5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious spoofs, October 18, 2002
This review is from: The Five Minute Iliad Other Instant Classics: Great Books For The Short Attention Span (Paperback)
If Dave Barry ever rewrote the classics, it might turn out like this book. If this is literature, then "Friends" is a documentary. And that is just the way it should be.
Greg Nagan rewrites a bunch of the most famous novels ever written. After a fragmented and historically dubious description of the origins of Western lit (bet you never knew "Gilgamesh" and the Bible were dueling for the bestseller list), he begins at the beginning. First comes a rather mangled version of the Iliad, which is written with a great deal of goofy gore. Then the Divine Comedy (well, part of it anyway), which has been rewritten in limerick form. Milton's "Paradise Lost" is the next victim, where (after eating the apple) Adam says to Eve, "Come to Daddy, baby!" Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility" is also fair game, in an ultra-repressed England where passionate young women with dewy heaving bosoms fall for rotters. (And Elinor does something unspeakably funny with a knitting needle) Then it's to the pit of England's misery in Charles Dickens' "Christmas Carol," where Scrooge is escorted by the spirits to another Dickins novel. Melville's "Moby-Dick" has a loony captain and a bunch of rather clueless sailors in search of a big white whale. Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" features a squalid Russian killing other squalid Russians in a very squalid, depressing Russia.
Oscar Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Gray" has two repressed (yeah right!) English guys trying to either corrupt or save Dorian Gray, a beautiful lad who becomes psychotically self-serving. ("Cool.") Stoker's "Dracula" is another example of repressed English people and wimpy women who sleepwalk -- oh yeah, and a foreign doctor with a weird acent, and a vampire. Kafka's "Metamorphosis" is hilariously nihilistic, with a family who becomes nasty and intolerant just because a man has become a bug. James Joyce's "Ulysses" has been painstaking condensed down to one sentence. Orwell's "1984" has a guy rebelling against Big Brother (and no, it isn't a family drama) by reading a dense book and sleeping with a girl. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" essentially has Holden stomping around, contemplating how much he hates the universe. (The description also applies to the original work) Hemingway's "Old Man and the Sea" parodies, in particular, the rambling conversations ("Yes, they are different." "Different." "Yes." "But not bad." "No." "No, not the same." "Yes.") The book rounds off with "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac, which goes from beginning to end in one long rambly sentence.
Perhaps the funniest thing about this is not just that Nagan spoofs the novels, but the authors behind them. Wilde's story contains one of the funniest examples of this, spoofing the gay undertones of his book ("Of course I'm not! I'm an impeccably repressed Victorian gentleman!"), followed by the dreary Russian misery of Dosteyevsky and the don't-remove-your-gloves-lest-a-man-see-your-delicate-wrists repression of Austen's time. (Yet jamming a knitting needle through someone's skull is socially acceptable... strange times Austen lived in!)
It helps to have at least a basic knowledge of each classic's storyline, but you don't need to have read them to appreciate the gutsplitting humor of each one. If you're a fan of Dave Barry, or if you hate pompous classics, this is the book for you. But for heaven's sake, don't use it for book reports.
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15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A good, smart, funny book, August 9, 2000
This review is from: The Five Minute Iliad Other Instant Classics: Great Books For The Short Attention Span (Paperback)
I have to confess. I'm one of the lucky ones. I received an advance copy of Greg Nagan's FIVE-MINUTE ILIAD. This book is like... Prozac. No, wait, follow me on this one. Nagan's book made me giggle and laugh and want to share it with everyone. Even with my IT cube-dwelling mates. (Information Technologies, for the acronym-disinclined.) How to explain to programmers and tech support people why Nagan's "Paradise Lost" is inspired or "On the Road" is so damn fine?
Let them read it. Force them. Watch their eyes move through the lines. Try not to blurt, "Where are you? What part?" when they start smiling. This book makes people feel good.
Test it for yourself. Find the grouchiest, meanest, drunkest sonovabitch you know - maybe your boss, maybe your spouse, maybe... you - and make them read "The Inferno." Out loud.
Stitches. You'll both be in stitches. Happy stitches. Who else but Greg Nagan elevates "The Inferno" from a stuffy English translation into limerick?
Make friends with this book. Read THE FIVE-MINUTE ILIAD in restaurants or bars. See what happens. "What are you reading? What's so funny? You have a beautiful smile. Can I buy you a drink?" Again, test it for yourself.
This is a good, smart, funny book. I defy you to sustain a bad mood while reading THE FIVE-MINUTE ILIAD. And it's cheaper than Prozac.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Is DEFINITELY Hysterical If ..., June 18, 2002
This review is from: The Five Minute Iliad Other Instant Classics: Great Books For The Short Attention Span (Paperback)
... you've read the classic upon which the 5-minute translation is based. If you haven't, THE 5-MINUTE ILIAD AND OTHER INSTANT CLASSICS still provide plenty of merriment -- with maybe a touch of confusion. (In particular, Bram Stoker's "Dracula" is an absolute howler and George Orwell's "1984" might even have you running to pick up a copy of the original to find all of the hints.) While a few of the 'instant classics' do feel like one-note jokes that go on for several pages, it's still all in good fun at no one's expense ... other than a few of civilization's most revered authors. Nagan's observation's about Western Civilization and the expanse of its subsequent culture, however, are perhaps the finest notes of pure mirth in the book ... I'd almost wish he'd dedicate a book to that subject alone!
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