The Comedy of Those Extraordinary Twins

by Mark Twain

Originally the story was called "Those Extraordinary Twins." I meant to make it very short. I had seen a picture of a youthful Italian "freak" -- or "freaks" -- which was -- or which were -- on exhibition in our cities -- a combination consisting of two heads and four arms joined to a single body and a single pair of legs -- and I thought I would write an extravagantly fantastic little story with this freak of nature for hero -- or heroes -- a silly young Miss for heroine, and two old ladies and two boys for the minor parts. I lavishly elaborated these people and their doings, of course. But the tale kept spreading along and spreading along, and other people got to intruding themselves and taking up more and more room with their talk and their affairs. Among them came a stranger named Pudd'nhead Wilson, and a woman named Roxana; and presently the doings of these two pushed up into prominence a young fellow named Tom Driscoll, whose proper place was away in the obscure background. Before the book was half finished those three were taking things almost entirely into their own hands and working the whole tale as a private venture of their own -- a tale which they had nothing at all to do with, by rights. -- Mark Twain

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Humor, Short Stories, Literature, Audiobook, American Classics

120 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1894

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature." His novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), with the latter often called the "Great American Novel." Twain also wrote A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) and Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894), and co-wrote The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today (1873) with Charles Dudley Warner.

Reviews

[Mahshid Naderi · Rating 4 out of 5]

وقتي اين كتاب رو خوندم ده يازده ساله بودم ولي يادمه همون موقع هم خيلي دوستش داشتم.
/spoil
داستان در مورد دو تا برادر دو قلو هست كه تمام قسمتهاي بدنشون مشتركه بجز سرشون.مغزشون جداست در نتيجه فكرها و ايدئولوژيهاشونم جداست.كنترل بدن مشتركشون هم نوبتي هست.اين دو تا برادر وارد يه شهر جديد ميشن و اتفاقاي ناخواسته اي رو به وجود ميارن.يكي از برادرها يه پسر خوبه با رفتارهاي معقول و خوب كه همه اهالي دوستش دارن و برادر دوقلوش درست برعكسه.تا اينكه برادر بزرگتر كاري ميكنه كه اهالي تصميم ميگيرن اعدامش كنن.حالا بحث سر اينه كه آيا اونا در حقيقت يك ادمن با دو تا سر يا دو تا آدم با يك بدن.مشكل اصلي اينه كه بايد هر دوشون اعدام شن يا فقط برادر بد اعدام شه.آخرش تصميم ميگيرن فقط برادر بد رو اعدام كنن ولي با مردن برادر بد برادر خوب هم ميميره.
/spoil

همونطور كه گفتم چندين سال پيش كتاب رو خوندم اگه جايي از داستان اشتباه كردم يا توضيح اشتباه دادم بخاطر حافظه ضعيفمه .شما ببخشيد ؛)

[Farideh · Rating 3 out of 5]

چقدر جا داشت بیشتر از این شاخ و برگ بگیره... داستانای کلاسیک موضوعات واقعا جذابی دارن ولی به شرطی که یه نویسنده ی امروزی اونو بنویسه... این داستان انگار عجله داشت هر چه زودتر تموم بشه در حالی که خیلی بیشتر از این می تونست جزپیات داشته باشه... به نظر من اگر ژول ورن این قصه رو می نوشت خیلی قشنگ تر میشد و جذاااب تر :)))))))))))

[Hessam Ghaeminejad · Rating 2 out of 5]

خود کتاب که چنگی بدل نزد ولی دو ستاره رو به مقدمه مارک تواین میدم که نحوه وارد و خارج کردن شخصیت های اصلی و فرعی را به داستان با توجه به این داستان و داستان ویلسون احمق به خوبی توضیح داده بود

[Thom Swennes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two truisms apply to all great novelists and storytellers. The first is that they must be extremely good listeners as the conversation and its delivery may make or break a story. The second truism is that the writer must have remarkable observation abilities. The Extraordinary Twins by Mark Twain is an amazingly good example of Samuel Clements talent and genius. As the author admits in his introduction, this was his original inspiration for the novel that later became Puddin’ Head Wilson, but was somehow lost as Puddin’ Head grew. To alleviate this literary problem (of two stories intertwined and knotted into one), he extracted the twins from one and put them in another. This was done to the satisfaction of the author, reader and all other fractions involved. If I have one criticizing point to make about this extraordinary tale about those extraordinary twins it would be their and the story’s abrupt end.

[Squire Whitney: Hufflepuff Book Reviwer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel bad for enjoying Those Extraordinary Twins because Twain is making a farce out of something that shouldn’t be made a joke out of: conjoined twins. Then again, this book was written in a different time. Be that what it may. I found this companion piece to Pudd'nhead Wilson decidedly fun, albeit a bit problematic. I laughed several times. And, just like in Pudd'nhead, the final line culminates the narrative in a hilarious fashion.

[Farnaz Ps · Rating 2 out of 5]

از مارک تواین انتظار داستان جالبتری داشتم. آخرش واقعا مسخره تموم شد. سوژه ای رو انتخاب کرده که به نظرم اطلاعات کافی ازش نداشته و در نهایت آدم رو با یه عالمه سوال بی جواب و یه تصویر ناقص رها میکنه. به نظرم صرفا یه خیالپردازی خام بود

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not much care for this book at all. It felt like a caricature at best.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had heard THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS described as a sequel to Twain's excellent PUDD'NHEAD WILSON. That's not really what it is, though. Actually, this novella is entirely composed of scenes that Twain excised from the PUDD'NHEAD manuscript after deciding his book featured too many characters. Unfortunately, Twain didn't even attempt to flesh out these rejected scenes, instead just sprinkling in a handful of obtrusive sentences to keep readers oriented as to what the heck is going on. Twain explains in the book's Foreword that his primary reason for releasing THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS was to provide readers with an inside look at his creative process, and specifically the manner in which his stories often evolved during the writing process. All well and good, but casual Twain readers should note that THOSE EXTRAORDINARY TWINS is essentially a fragment. As for the plot, think Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear in the movie STUCK ON YOU, only set a hundred and fifty years in the past.

[Mack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes Twain fiddles around with almost a great idea.

[Jason Pierce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read in the Barnes & Noble Classics edition which includes the main story Pudd'nhead Wilson.

This was an absolute hoot. I guess it can technically be called a companion piece to Pudd'nhead Wilson, but it's so different in tone that it doesn't really fit. Wilson is a tragedy with wryly comic elements whereas Twins is pure absurdity. When Twain started this, he wanted to do a story about conjoined twins. As he wrote, the characters which eventually ended up in Wilson started to take center stage, while the twins and their story got shoved further and further into the background, and he just couldn't get the two to work together which is kind of ironic considering conjoined twins have no choice but to work together or perish. As a result, his entire story was perishing. He was going to have the characters from the twins story throw themselves down a well because he didn't know what the hell else to do with them, but he eventually discovered they were two separate stories trying to force themselves together, so he excised the parts concerning the twins that didn't further the Wilson action, and that's how we come to have this gem.

I would not suggest reading this without reading Wilson first, or you're apt to be confused and wonder why it's so sloppy. That's because he didn't flesh out the parts that the twins played in Wilson since he had already put those parts in that book. Instead he either gives us a brief summary of those events so the next chapter or section would make sense, or just flat out says something like "...and chapter 11 of Pudd'nhead Wilson follows."

The idea for this came from a pair of real Italian conjoined twins who were touring America in a freak show, Giacomo and Giovanni Battista Tocci, shown here:



However, Twain describes them like so:



This allows him to have loads of fun with confusing descriptions from the people who meet them, and he puts them in a lot of absurd situations which are a joy to read. I know this was based on someone (or a couple of people) who had a physical deformity (of physical deformities), and while it might not be in line with 21st century sensibilities, I found this whole thing hilarious and even had tears in my eyes at some points, be it right or be it wrong. I'll cite just one example since I don't want to give too much away. An assault and battery trial got derailed because the prosecution couldn't prove which twin actually kicked the plaintiff. They couldn't even decide if it was one kick or two since they couldn't figure whether or not it were two people kicking at once. Twain also excoriates small town America as only he can, and various professions get raked across the coals as well.

If all you want is about 50 pages of Twain's sense of humor on full display, then you could read this without reading Wilson. Anyone looking for a complete and polished story should leave this alone entirely. Anyone with desires falling between those two extremes should start with Wilson before hitting this.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a companion read to Pudd'nhead Wilson this story was a very interesting read. The version I read (not sure if it applies to all editions) included commentary from Mark Twain in relation to the story itself and its later transformation into the Pudd'nhead Wilson story.

Apparently, Twain worked on this story as a serial with the creative idea of a pair of conjoined twins (from Italy) each with very different mindsets. These twins visit a small Missouri town and astound the residents with their ideas, wit and charm. Each of the twins becomes members of different groups and organizations in the town (often organizations pitted against one another) and eventually a charge of assault is brought against the twins. Pudd'nhead Wilson acts as defense lawyer in the case and comically asserts that there's no way to determine which of the twins was consciously responsible for the assault and since you can't punish the guilty one without punishing the innocent one, they were set free. Similar "can't have one without the other" instances come about during elections to public office and other situations within conflicting organizations.

From a high level, you can see the similarities to the Pudd'nhead Wilson book. Many of the same characters are present and a lot of very similar situations come about.

As Twain put it, he started out planning to write this comical farce and ended up writing two stories in one. In the end, he yanked out the bits that made this one a comedy, changed the conjoined twins to 'normal' twins, modified some behaviors, and came up with the Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson. Fortunately, however, we are still left with this original piece that influenced the latter.

This story is hilarious in concept and has lots of great situational and verbal comedy. The writing is clever and fun, as is to be expected with Twain. Even his own interruptions and commentary serve as humorous additions to the story. The depth of theme and concept isn't as deep and the overall tone is more akin to some of his shorter whimsical stories (celebrated jumping frog[Image:], diaries of adam & eve[Image:], man who corrupted hadleyburg[Image:]). In the end, it's a great tale that's well worth reading.

This story could certainly be read as a stand alone and be very entertaining. But for the full effect, I would suggest reading it along with the Tragedy that came as a result.

****
4 out of 5 stars

[wally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yet another from Mark Twain. Begins:

A man who is born with the novel-writing gift has a troublesome time of it when he tries to build a novel. I know this from experience. He has no clear idea of his story; in fact he has no story. He merely has some people in his mind, and an incident or two, also a locality. He knows these people, he knows the selected locality, and he trusts that he can plunge those people into incidents with interesting results. So he goes to work.

Onward and upward

update, finished, 4:50 p.m. e.s.t. 2 MAY 12, Wednesday

Twain explains at the outset that this is the result of two stories he had going, the one became Pudd'nhead Wilson and this is the result of the other, one a tragedy, the other a farce.
Says he'd seen some sort of freak, what other word is there for it, a word that conveys at once what it is, but a freak, some sort of birth defect, living in Italy at the time, some sort of twins, joined. This is the result.

Not a long read by any means, short, sweet, and he had fun. For that, no doubt, he'll do time.
He explored the many possibilities of joined twins here...apparently in the other story, they were separate, Luigi and Angelo.

Had just read The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut/Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences...the "Carnival of Crime" part of that mix, although I just read the other'n, too, and seems like Twain was poking around w/the idea of the mind, the conscience, all that malarkey that we still don't understand in full...nor I doubt, will we ever, other than to say what WE DO KNOW and that is that man is capable of all manner of evil.

The twins in question here are a bit of that old compare and contrast, Jeckle &Hyde, Mutt & Jeff, Bert & Ernie, the jackass & the elephant...etc...

But...this is a farce...not a heavy-hand in it, although those eager to spank Twain for other misdirections won't stop at that, for their teachers tell them so, verily, hallelujah, forever now and amen. Say it ain't so, Joe.

[Craig Williams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mark Twain has a note at the beginning of this book explaining its inception, and following abortion, in lieu to "The Tragedy of Puddin'head Wilson". He continues to insert notes throughout the text to explain how "Puddin'head Wilson" was supposed to fit into this story's plot, and how it eventually became a separate book by itself. However, now I'm absolutely confused - so were the twins in "Puddin'head", conjoined twins?? If so, it never quite came across that way. Honestly, if they were, that book may have been slightly more entertaining. Twain obviously has a lot of fun with the concept, albeit rather juvenile fun by his standards, which makes for an idiotic, yet fun, story. The majority of entertainment is derived from Twain's obvious disdain for his own work, and one gets the impression that he would have been perfectly happy for it to never have seen the light of day, much less a printing press. Still, here it is - a harmless, quick read, but ultimately not worth the time. Go read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, or better yet, The Innocents Abroad.

[John Harder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine being tea-totaler with a brother who is a heavy drinker. Now imagine that this brother is literally attached at the hip. Yes, there many obstacles when one is (are?) a Siamese twin. When your brother goes on a bender, you get a hangover, when your brother gets challenged to a duel you may find yourself with an uncomfortably warm proximity to the action. What does one do when your brother kicks someone with the legs that you share – the legal muddle soon becomes evident.

The short novel is a treat. It is silly farce, cleverly done.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A jolly romp around the misadventures (and identity issues) of conjoined twins. This should probably be read only after reading Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson, as it was originally part of that story and later became a separate offshoot. (As Twain wrote, "It is not practical or rational to try to tell two stories at the same time; so I dug out the farce and left the tragedy.") Pudd'nhead is darker; Twins has a more playful feel. I enjoyed it. I'm glad he separated the stories (wise man) and am also glad that this was developed into a full story instead off ending up on a crumpled draft page.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story; however, what I really liked was Twain's prologue about why he wrote this story and what happened along the way. It started out as a comedy, but then the Tragedy of Puddin'head Wilson snuck into the middle of it and after he realized he had two stories in one attempt he struggled to separate them and keep them both alive. I recommend reading this along with Puddin' head Wilson to get the full impact of how he wrote them.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not one of my favorite Twains, but still worth the read. It was interesting from a philosophical standpoint. The good twin versus the bad twin, and really which is which, since they share the same trunk of the body? Twain must have had fun writing it, but I had already been introduced to the story via Puddn'head Wilson, so this time around I didn't enjoy it as much, even being able to concentrate on the circumstances that have twin operating against twin.

[David Hilowitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked "Those Extraordinary Twins." It's central premise -- that two conjoined twins might have two very different personalities from one another -- is unbelievably terrible. (eg. One of them drinks, the other doesn't. One of them is a braggart, the other is humble. One of them is...ack.) That being said, Twain seems to think the premise is absolutely hilarious, and he does not left up. In the end, I was totally charmed by how funny he seemed to think it was.

[Chancellor Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book should be read as a sequel to Pudd'nhead wilson. Twain had originally written them to be one novel but they were separated for a really long time. It's an alternate story focusing on 2 characters found within Pudd'nHead Wilson. This story focuses more on the twins instead of Pudd'nhead and therefore has a different plot/ending. Interesting story.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I might have like it more, but I'd JUST finished Pudd'n head wilson. And I didn't like the ending very much; a very abrupt, annoying ending to a book, all in all. It had potential, but I'm glad he decided on fleshing out "Pudd'n head Wilson", on the whole.

[Tom Britz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is Twain at his best farcically. As he was writing Pudd'inhead Wilson he realized he had two different stories going, so he pulled this one out and published it later. This has many of the same characters, but the twins are decidedly different.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I truly enjoy Mark Twain, but this one... Might be the least. I suppose he was having fun with this circus show person: 2 heads, 4 arms, 1 body and all the emotional as well as legal conflicts, but I just could not enjoy the idea of it.

[ValeReads Kyriosity · Rating 2 out of 5]

This hardly counts as a book, being but bits and pieces that Twain tossed when he rewrote what became Pudd'nhead Wilson but I thought it would be an interesting addition in preparation for our book group meeting tomorrow. It was mostly just kind of silly.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a pretty funny book, but Twain never really developed it fully as Pudd'nhead Wilson took its place. Still, it has some great ideas and so much potential.

[Angie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book started off really funny, but ended entirely too abruptly. I really enjoy Mark Twain's style of writing, even though this wasn't one of his bests.

[Georg1991 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed how many difficult topics are brought up and the story is still funny.

[Jim · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very intresting read, however not one of my favorite Mark Twain reads.

[Carmen · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are also some Italian twins, Luigi and Angelo, who are conjoined in a different story of Twain's, Those Extraordinary Twins. Add a murder, and a trial, and you have classic Twain.

[Lily Z · Rating 1 out of 5]

By itself, this story felt extremely underdeveloped, which is fitting, I guess, considering that Twain chopped it out of Puddinghead Wilson.

[Wally Cwik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading the classics gives one a good perspective of the times when the book was written. The difference in the style of writing is evident, as is the attitudes and bias of the people at that time.