Short & Sweet Treats discussion

Happy New Year, everybody! Welcome to our classic discussion of Mark Twain's The Diary of Adam and Eve

"Recorded as double journal entries, human creation has grains of truth for modern gender disputes. Humans are essentially the same inside. Adam is somewhat of a silent recluse, ill-prepared for his talkative emotional rib. After conflict, despite the apple, comes harmony."

I just downloaded this book on kindle. It is only. 99!
Or if you prefer Google books, it is .99 on there as well.

I enjoyed finding this blogger's comments; she loves this short work as much as I do :-)

"Mark Twain first wrote the Extracts from Adam's Diary in 1904, and then Eve's Diary on 1905. Both pieces were brought together in book format in 1906. It seems that Adam was based on Twain himself, and Eve on his wife, Livy, who died in June 1904, right before he wrote the Diaries. They are seen as a posthumous love-letter to Livy, so you can tell the work is very personal, and has nothing to do with Twain’s religious beliefs, and most certainly should not be judged for the author’s use of stereotypes of women and men. It’s nothing but a sweet, humorous, ironic and lighthearted account of the first man and woman on Earth, of how they discovered each other, perceived each other, and grew to treasure each other’s presence more than they ever treasured the Garden of Eden (which, by the way, Eve calls Niagara Falls Park, because she’s just clever like that)."

http://www.allfantasyworlds.com/2013/...

how sweet. I had no idea about the back story to this classic :) thank you for sharing, Julia!

Looking forward to reading this one! I have it on hold at the library. I should be getting it sometime next week.

I finished it just after midnight -- first book of the new year! Though I would barely count it as a book, it's so short.

nice job Erin! how did you like it?

I read this book last month because I just recently joined and wasn't sure if I would be able to catch up for December's reads. I actually though this book was funny from the beginning. I thought the first two entries really showed the differences between men and women. Eve's entry is lengthy and descriptive, then Adam's post is two paragraphs. I giggled to myself after reading that.

Starting the book right now!

It's very short! I read the separate diaries, not the combined edition since it's a lot easier to find the two diaries separately than together.

How's the combined edition formatted? Does it alternate between Adam and Eve's version of events or does it do a lot of Adam together, then a lot of Eve, then some of Adam, then a bit of Eve?

I snickered all the way through this -- especially through the kangaroo bit. Poor Adam! Sooo disappointed we didn't get Eve's version of these years.

It looks like my library actually has the first editions of both of these books! Library use only, of course, in the special research library... I'm tempted to swing by and look at them. Apparently this was originally illustrated.

At first, I felt uneasy about the "Diaries of Adam and Eve." I thought Mark Twain used Adam to belittle women. Now I am reading Eve, and the book has become poetic.

Hmm--I love the copy I have of The Diaries of Adam and Eve combined, but it doesn't show up on the goodreads data base. The illustrations are by Michael Mojher and are wonderful. Here's the cover:



Amazon has it for $10, and says: "The most complete edition of Twain's two stories, it uses Mark Twain's preferred text and includes passages not previously included--and not available in any other version. The editor's afterword tells how Twain came to write the "Diaries," which are recognized today as his most personal works of fiction."

As I mentioned in post #3, the book should be read "as a posthumous love-letter to Livy, so you can tell the work is very personal, and has nothing to do with Twain’s religious beliefs, and most certainly should not be judged for the author’s use of stereotypes of women and men."

For my part, I'm just going to share the main quotes that touch my heart with both laughter and caring. The very first pages from Eve are so delightful--and when she talks about Adam climbing a tree to avoid her, he says (p. 14):

"This new creature with the long hair is a good deal in the way. It is always hanging around and following me about. I don't like this; I am not used to company. I wish it would stay with the other animals..." The illustration opposite Adam's line is the picture on the cover--my favorite in the book.

Julia - do you have an ISBN or a link to the amazon page? I can add the edition for you.

Thanks, Melanti--I purchased the hardcover, which is $16. The link to Amazon is: http://www.amazon.com/Diaries-Adam-Ev...

The Diaries of Adam and Eve: Translated by Mark Twain

It was already in the system. If you're looking for a particular edition, you can usually search by ISBN rather than title/author.

Yes, I knew the TITLE was in the system but didn't see the picture of my version. The ISBN of this version is 0-9658811-9-9, but I have no idea how to search for it or if it's possible to add this particular version.

As we discuss, maybe we will find how each edition may be different. Thanks for the suggestions. I mainly love the Mohher illustrations and the fact that this version offers the "most complete edition of Twain's two stories, it uses Mark Twain's preferred text and includes passages not previously included--and not available in any other version. The editor's afterword tells how Twain came to write the "Diaries," which are recognized today as his most personal works of fiction."

I linked directly to that ISBN for you. It has the same cover art, description and ISBN as the version you linked to on Amazon.

You just put the ISBN without dashes into the search field. (It usually works with the dashes too, but the GR search function isn't that great so it's best not to confuse it much.)

Great! Thsnks so much for the info on ISBN entry--I had no idea where to put it. It's interesting that the ISBN pulls up the right edition, but I can't pull it up by title.

Really appreciate the help :-)

When you pull it up by title, it'll always just send you to the most popular edition -- the one most users have shelved. Even on books like this one where the various editions might have slightly different titles, Goodreads has them combined into one entry since the content of the book is mostly the same.

It can get a bit difficult to find one particular edition especially on books like this where there's close to a hundred (if not more) editions out there. Searching by the ISBN is the easiest way... At least from the website itself.

If you have the Goodreads mobile app, on that front page there's a button for "barcode scan". You may have to scroll down just a bit to see the button. That also will run a search by the ISBN. Of course, that requires having a smart phone with a camera and the mobile app installed... And then you have to deal with the cruddy mobile interface.

Melanti wrote: "It's very short! I read the separate diaries, not the combined edition since it's a lot easier to find the two diaries separately than together.

How's the combined edition formatted? Does it alt..."

The version I read alternated Adam and Eve. I thought the book was quite funny as well. I never would have read something like this. I'm glad I joined this group to broaden my reading material.

I was touched at what a good mother Adam observed Eve to be. how she would pretend to bite at the "claws" of that little creature he was trying to figure out.

In the separate editions, Adam is all by Adam. (Only about 10 pages)

Eve is mostly by Eve though there's a couple pages by Adam about 2/3 of the way through and then a couple more pages at the end.

I'll have to see if I can find a combined edition and see what passages were added...

LaLaLa Laura wrote: "I was touched at what a good mother Adam observed Eve to be. how she would pretend to bite at the "claws" of that little creature he was trying to figure out."
I loved how Adam just couldn't figure it out. Is it a reptile? A bear? A fish? Must be a kangaroo! It was hilarious.

A weird little book. At times I thought it seemed simplistic like a child could have written it and other times smart and funny. There were several moments where I chuckled out loud and insisted on reading passages to my husband. But I finished it just now, late at night, with him sleeping beside me. And the last couple entries are very sweet.

“Yes, I think I love him merely because he is mine and is masculine. There is no other reason, I suppose. And so I think it is as I first said: that this kind of love is not a product of reasonings or statistics. It just comes—none knows whence—and cannot explain itself. And doesn’t need to.”
“From the Diaries of Adam and Eve,” by Mark Twain.
When Eve falls in love with Adam, she asks herself the same question that we ask ourselves: why did I fall in love with this person? This question has no answer. It just happens. It is an accident of nature.

I found this short story okay.

The story just fell flat for me. Maybe I found the story so far from the truth (or what I was told was the "truth", back in Sunday School as a little girl).

Or maybe, my expectations were too high, since I loved The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

I did not hate it. I will still read more from Twain, I felt it was not his best work.

Still waiting for my copy. But it should be a quick read once it gets here.

The afterword in my copy, by Don E. Roberts, is a touching reminder that this slim volume is really a posthumous love letter to his wife, Livy. Their story is a wonder in itself, and I want to learn more about them. William Dean Howells, in his book My Mark Twain, has this beautiful description of Livy (Olivia)--who always called her husband "Youth". Howells says: "I make bold to speak of the love between them, because without it I could not make him known to others as he was to me....She was in a way the loveliest person I have ever seen, the gentlest, the kindest...He was a youth to the end of his days, the heart of a boy with the head of a sage."

Livy died in 1904, and Twain wrote to his brother: "I am a man without a country. Wherever Livy was, that was my country." This certainly echoes Adam's last line in the book: "Wherever she was, THERE was Eden."

So while I still enjoyed the chuckles of this small volume, it has become much more poignant to me as I learned more of the love of Twain for his wife. He wrote Eve's Diary as a eulogy for his wife, so he never intended the reader to react to this love letter as we would to his longer, literary works.

Yes, this is a quick read, and funny, and all that. To me, it's much more. Eve's words, after they are driven from the garden, reflect Twain's own outcry: "What had we done? We meant no harm. We were ignorant and did as any other children might do....We did not know right from wrong--how should we know? We could not, without the Moral Sense; it was not possible. If we had been given the Moral Sense first--ah, that would have been fairer, that would have been kinder. Then we should be to blame if we disobeyed. But to say to us poor ignorant children words which we could not understand and then punish us because we did not do as we were told--ah, how can that be justified."

That cry would be echoed throughout time by other writers, especially the Existentialists. Another of Twain's short pieces in this vein is "The War Prayer", which can be read free online at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_War....

Does anyone else find it curious that Twain does not write about Eve's reaction to her children, or am I missing something?

Oh, I think he speaks about her reaction to her children--she's very protective when Adam wants to "test" Cain to see if he's a fish, and her scene with Abel is really powerful, as she tries to wake him up from death.

But the focus really IS upon Adam and Eve and their relationship.

Julia wrote: "Oh, I think he speaks about her reaction to her children--she's very protective when Adam wants to "test" Cain to see if he's a fish, and her scene with Abel is really powerful, as she tries to wak..."

Now I remember that scene, thanks Julia. I do remember getting a little chuckle from that. I believe that was from Adam's diary.

I agree with you, the diaries definitely are more focused upon Adam and Eve's relationship.

By claiming that it is a translation, Twain authenticates his work by claiming that the originals are from Adam and Eve themselves?

My edition starts out with this disclaimer...

[Note. -- I translated a portion of this diary some years ago, and a friend of mine printed a few copies in an incomplete form, but the public never got them. Since then I have deciphered some more of Adam's hieroglyphics, and think he has now become sufficiently important as a public character to justify this publication. -- M.T.]

wow! This is a literary convention of the 17th and 18th centuries, that is, to 'find' letters in obscure places. It was a convention that allowed the writer to write what he/she wanted, because in a time of social prudery, the writer could claim that the author was not in fact himself; rather, the author was the writer of the letters. In this method, the author could conveniently claim innocence.
Although there existed some American authors who "translated" "found" letters, there were few. Twain must have purposefully used this convention at the onset of the 20th century perhaps 1) to avoid censorship due to the uncommon practice of giving voice to biblical characters or 2) to speak about his wife in a socially unacceptable way or 3) ?

Dang, I wish I could find my copy but it's embedded in boxes after the great American move.

3)Because he thought it would get a big chuckle out of people?


He's joking... For you to take him seriously on the "this is written by Adam" bit, you'd have to take him seriously on the "he has now become sufficiently important" bit - which would imply that at one point in the author's life Adam wasn't an important public figure and that's obviously not true... Well, unless Eve renamed our dear author "Mark Twain" after Adam bungled the job by naming him "Samuel Clemens." If that's the case, then he might have been alive early enough for Adam to be unimportant.

One should never take Mark Twain too seriously.

Project Gutenberg Links for the separate editions:
Adam's bit
Eve's bit

Thanks, Melanti--yes, Twain's tongue is in his cheek most of the time, with the exception of The War Prayer. This can be read online at http://www.antiwar.com/orig/twain1.html.

When working with my students, I'd compare Twain to Geoffrey Chaucer, in the sense that he IS bringing to light some serious issues, but doing it with humor. Chaucer really had many of the same ideas as Dante Alighieri, but where Dante would send sinners to the Inferno, Chaucer would choose to skewer them with satire.

My favorite of Twain's, Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings, was critiqued by Prof. Howard Mumford Jones of Harvard back in 1962:

"The brilliant parts are compressed and savage -- and we are beginning to understand at long last that Mark Twain was, or could be, a savage man. The brilliance arises from the fact that they were written when he had become master of clear, flexible prose and was no longer the journalist or the platform lecturer. The bitterness is a function of his indignation against man and God for the cruelties and injustices they practice. The attitude is that of Swift, the intellectual contempt is that of Voltaire, and the imagination is that of one of the great masters of American writing....Better informed readers will wonder at the imaginative power of the greater passages in this volume, and ponder a view of man's capacity to be cruel that, after the horrors of Buchenwald and Hiroshima, has more relevance to the modern ethical problem than ever Twain anticipated. Students of Twain will be led to inquire even more closely into the complexities of a personality as enigmatic as any in American letters."
http://www.twainquotes.com/19620923.html

Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings was one of our library book club selections for last year, and it engendered much discussion.

LaLaLa Laura wrote: "nice job Erin! how did you like it?"

Sorry for the delay. I did enjoy this read. As others have pointed out, it's humorous but it also rings true to life. Eve is both wise and blissfully ignorant, as we all are, and she's really delightful. I loved when she wrote, "I think there are many things to learn yet -- I hope so; and by economizing and not hurrying too fast I think they will last weeks and weeks." I love her curiosity and her optimism; perhaps I wish I were more like her.

It seemed like overall this story could have been expanded upon, but the bit about the "fish/kangaroo" could have been shortened -- but then who am I to nit-pick the genius of Mark Twain? :)

Louis wrote: "When Eve falls in love with Adam, she asks herself the same question that we ask ourselves: why did I fall in love with this person? This question has no answer. It just happens. It is an accident of nature."

I love that!

Just got a copy of "Diaries..." from GooglePlay loaded onto my Nook. Glad to be able to read it and look forward to going forth through the whole thing.

I had a copy of Twain's "Letters from the Earth" in the 1960's and dearly wish I still had it. So, this will be an extra special treat.

I have never read Twain until now. I don't know why because I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. The dialogue was hilarious at times. I wish he would have expounded more on Eve's pregnancies. I feel It would have been very enjoyable to read. Sorry I'm an ex L&D nurse and love reading about pregnancy

I agree Brenda! that would have been cool to see how he would have described pregnancy! :)

So right, Brenda and Laura--since he thinks Cain might be a fish! Maybe even Twain decided not to tackle what a pregnant woman would look like to a man who didn't know what was happening! :-)

hahhaaaaa nice point Julia!

I totally agree. Of course when he wrote this such discussions were inappropriate. So I guess we cannot criticize him too much. Boy would be shocked by today's society.

I sort of think Kurt Vonnegut inherited Twain's mantle as the acerbic wit of his time. Both Vonnegut and Twain WANTED to love humanity, but dang it, humans just keep messing up! A friend once told me that if you look beneath the skin of a cynic, you find a frustrated idealist. For me, that fits both Twain and Vonnegut :-)

I love Vonnegut's quote from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: "“Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind.”

I'm currently reading Ray Bradbury who is being extremely cynical at the moment - and I desperately wish he had even a fraction of the wit as Twain or Vonnegut! Nope, he's just unrelenting gloom and doom in this collection.

My favorite quotable quote of Vonnegut is from Mother Night. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

And my absolute favorite line unfortunately isn't quotable because it relies so much on the context... Two people are talking about war. One speaker is talking about how to avoid war, and the other is talking about how to create war:
"What can any one person do?" he said.
"Each person does a little something," I said, "and there you are."

Cat's Cradle has this topic appropriate gem:
“In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in his cosmic loneliness.
And God said, "Let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close to mud as man sat, looked around, and spoke. "What is the purpose of all this?" he asked politely.
"Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.
"Certainly," said man.
"Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said God.
And He went away.”

GREAT quotes, Melanti--I'd love to suggest that we read Vonnegut's last collection of essays, A Man Without a Country.

This is my favorite from Cat's Cradle:

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the
sky, the stars."
And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look
around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.
I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly
couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to
think of all the mud that didn't even get to sit up and
look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!
Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night."

Wow I'm impressed, I can never remember quotes or anything like this. It makes me feel a little dumb, lol. Oh well tomorrow is another day!!!

Brenda no worries! I write down quotes that I like from a book or if I am reading on my phone, I "highlight" it or take a screenshot.
We are all here to have fun. And you do a great job participating!

Julia wrote: "GREAT quotes, Melanti--I'd love to suggest that we read Vonnegut's last collection of essays, A Man Without a Country.

This is my favorite from Cat's Cradle:

God made m..."

added to our non fiction bookshelf!

Melanti wrote: "I'm currently reading Ray Bradbury who is being extremely cynical at the moment - and I desperately wish he had even a fraction of the wit as Twain or Vonnegut! Nope, he's just unrelenting gloom a..."

what book is this!?!