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The Black Spider - Community Reviews back

by Jeremias Gotthelf, H.M. Waidson
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Rabbit Reads
Rabbit Reads rated it 11 years ago
Tw: spiders gif The moral of this short story is don't make deals with the devil. It will cost you your soul and your descendents' souls, possibly. My personal interpretation: If you are gonna make deals with the devil, don't think you can pull a fast one on him. It will cost you your soul and your...
Warwick
Warwick rated it 11 years ago
I thought this was incredibly charming and atmospheric, despite the fact that it's essentially the sort of simple religious allegory that normally makes me run a mile. The Christian symbolism is indeed the whole point: the author was a nineteenth-century village pastor who regarded his fiction as a ...
Reading is Therapy
Reading is Therapy rated it 12 years ago
Rating : 2,5 stars out of five. It was a bit more than ok, almost likeable.This story is a not-so-long tale is about a group of villagers in difficulties that made a pact with the devil and try to out run him. That leads to an evil spider released upon them. I’ve noticed many comments over the inter...
davidofterra
davidofterra rated it 12 years ago
A one dimensional morality play with the following moral: it is better to die suffering than to make a deal with the devil.
The Bittern
The Bittern rated it 12 years ago
A short review for a short and disappointing story. I'd heard a lot of good things about The Black Spider, in spite of its relative obscurity. Thomas Mann once said that he admired Gotthelf's most enduring story "almost more than anything else in world literature", which makes me wonder if I missed ...
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