Amph Book-A-Minute: The Sun Also Rises By Ernest Hemingway

Ivanov
By Anton Chekhov
Ultra-Condensed by Scott Olesen


Ivanov

I hate myself so much I shall kill my wife.

Sasha

I love you because you hate yourself.

Ivanov

I hate myself so much I shall marry you.

Sasha

Deal.

(They get married.)

Ivanov

I hate myself. (commits suicide)



THE END

 

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Ultra-Condensed by Rachele di Tullio


Ancient Mariner

I am creepy and old. Listen to me.

Wedding Guest

I'm late, but I'll listen.

Ancient Mariner

I killed an albatross. Then everyone died.



THE END

 

Heart of Darkness
By Joseph Conrad
Ultra-Condensed by Samuel Stoddard and David J. Parker


Mr. Marlow

I'm the good side of mankind, upstanding and respectable.

Mr. Kurtz

I'm the bad side of mankind, once honorable, now mired in depravity.

The Jungle

I'm the heart of mankind, home to sinister darkness and corruption.

(Mr. Kurtz dies. Mr. Marlow is reborn.)



THE END

 

Seems they shied away from making that one very witty. Ultra-condensed and it STILL reads kind of ominous...

 

Lord Jim
By Joseph Conrad
Ultra-Condensed by Samuel Stoddard and David J. Parker


Jim

I made one rash mistake. Now I'm shunned forever no matter what I do to make up for it.

Jewel

Jim, I love you, but I'm scared you'll abandon me.

Jim

Sorry Jewel, but I have to prove that I'm not afraid of death. (dies)



THE END

 

For the last time, seriously, folks, read the story. London is the heart of darkness, not the jungle; in the jungle, there's freedom, at least, freedom even to be mad. It's the horror of domesticity and the city that is the heart of darkness of civilization. "The horror, the horror" Kurtz says as he dies; Marlowe later tells Kurtz's fiancee that the last words Kurtz spoke were "your name." Ouch. And then the book ends with the river flowing out into the heart of darkness; the River Thames, people, flowing into the heart of London.

Am I taking these summaries too seriously? Yes.

 

I was under the impression that neither and both were "hearts of darkness", and that it really just moved wherever man went: that London was no less -- and no more -- a center of a heart of darkness than the Congolese jungle.

The "horror" Kurtz speaks of is not civilization per se, but the virtues that it portends and the realization, for him, that this is all just denial of his own urges. That mankind is no more than the sum of its parts and cannot escape its own savagery. That doesn't mean the jungle is no less dark than civilization, just that, as a savage, one is blissfully unaware of the cognitive dissonance of civilization, that "between the thought and the action falls the shadow".

 

I was under the impression that the prose was entirely too dense for its own good and that Chinua Achebe was on to something with his accusations of strong underlying racism.

That said, Mr. Parker has committed many sins, and if we wish to include a levy of misunderstanding Heart of Darkness in those charges, far be it from me to preclude it.

 

The Secret Sharer
By Joseph Conrad
Ultra-Condensed by Samuel Stoddard


The Captain

This fugitive is just like myself. I'll call him, "My second self."

Captain Archbold

Where is he?

The Captain

Um, he's not in this room here. Wait, I am now obsessed.

(The Captain puts the ship in danger and saves it.)



THE END

Back to the Book-A-Minute Classics home page.

 

The Red Badge of Courage
By Stephen Crane
Ultra-Condensed by Samuel Stoddard


The Young Soldier

I want to be a hero, but I'm scared.

(He gets hit in the head.)

Now I am marked a hero, but I don't deserve it.

(He becomes a hero.)

Now I have truly earned my "red badge of courage."



THE END

 

It's also a satire of a particular style of genre fiction, but that nuance gets lost on a lot of people.

 

The Collected Work of E. E. Cummings
Ultra-Condensed by Samuel Stoddard


i j(ust !
b0.u )
g a ne w &
ht..

t
YpE
w

r
iTe
r

: buti(twon)tma

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r

ke cap
i,tal;
lett Ers -



THE END

 

These summaries, and the snarky dismissiveness that underlies them, work best when they're lampooning someone who isn't actually talented, I seem to find.

 

I love snarky dismissiveness.

The only problem is, this lot is seldom good at it.

 

Good point. Conrad, cummings, Crane, etc. are all talented, but someone that was also talented could lampoon them successfully (or at least more successfully than these guys are managing it). They certainly all had stylistic tics (or, in the case of Cummings, full blown seizures).

 

Well, Rogue, I'm betting you could do better...

 

I can only summon legitimately good snark and disdain when I legitimately loathe something. If I force it, it's not very good. To be a real satirist, you have to be able to be just as incisive and cutting with things you like and I'm not at that level. I can rip a Michael Bolton album to shreds, but Joseph Conrad is a bit beyond me.

 

I don't think you have to loathe it. You just have to pick out an absurdity, which they successfully did with "The Hobbit". Everybody has a down point, eh?

 

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders Who Was Born In Newgate, and During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife [Whereof Once To Her Own Brother], Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon In Virginia, At Last Grew Rich, Liv'd Honest, and Died a Penitent
By Daniel Defoe

Yup, that's the actual title

 

Okay, see, that one? That's kind of funny. More of this sort of thing, website.

 

A Christmas Carol
By Charles Dickens
Ultra-Condensed by Samuel Stoddard and David J. Parker


Ebenezer Scrooge

Bah, humbug. You'll work thirty-eight hours on Christmas Day, keep the heat at five degrees, and like it.

Ghost of Jacob Marley

Ebenezer Scrooge, three ghosts of Christmas will come and tell you you're mean.

Three Ghosts of Christmas

You're mean.

Ebenezer Scrooge

At last, I have seen the light. Let's dance in the streets. Have some money.



THE END

 

David Copperfield
By Charles Dickens
Ultra-Condensed by David Yuds


David Copperfield

Woe is me. My life is nought but hardships.

Agnes Wickfield

Survive. I love you, David Copperfield.

David Copperfield

Thank you. I love Dora Spenlow.

Agnes Wickfield

I still love you, David Copperfield.

David Copperfield

I love you, Agnes Wickfield.



THE END

Well, *that* misses the point, so:

DAVID COPPERFIELD

David Copperfield is this English dude in about 1830. His father dies before he is born. His great-aunt rejects him because he cannot be named after her. His mother is a wuss. His stepfather is from hell, and his stepfather's sister is worse.

His mother dies. His stepfather hires him out in a factory. His great-aunt discovers a means of naming him after herself, and takes him in, routing his stepfather and his stepfather's sister with ease.

He falls for a childlike woman and marries her. He regrets it, but she luckily dies. He gets to marry a less childlike woman, and lives happily ever after.

Why read this book? It has everything to do with the fact that Dickens is a writer of extraordinary sympathetic imagination, wonderful skill and creativity and terrific comedy. The plot doesn't matter. It's a typical Bildungsroman novel. Only the skill of the writer makes it different.

 

Great Expectations
By Charles Dickens
Ultra-Condensed by Conrad Jacoby


Pip

I'm Pip. I'm poor.

(Lots of THINGS happen.)

Pip

My life didn't matter, because I'm still poor and alone.



THE END


Well, that misses the point, too; so:

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Pip is a working class child who is suddenly taken from his family and educated, so that he has ideas above his station (as the Brits like to say.) He turns into a mean little snob. Eventually, he discovers that his elevation is the result of something that embarrasses him and proves temporary. He lands back down in the workers of the world with a bump, but now accepts his station.

 

Alternatively, Homer Simpson once summarized it as "You tried your best, and you failed miserably. The moral is, never tried."

 

Little Dorrit
By Charles Dickens
Ultra-Condensed by Vladimir Zelevinsky


The Dorrits

Woe are us; we are poor and miserable.

(They get RICH.)

The Dorrits

Woe are us; we are rich and miserable.

(A HOUSE falls on the bad guy's HEAD.)



THE END

No; it's about the distortion on our personalities of our experiences. The Dorrits make it out of debtor's prison, but for most of them, it will be with them forever.