We Didn't Do Anything Wrong, Hardly

Kuykendall, RogerProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.5

Word count: 9.3K words
Chapters: 1

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.We Didn't Do Anything Wrong, Hardly by Roger KuykendallAuthor: Kuykendall, Roger,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: Jan 2, 2008

Editor's review

This short story comes from Project Gutenberg's public-domain ebook library and falls under American literature. It is brief and well suited to a light English reading session. The narrative moves through dialogue and situation, and its language is close to mid-twentieth-century popular fiction, so readers can grasp the plot in a short time. As a digitized Project Gutenberg text, it preserves the original layout and wording, which gives it some value for studying the form of early ebooks or for close reading of the English original. There is no need to seek complicated interpretations; it works better as material for sampling American popular literature and building a feel for English. If you like reading short pieces on your commute or before bed, its length is just right; if you want to analyze theme and structure in depth, you will need other materials.

Who it's for

A good fit for

English learners who want to practice reading with short original English texts
Readers interested in twentieth-century American popular literature
People who need light reading for commutes or fragmented time
Enthusiasts studying Project Gutenberg electronic texts

Not a good fit for

Readers expecting long, complete narratives with complex character arcs
Readers unaccustomed to English originals who need Chinese translation notes
Researchers hoping for in-depth contemporary literary criticism

Reading tips

Read through once to grasp the plot, then revisit the dialogue sections to sort out the relationships between characters
Guess unfamiliar words from context first, and look them up together after finishing a passage
Check the Project Gutenberg page information and note the text's original layout and wording
After reading, write a summary in three to five sentences to test your understanding

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Does this book require a very high level of English?

It is a popular short story with fairly simple sentence structures, so intermediate English reading ability is enough to try it. If you meet an unfamiliar word, you can skip it first; keeping the reading rhythm matters more.

Is it suitable as close-reading material?

It can be used for close reading, but it is short and its themes are not heavy, so it is better for extensive reading or language-feel training. For close reading, it is advisable to read it alongside other short stories by the same author or of the same type.

Why does the introduction mention Project Gutenberg?

Because the book is digitally published by Project Gutenberg, and the introduction describes that platform's background rather than the plot. Knowing this helps you understand the source and version form of the text.

What can I get from reading it?

Mainly a light experience of reading a short English story and an intuitive sense of the language style of American popular literature of that period. You should not expect systematic literary analysis.

Comments

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About the author

Kuykendall, Roger Author

Roger Kuykendall is an author about whom little public information is available. Two of his works are currently held in the collection: All Day September and We Didn't Do Anything Wrong, Hardly. Because his dates of birth and death, nationality, and professional career cannot be confirmed, this note can only sketch his writing on the basis of these titles. Judging from the two works and the way they are collected, his writing seems to center on everyday situations and the choices of ordinary people, and the titles carry a distinctly colloquial and ironic tone—most notably the almost self-exculpatory negative phrasing of We Didn't Do Anything Wrong, Hardly, which suggests narratives concerned with blurred moral boundaries and the shifting of responsibility. Overall, Kuykendall's profile still awaits further material; readers may approach his work as a way of observing how ordinary people face misdeeds and consequences in the course of ordinary days.