Tolstoy was a great novelist, but he wasn’t known for concision. That’s probably the reason why he didn’t use Twitter. Well, one of the reasons, at least.
Luckily for us, the compilers of the new book Twitterature have helped to condense into 140 characters what would have taken the Russian author 140 pages to describe. Each classic is squeezed into 20 tweets or fewer. For example, from Anna Karenina (SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t had a chance to catch the nail-biting finale):
“Alright, twenty rubles says that I can toss my bag in the air, run across the tracks, and catch it before the train arriv–”
William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, Thomas Pynchon, and even Dan Brown get the Twitter treatment in the book, to widely varying humorous effect. I like the premise of the whole thing, even if it’s sometimes a bit overcooked. Plus, the tweets actually cover the plot pretty well, so I can even imagine using this as a sort of jokey CliffsNotes. Here are a few more choice examples:
“SATAN HAS THREE HEADS, AND THEY ARE TOTALLY EATING PEOPLE” Dante’s The Inferno
“S—. ‘C-Section’ is not ‘of woman born’? What kind of king dies on a g–d— technicality?” Shakespeare’s Macbeth
“Robert Downey Jr. playing me in a film? Totally cool. Perfect.” A.C. Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes
What do you think? Are Twitter and classic lit like chocolate and peanut butter, two great things that go great together? Or is it more like chocolate and anchovy paste?
I received some gift cards from bookstores for Christmas. I just might pick this one up. It looks fun.
What’s not to like? I’m getting this.
This is fantastic. Using the gift cards is a great idea. Book sounds like a lot of fun.
Kinda lame. They already have something similar called Book-a-Minute Classics. http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/classics.shtml
It’s funnier and less irritating than “twitterature.”
I just spent 1 minute of my life on this “Book-a-Minute” and it’s one minute I’m never getting back.
However, Twitterature sounds hilarious. Especially since I read all of Anna K. for a lit class once. Now I have a new appreciation for it.
Stop it.
Reading is for suckers!!
I’ve never tried anchovy paste, so I’ll say it’s more like chocolate and sauteed shrimp paste. Relying on Cliff’s Notes is one thing, but this? I do see the humor in it though… No thanks, I’ll stick to the original form.
Book-a-Minute doesn’t seem that funny or nearly as elegant as Twitterature. The latter is even better appreciated if you’ve read the orginals. Twitterature is not meant as CliffsNotes. It’s humor! Don’t want to put down anyone but it’s easy to be critical, and hard to actually do something with your life. Twitterature authors are 19. What were you doing at 19?
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