Play Book Tag discussion

I had no idea this existed until I found it on Audible. Mark Twain wrote this short piece firstly from the point of view of Eve and then Adam. It is very clever and very funny. Eve talks too much and Adam is rather unintelligent. Somehow Eve managed to convince Adam that it was his fault everything changed because of the corny jokes he thought up rather than from Eve eating the apple from the forbidden tree. It's very quick but well worth a read.

Ooh- this sounds worth the read. I love Twain.

That sounds like me and my husband. He tells a lot of corny jokes (and has repeated them many times), and I love apples.

I love Twain. I'm reading Tom Sawyer with the Great American Read group in March, so I think I'll read this too. My library has a whole room devoted to him so I'd be surprised if they don't have all his books.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention!

Who were the narrators of the version you heard? I see three on Audible. The Betty Buckley/Mandy Patinkin one is twice as long as the others. A reviewer said the end was missing, but more was added from another source?

I listened to 3 different samples and they covered different days, so I got a good sampling of the material. It's full of the kind of gentle male/female stereotypes that will make us nod or laugh in recognition, even if we don't agree with them all.

I adore this story! I read it after first listening to it during a long 2 days of solo driving where i was mixing up music, classic comedy cds (Bob Newhart, Elaine May) with audiobooks (about only time I like audiobooks - when driving). @NancyJ - that was the Buckley/Patinkin version and it really isn't very long, it is superb, and I don't recall any edits or add-ons as compared to written original. In fact, I recommend it to friends averse to trying audio as an introduction to just how marvelous audiobooks can be. Yes, there is irony there given how few audiobooks I actually can stand to listen to!

I then discovered, through a theater subscription, that the story was adapted into a musical - the first act of Jerry Bock's 1966 musical: The Apple Tree. The 1966 production starred Barbara Hershey and Alan Alda, the revival I saw in 2005 (concert version) and 2006 (fully staged) were vehicles for Kristin Chenowirth. There may be a video recording around of the Chenowirth. It was funny and sweet and Chenowirth owned the role of Eve. Oh, and Twain's actual print story was little modified in the adaptation.

For those looking for the story in print, it is most often found lurking in collections of Twain's short stories.

NancyJ wrote: "Who were the narrators of the version you heard? I see three on Audible. The Betty Buckley/Mandy Patinkin one is twice as long as the others. A reviewer said the end was missing, but more was added..."

The narrator was Sean Murphy. I don't know anything about him but his voice is nice and he reads well, in my opinion. He sounds like he's got a dry sense of humour.

I love Twain and I have never heard of this one! This sounds like a good one. Good review.