Sunday, August 11, 2002

When Books Collide

A friend of mine forwarded these to me. I'm not sure where he got them from, or where whoever he got them from got them from, so I can't give due credit, but I thought some of these were just too good not to share. So:

Best Merged Literature

Second Runner-Up:

"Machiavelli's The Little Prince"
Antoine de Saint-Exupery's classic children's tale as presented by Machiavelli. The whimsy of human nature is embodied in many delightful and intriguing characters, all of whom are executed.

First Runner-Up:

"Green Eggs and Hamlet"
Would you kill him in his bed?
Thrust a dagger through his head?
I would not, could not, kill the King.
I could not do that evil thing.
I would not wed this girl, you see.
Now get her to a nunnery.

And the Winner:

"Fahrenheit 451 of the Vanities"
An '80s yuppie is denied books. He does not object, or even notice.

Honorable Mentions:

"Where's Walden?"
Alas, the challenge of locating Henry David Thoreau in each richly-detailed drawing loses its appeal when it quickly becomes clear that he is always in the woods.

"Catch-22 in the Rye"
Holden learns that if you're insane, you'll probably flunk out of prep school, but if you're flunking out of prep school, you're probably not insane.

"2001: A Space Iliad"
The Hal 9000 computer wages an insane 10-year war against the Greeks after falling victim to the Y2K bug.

"Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi"
Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia.

"The Maltese Faulkner"
Is the black bird a tortured symbol of Sam's struggles with race and family? Does it signify his decay of soul along with the soul of the Old South? Is it merely a crow, mocking his attempts to understand? Or is it worth a cool mil?

"The Scarlet Pimpernel Letter"
An 18th-century English nobleman leads a double life, freeing comely young adulteresses from the prisons of post-Revolution France.

"Lorna Dune"
An English farmer, Paul Atreides, falls for the daughter of a notorious rival clan, the Harkonnens, and pursues a career as a giant worm jockey in order to impress her.

"Planet of the Grapes of Wrath"
Astronaut lands on mysterious planet, only to discover that it is his very own home planet of Earth, which has been taken over by the Joads, a race of dirt-poor corn farmers who miraculously developed rudimentary technology and evolved the ability to speak after exposure to nuclear radiation.

"Paradise Lost in Space"
Satan, Moloch, and Belial are sentenced to spend eternity in a flying saucer with a goofy robot, an evil scientist, and two annoying children.

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