June 22, 2008
lit 101 class in three lines or less
Paradise LostADAM: Paradise has arbitrary dietary restrictions?
DEVIL: They're really more like guidelines.
GOD: Incorrect.
Moby-Dick
ISHMAEL: I'm existential.
AHAB: Really? Try vengeance.
ISHMAEL: I dig this dynamic. Can we drag it out for 600 pages?
The Great Gatsby
NICK: I love being rich and white.
GATSBY: Me, too, but I'd kill for the love of a woman.
DAISY: We can work with that.
more from McSweeney's here.
Posted by Morgan Meis at 03:37 PM | Permalink
Comments
I've seen this done before, but this version is notable for being totally unfunny and not lending any insight into the original works. A one-two punch! I except no less from McSweeney's, the twee rag continually pioneering new ways to fail at humor.
Posted by: Quasimodo | Jun 23, 2008 12:43:35 AM
Agreed.
Posted by: Notes From A Room | Jun 23, 2008 5:40:56 AM
As Quasimodo noted, this has been done before, though in more than three lines. I would guess that about half of them were written by someone who actually read the work in question.
Posted by: ghostman | Jun 23, 2008 2:48:27 PM
Observing how remarkable it was that literature ever developed, Joseph Conrad declared that there was but one story: they were born, they suffered, they died.
He also said the only good book was a cookery book.
Posted by: Elatia Harris | Jun 23, 2008 5:20:37 PM
I had a cookery book once, but it, too, birthed a creation that suffered, then died.
Posted by: ghostman | Jun 23, 2008 8:15:21 PM
Funny gman.
Wonderfully detailed leviathan though. That's two full sheets of watercolor paper there...which would make this whole ink drawing 22" x 60". Whimsy, style and scale. Pretty impressive.
Who drew it?
Posted by: Carlos | Jun 24, 2008 7:04:52 AM
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