For Short Stories on Wednesday (hosted at Risa’s Bread Crumb Reads) I was planning to read and review a vampire short story by Anne Rice. Which I did, and it did seem exciting for about the first two pages.
Tag: mark twain
Short Stories by Mark Twain
This week, I read two stories by Mark Twain: Extracts from Adam’s Diary (1904) and Eve’s Diary (1905).
Extracts from Adam’s Diary is a wonderfully hilarious story – told, of course, by Adam, right from when he first meets Eve in the Garden of Eden and is incredibly annoyed by her, till he eventually falls in love with her. It is in the form of “entries” he writes in his diary (which Twain claims to have translated from the original manuscripts by deciphering Adam’s hieroglyphics!)
The same is the case for Eve’s Diary – right from her first day on earth when she sees “the man” for the first time, till forty years later, after the fall. The story ends with Adam’s speaking at Eve’s grave, “Wherever she was, there was Eden.”
Mark Twain is indescribably amazing. Reading Adam’s Diary is a colourful experience; something you would have never thought of – the day-by-day experiences of the first man! It is amusing in most parts and absolutely hilarious in some – especially when Adam tries to figure out what species the little baby, that Eve claims to have found, belongs to (his guesses range from a fish to a talking parrot!) I also love how annoying he finds Eve – especially when she starts crying!
Eve’s Diary, on the other hand, was something completely else. It is humourous right from the start; but along with that it’s also a wonderful story. She is fascinated by everything she sees and everyone she meets and simply loves to talk! Twain has written beautifully from the point of view of a woman. And call me crazy, but it’s actually easy to relate to her. This is, without a doubt, one of the most amazing stories I have read in a while.
Last week, when I posted about the short stories that I read by Kafka, I came across Short Stories on Wednesday, a meme hosted at Risa’s Bread Crumb Reads. I’m going to take part in the meme and so, read at least one short story every week!
The Awful German Language
“The inventor of the language seems to have taken pleasure in complicating it in every way he could think of.”

- To continue with the German genders: a tree is male, its buds are female, its leaves are neuter; horses are sexless, dogs are male, cats are female – tomcats included, of course; a person’s mouth, neck, bosom, elbows, fingers, nails, feet, and body are of the male sex, and his head is male or neuter according to the word selected to signify it, and not according to the sex of the individual who wears it.
- Some German words are so long that they have a perspective. These things are not words, they are alphabetical processions. And they are not rare; one can open a German newspaper at any time and see them marching majestically across the page – and if he has any imagination he can see the banners and hear the music, too. They impart a martial thrill to the meekest subject. “Generalstaatsverordnetenversammlungen” seems to be “General-states-representatives-meetings,” as nearly as I can get at it – a mere rhythmical, gushy euphuism for “meetings of the legislature,” I judge.
- German names almost always do mean something, and this helps to deceive the student. I translated a passage one day, which said that “the infuriated tigress broke loose and utterly ate up the unfortunate fir forest” (Tannenwald). When I was girding up my loins to doubt this, I found out that Tannenwald in this instance was a man’s name.
- Personal pronouns are a fruitful nuisance in this language, and should have been left out. For instance, the same sound, sie, means you, and it means she, and it means her, and it means it, and it means they, and it means them. Think of the exasperation of never knowing which of these meanings the speaker is trying to convey. This explains why, whenever a person says sie to me, I generally try to kill him, if a stranger.