Riassunto
Riassunto di La luce che mente
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Readers who like witty romances, courtroom scenes and affectionate comedy about city life in the early 1900s. It suits anyone who enjoys a hero tangled in his own good manners and a love story told in a sparkling voice.
Che cos’è questo libro
The Light That Lies is a comic romance of the courtroom by George Barr McCutcheon, an American novelist who died in 1928. It follows a rich young New Yorker named Sampson, who has spent years inventing excuses to escape jury service. When he is finally caught, he finds himself in a box facing an old man accused of embezzlement and the old man's strikingly lovely granddaughter.
The book is light in tone and quick on its feet. It borrows the trappings of a trial, with its witnesses, objections and sharp cross-examinations, and uses them to ask a gentle question. What happens to justice when a man's heart and his duty pull in opposite directions? You get a love story told with a smile, a cast of jurors who are mostly known by their seat numbers, and a hero who must decide what honor asks of him. Let us begin where Sampson begins, with a man who very much wants to be somewhere else.
In questo riassunto
- 1A man who always escapes jury dutyFree
- 2Sampson meets the granddaughter and is caught
- 3The State's case and a witness under pressure
- 4A jury in love and a defense with one witness
- 5Eleven to one in the jury room
- 6What the story is really about
Punto chiave 1 di 6
A man who always escapes jury duty
Sampson is thirty, rich, handsome and a Harvard graduate. He is president of the Sampson Steamship and Navigation Company, a job he inherited from his father and does not pretend to earn. His real occupation is dodging jury service in the New York courts. He has talked his way out of murder trials by claiming doubts about capital punishment, circumstantial evidence and the plea of insanity.
The trouble is that excuses wear out. Sampson is now being drawn for the humbler courts, where he cannot avoid even the most trivial cases. He complains that the whole jury system is wrong, since a man is supposed to be tried by his equals, and he thinks a ruffian and a bank president should not share the same twelve neighbors. He has missed weddings, football games and the arrival of ocean liners because of summonses. He refuses to fix things through friends downtown, because he thinks that is beneath him.
Then comes a notice to appear in the case of the State against James W. Hildebrand, on the twentieth of January. Sampson has booked a train to California for the twenty-first, and he knows no judge will believe a man this healthy needs a change of air. He enters the little courtroom at ten minutes to ten and notes the sour faces of the other men waiting, each praying that someone else will be chosen.
He is surprised to find that he is interested. Hildebrand is charged with taking about fifty thousand dollars from a real estate firm where he was partner, secretary and treasurer. He fled to Europe and came back of his own will after four and a half years. Sampson, who reads every line of crime news, cannot recall a word about it, and that bothers him more than the summons does.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Questions about La luce che mente
What is The Light That Lies about?
It follows Sampson, a wealthy New Yorker who has always escaped jury duty and is finally seated on the jury at an embezzlement trial. The accused man's lovely granddaughter attends every day, and Sampson falls in love with her while weighing his duty.
Who is Sampson in The Light That Lies?
Sampson is a thirty-year-old Harvard graduate and the inherited president of a steamship company. He is honest, gallant and comically proud, and he is known to the court as juror number three.
When was The Light That Lies written and is it a true story?
It is a work of fiction by George Barr McCutcheon, who died in 1928, set in the New York of the early 1900s. The characters and the trial are invented, though courtrooms and city places are drawn from real life.
Is The Light That Lies easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that matters. Its chapters are short, much of it is lively dialogue, and the narrator keeps up a friendly, joking tone. The jurors known by number make the cast easy to follow.
What does the title The Light That Lies mean?
The title points to the glow of attraction and appearances that can mislead people. In the book, a young woman's gaze and charm shine on a whole courtroom, and the question is whether that light shows the truth or only seems to.