Twain

Mark Twain is considered to be the best author in American history. I think =he is the most famous one and being form the south I enjoyed many of his short stories like Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. But these stories we read today I had never heard of. They showed me another side of Twain that I wasn’t aware of. In this story “Journalism in Tennessee” I felt lost at first because I didn’t really know what was going on with all the war references and injuries.  For example, “Then the chief editor went on with his erasure; and interlineations. Just as he finished them a hand grenade came down the stove-pipe, and the explosion shivered the stove into a thousand fragments. However, it did no further damage, except that a vagrant piece knocked a couple of my teeth out” (Twain 1). But rereading the passage picked up that this could be referring to his work getting totally destroyed by his chief editor to sound more spicy and to grab peoples interest.  Another part in the story I thought was interesting is when the Colonel comes in to the editor’s office and he describes their talking as a gunfight. They talked about the crops and politics but Twain tells in another way. He describes it as an old western dual. Both men would be talking/laughing but Twain saw it as a gunfight. I thought that was an interesting way to describe two prominent men talking. Being the new guy in the story he doesn’t know how things work in Tennessee but all he is trying to do is find some piece and quite. One line that for some reason stood out was when the chief editor told the man, “"You'll like this place when you get used to it"(Twain). He kind of explodes after that on the thought of that idea. He talks about the flaws of Tennessee and how he won’t be staying there.

People always talk about how funny Twain and I really had never seen his writing that was funny. But in the diaries piece I really enjoyed how Adam and Eve were writing their own thoughts down. That is an interesting way of thinking about the Genesis story. No one really has done that because the bible puts it such a biblical way you really do not what the two are thinking at the time they are created. Thought it was also funny how Adam at first thought Eve talked to much. I don’t want to get into trouble but I know a lot of girls that talk to much and I can relate to Adam kind of. I have never been with one girl who is the only girl on Earth. But they way she names all the animals and tells Adam I thought was very funny. These two stories show two different side of Twain that I enjoy.