*spoiler space*

[sab]

LJ user yonmei pointed out that LJ user lilith23 inspired a rash of Great Works of Literature in 50 Words or Less.

I've never been able to resist the challenge of brevity. To wit: (pun intended)


Tolstoy's Anna Karenina:

Anna has sex with Vronsky.

Karenin: I don't care. Just stay married to me.
Anna: I am SO GUILT-RIDDEN!
Karenin: No, dude, I'm saying. Have all the sex you want.
Levin: Don't you understand that this story is about ME? And agriculture?
Everyone: SHUT UP.

Anna throws herself in front of a train.

*


The first five books of Stephen King's Dark Tower series:

Roland sets off for the Dark Tower. He walks a lot.

Jake: There are other worlds than these!
Jake dies.
Jake comes back.

Eddie: Marry me, Susannah.
Susannah: I'm having a demon baby.
Susannah eats a frog.

Roland keeps walking and gets arthritis.

Calvin Tower: I am SO GAY.

*


Hemingway's A Moveable Feast:

Hemingway: I'm broke, but drunk.
Gertrude Stein: Come hang out in my den of iniquity and lesbians.
Fitzgerald: Man, I did good with that "Gatsby" book.
Hemingway: Bet you can't do it again.

Fitzgerald can't.

Hemingway: Ha! I may be broke and drunk, but I wrote more books.

*

Comments

[tangleofthorns.livejournal.com]

HAH!

The Sun Also Rises:

Jake: I'm drunk and impotent. Stupid war.
Brett: Oh, darling!
Jake: Don't leave.
Brett: Must.
Jake: 'Kay.

Bill: Drunk!
Cohn: I boinked Brett.
Jake: Let's go fishing.
Cohn: Bye.

Jake: Mmm, bullfights.
Brett: Drunk!
Bill: Drunk!
Mike: Drunk! Stupid Jew!
Cohn: Hey!
Bull: Rrrghle!
Brett: Mmm, bullfighter!
Pedro: Hola!
Jake: Oy. Drunk!
Cohn: Bastard!
Jake: Ow!
Cohn: Sorry! Bye.

Brett: Ditched bullfighter. Broke.
Jake: Yo.
Brett: Missed you.
Jake: Still impotent.
Brett: Sigh.
Jake: Bitter.

(okay, seventy-five words. but I didn't want to sacrifice the funny bits.)

Brevity is the soul of wit

[phoenixredux.livejournal.com]

On The Road by Jack Kerouac

Dean Morriarty rolling through Ashtabula on a freight train, storms Chicago and roars across the Continental Divide. Busted out of domesticity, mad drive to California in a huge new Hudson with equally busted radio. Bounced off Fresno, back to the East Coast. I remember Dean Morriarty. I remember Dean Morriarty.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Loved these, but especially the Hemingway one.*g* Hm, let's see about some more meta:

C.S. Lewis, The Narnia Chronicles

Lucy goes through a wardrobe (and a wardrobe change). So do her siblings. Talking animals are fun; well-dressed adult women less so.

Tolkien: Jack, your mixing of mythologies gives me a headache.
Lewis: Do you want me to continue proofreading your Middle Earth stuff or not?

Everyone dies.

Tolkien: Okay, that's... radical.
Lewis: Says the man who ships everyone off to the West. You know, you really should have killed Pippin.

[kernezelda]

Neat. The only thing I remember of this type is a poster on a prof's door: Cliff Notes version of Cliff Notes of Great Literature.

Moby Dick: A whale eats a man's leg. The man is angry.

Metamorphosis: A man turns into a bug. He thinks about it.

[crimsonclad.livejournal.com]

Karenin: No, dude, I'm saying. Have all the sex you want.
Levin: Don't you understand that this story is about ME? And agriculture?
Everyone: SHUT UP.

Oh, perfect! You know, I hate almost everyone in the book, but I love the book. You summed up perfectly.