Mark Twain's A Tramp Abroad (the 1880 quasi-sequel to his The Innocents Abroad) is fun, occasionally, but also tiresome, frequently. Sharp observations in magical detail leap off the page. Plodding, predictable bits of exaggeration lay there. Appendix D, "The Awful German Language", is a case in point: hilarious exploration of linguistic issues of gender and declension, next to deadly-slow extended anecdotes and dictionary quotes. Perhaps an edited "best-of" version would be more readable; perhaps it should have been more harshly edited originally.

(cf. VeryGood (2001-08-18), MyMemberSays (2007-02-06), Earworms (2009-06-09), ...) - ^z - 2010-01-30