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The Treasure of Silver Lake

Karl May,

Herbert Windolf (Translator)

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Jun 17, 2014 Bogdan rated it it was ok

Shelves: german

This was a good occasion with this book to recall my favorite novels from childhood. Winnetou, Old Surehand and other such stories from the wild west, written by the master of this genre, Karl May, were all part of my first few novels I have read. And of course I have loved them and like many children, I imagine myself (sometimes even playing with my brother and other children) how it is to be Winnetou or a white hunter in the Great Plains.

The premise is extremely simple and usual for children n This was a good occasion with this book to recall my favorite novels from childhood. Winnetou, Old Surehand and other such stories from the wild west, written by the master of this genre, Karl May, were all part of my first few novels I have read. And of course I have loved them and like many children, I imagine myself (sometimes even playing with my brother and other children) how it is to be Winnetou or a white hunter in the Great Plains.

The premise is extremely simple and usual for children novels: the opposition between good and evil and of course that good always wins. Pretty predictable but you cannot expect something else from children's lit. This is why I will give it a 3.

Regarding the form, this is another element where the genre is fairly strict and this novel does not make an exception. Apart from this, I liked the names of the characters that were reflecting the traits the author gave them. I did not like that it felt like the authors controlled excessively their actions so that the plot and the planned actions twists end up as he wanted. This was something that I did not noticed when I was a child but now it ruins the pleasures of some parts. Thus, I will rate it with a 2 for form.

In terms of originality, I had the impression that a large part from the novel is recycled from other works of the same author. Although the genre of western does not allow a high degree of originality, with this additional element I am forced to rate it with an 1.

In terms of characters, they are created using the genre stereotypes. The good and evil whites, the good and evil Native Americans. Nothing using too many gray shades. But apart from this polarization, the author tried to differentiate as much the characters one from another. He used various traits not necessarily used in the story to do so, but he did it. So I will rate it with a 2.

Regarding the complexity and difficulty, it is clear that children's novels cannot be complex. Karl May did a great job to simplify the story, but still it is a lengthy one. Thus I will rate it with a 2 for complexity and difficulty.

In terms of credibility, this is perhaps the weakest point of the novel and of most novels from Karl May. But children do not need too much credibility thus the success of such novels is pretty high if they have enough adventures in it. For me this is important and this is why I will be rate it for credibility with a 1.

The last criteria is edition. I struggled at times to read it as it contains a lot of misspelling. I believe my ebook was created by scanning the original and the proof reading was not done very well. This is the reasons why I will rate it with a 1.

To summarize, I liked that I remembered childhood but the novel itself is pretty average, even on the low end, if compared with others. All in all, my final rating for the novel is 1.71, which I will round it to a 2 on Goodreads system.


+--------------------------+-----------------+
| Criteria | Rating |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Premise | 3 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Form | 2 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Originality | 1 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Characters | 2 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Difficulty/Complexity | 2 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Credibility | 1 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Edition | 1 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+
|Total | 1.71 |
+--------------------------+-----------------+

For more details on how I rated and reviewed this novel, please read these guidelines. ...more

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