soon as Wade is gone. That small remark is the match that lights a fuse, and the fuse burns through the rest of the book.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Questions about Re Abete Rosso, un romanzo
What is King Spruce about?
It is a logging novel set in Maine. A young teacher, Dwight Wade, is driven out of town by a timber baron and goes north, where he becomes a partner in a lumber business and fights for fair access to the river.
Who or what is King Spruce?
King Spruce is the woodsmen's name for the association of timber owners who control the land, the dams, the booms and the courts. In the book it stands for the power of the timber trade as a whole.
Is King Spruce a true story?
No, it is a work of fiction by Holman Day, written in the early twentieth century. It draws on real conditions in the Maine woods, including the timber trade, forest fires, river drives and the songs of lumber camps.
Who are the main characters in King Spruce?
The main figures are Dwight Wade, John Barrett and his daughter Elva, the bully Pulaski Britt, the river boss Colin MacLeod, the storekeeper Rodburd Ide and his daughter Nina, and the teamster Tommy Eye.
What is the main message of King Spruce?
The book argues that wealth and power should be answerable to fairness and to the land itself. It shows ordinary people, honest labor and the forest standing against greed and waste.