The Diaries of Adam and Eve

From the beginning, Adam was grumpy about the arrival of "the new creature." She was young, enthusiastic, lively, and wanted his company. He wanted, well, to rest and be alone.

"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. Cloudy today, wind in the east; think we shall have rain....We? Where did I get that word? I remember now -- the new creature uses it."

On the other hand, Eve is getting a whole lot more out of her new existence.

"I am coming to feel convinced that is what I am -- an experiment; just an experiment, and nothing more. Then if I am an experiment, am I the whole of show more it? No, I think not; I think the rest of it is part of it. I am the main part of it, but I think the rest of it has its share in the matter. Is my position assured, or do I have to watch it and take of care of it? The latter, perhaps. Some instinct tells me that eternal vigilance is the price of supremacy. -- That is a good phrase, I think, for someone so young."

I love Adam and Eve in Eden jokes and have collected a few favorite ones in my life. I love how such a simple myth that attempts to answer mankind's beginning can raise so many philosophical debates, as well as raise so many questions about the practicalities! (Was there no death at all in Eden? Not even the animals? It's not until the Fall, then, that mankind had to resort to include eating dead animals?)

But back to Twain's take on it, and what questions it raised for him. For him, it was very much about the two personalities with their peccadillos, and the relationship they made. And of course, it was funny because it was Twain.

Twain's beloved wife died shortly before he wrote the Adam diary. Then a couple of years later he wrote Eve's. As as he aged, Twain became less and less amenable to "organized religion." Knowing those two facts while reading these short stories put together makes for a sweet but sad story. The sweet but sad story of us all.

And funny because, you know, it was Twain. show less

Received religion was one of Mark Twain’s favorite targets. These two short stories, bound together in one handy edition, retell chapters two and three of Genesis. The book is printed and bound to allow the reader to begin with one or the other. Was it just masculine pride that led me to start with Adam’s version, or was it the logical decision since Adam was created first?
Whatever the reason, the sardonic tone confirmed my prior expectations. But when I reached the end of Eve’s diary and read the moving words Adam spoke at her grave, I realized that Eve’s story was also a love letter, albeit cantankerous, to Twain’s wife, Livy. A quick internet search confirmed that this was written shortly after her death. Forget Updike’s show more misplaced, pre-feminist assessment that these stories are paradigmatic for the relationship between men and women. There is too broad a variety of the ways men and women relate to each other for this to be generalized. Instead, I read the conclusion of Eve’s Diary as the testimony of one grieving man, whether Adam or Mark Twain, who possibly wishes he would have said these words while his wife was still alive. show less

Hogy egy efféle komédiában (a tagadhatatlanul ott lévő komikum mellett) a keserűségnek és a szomorúságnak ilyen mélységei nyíljanak meg, ilyet csak a mesterek tudnak. Ádám és Éva története, a sztori, amit unásig ismerünk - tudjuk a végét: túlnépesedés! de csitt – ám ez nem is baj, mert így jobban oda tudunk figyelni a szereplők sajátos szempontjaira és érzéseire. Látjuk, hogy haladnak útjukon, ami – hjaj, hjaj-ajjaj – jószándékkal van kikövezve. És tudjuk, az efféle út hová vezet – igen, oda. Aztán odaérünk, és azt látjuk, hogy ez Pokol is, meg Éden is. Egyszerre. Mert olyan is van.

Amúgy meg: a világirodalom egyik legszebb zárómondata itt található. Nem árulom el, a könyv show more mely részén. show less

This sweet novella brings the reader Mark Twain's “translation” of the diary entries by Adam and Eve. At first, Adam is puzzled by the new arrival in the garden and doesn’t really want much to do with Eve. Eve (a much more complex creature than Adam), believes herself to be some sort of experiment, is curious about the other experiment in the garden (Adam). Eve gives names to everything, much to Adam's annoyance. He tries to ignore her, so she seeks companionship among the animals particularly with a certain snake. Adam and Eve grow to love each other and, in the end, an elderly Adam is filled with a realization of that love as he stands at Eve's grave. The novella is organized as half Adam’s diary and half Eve’s. The tones show more are sharply distinct, and there’s no mistaking whose is whose. Adam’s is a straightforward, puzzled, and sometimes cranky accounting of the day’s accomplishments and discoveries. Eve’s is optimistic, wonderstruck, and emotional. I loved this small little novel—it is playful, ingenious (I found some of the concepts ahead of its time—women as the driver of life, the more complex and thought of the two inhabitants of the garden), funny and very moving at times (particularly the ending). As always, Twain never fails me. 5 out of 5 stars. show less

Me habían recomendado esta obra hace un tiempo, y al fin la he encontrado. Es cortísima, de apenas 60 páginas. Mark Twain [MT], seudónimo de Samuel Clemens, era un cachondo. Suya es la frase de “Hay mentiras, malditas mentiras y estadísticas”, entre otras muchas que acuñó. En esta obra se ven reflejados los mismos acontecimientos vistos desde dos puntos de vista, el de Adán y el de Eva. Y aquí MT aprovecha para soltar todos los sarcasmos, ironías y divertimentos que puede acerca de las relaciones entre hombre y mujer. Hay partes muy divertidas, como cuando Adán se queja de que ella no le deja abrir la boca y siempre les está poniendo nombres a los animales antes de que a él le dé tiempo de opinar. Eva, en su diario, dice show more que ella tiene que apresurarse para darles nombres a las cosas porque se ve a la legua que él no los sabe, y lo hace para evitarle incómodos silencios. O cuando Eva decide comerse las manzanas prohibidas porque ve que los tigres pasan hambre al alimentarse sólo de florecillas, para que puedan empezar a matar a otros animales.
La obra es de principios del s. XX, por lo que algunas de las opiniones del autor desatarían la ira de nuestras lectoras. Está escrita hacia el final de la vida de Twain, cuando más propenso era éste al lirismo, y termina con un alegato de Eva que a mí, personalmente, me encanta:

EVA: Mi ruego y mi anhelo es que dejemos esta vida los dos juntos, un anhelo que jamás desaparecerá de la tierra, sino que encontrará un lugar en el corazón de toda esposa que ame, hasta el final de los tiempos; y dicho anhelo llevará mi nombre. Pero si uno de nosotros fallece primero, mi ruego es que no sea otro que yo; porque él es fuerte y yo débil, yo no le soy tan necesaria como él lo es para mí. Una vida sin él no sería vida. ¿Cómo iba a poder soportarla? Este ruego es también inmortal y no dejará de ser siempre elevado mientras mi raza siga sobre la faz de la tierra. Yo soy la primera esposa y me seguiré repitiendo en la última de ellas.
En la tumba de Eva:

Allí donde ella estaba,

estaba el Paraíso
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This is hilarious. I'd seen a claymation version of it on TV or video a really long time ago. The book was even better. I've always been critical of the creation myth. Twain took two characters that have always been spoken of with reverence and turned them into something the Bible never could: Human.

This is now one of my favorite books. The switching POV's provides a humorous and imaginative account of what it must have been like for the first man and woman. You'll laugh at lines like "Well, I do declare, if there isn't the dodo!"