Wednesday, May 26, 2004
The Learning Annex
It’s the end of the academic year, and as a service to all those crazy kids out there studying for finals (and surely not as a simpleminded joke that will amuse only myself), I’ve put together these handy-dandy one-sentence summaries of literary masterworks:
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – Even smart girls who get good summer jobs at magazines can go crazy.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky – People deal with their daddy issues in some pretty silly ways, such as murder.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – Who would have thought that prep school would be full of phonies?
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes – Crazy people are fun, although there’s always the danger that they’ll bash someone’s head in.
The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser – Some English professors are really, really mean.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad – Maybe save your vacation to Africa for another year.
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton – If you’re not socially popular, you might as well just go ahead and die.
King Lear by William Shakespeare – Your elderly father could definitely have it a lot worse than the nursing home, even taking square dance night into account.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf – It may be a while before you actually get to a lighthouse, so don’t hold your breath.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka – Bugs are people, too.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce – Hey, James Joyce is pretty cool, and most likely highly symbolic.
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust – Shit happens.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner – Southern people have some crazy ideas, like, say, slavery and cutting off people’s gonads.
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway – Besides death, war can lead to impotence, drunkenness, and occasionally even bullfighting.
It’s the end of the academic year, and as a service to all those crazy kids out there studying for finals (and surely not as a simpleminded joke that will amuse only myself), I’ve put together these handy-dandy one-sentence summaries of literary masterworks:
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – Even smart girls who get good summer jobs at magazines can go crazy.
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky – People deal with their daddy issues in some pretty silly ways, such as murder.
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger – Who would have thought that prep school would be full of phonies?
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes – Crazy people are fun, although there’s always the danger that they’ll bash someone’s head in.
The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser – Some English professors are really, really mean.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad – Maybe save your vacation to Africa for another year.
The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton – If you’re not socially popular, you might as well just go ahead and die.
King Lear by William Shakespeare – Your elderly father could definitely have it a lot worse than the nursing home, even taking square dance night into account.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf – It may be a while before you actually get to a lighthouse, so don’t hold your breath.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka – Bugs are people, too.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce – Hey, James Joyce is pretty cool, and most likely highly symbolic.
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust – Shit happens.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner – Southern people have some crazy ideas, like, say, slavery and cutting off people’s gonads.
The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway – Besides death, war can lead to impotence, drunkenness, and occasionally even bullfighting.
