“How do you condense a massive literary classic into 140-character Tweets?”
“More importantly, why would you do that?”
“There’s a long and storied tradition of Ulysses reenactments, though, isn’t there?”
“But on Twitter? Seriously?”
“Wait. Has anyone in this room read Ulysses?”
“Nope.”
“I started it once.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“[Crickets.]“
Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a high-minded throwdown. But if Twitter is the new forum for breathing new life into highbrow literature, which classic should “come on down!” — Price Is Right reference, hell yeah! — and get its Tweet on next? Vote in our poll below, then make like an English major and take it to the comments section!
Comments (1-22) of 22 Add your comment
Actually, your suggestion of “Godot” might work, since few of the characters speak in very long sentences or monologues (except for Lucky, which might actually be very entertaining broken up into smaller pieces)
Check out this humorous retelling of the play currently staring Angela Lansbury, Blithe Spirit, in twitter form:
http://www.broadwayabridged.com/scripts/blithespirit.shtml
It does a good job and tells the story pretty well. But Broadway Abridged is awesome in general.
As it turns out, there’s a whole book of literature-via-tweets in progress. I believe it’s called TWITTERATURE. I weep for our future.
Twitter: When Cliff’s Notes become just too darn taxing on the brain.
Get OFF the computer and read a damn book once in a while!
Pride and Prejudice has already been done. See: Pride and Twitterverse http://madhattermommy.blogspot.com/2009/05/pride-and-twitterverse.html
GO TO YOUTUBE
and watch LITTLE MONKEY BOY CLIMBING!
Hilarious VIDEO!
How about people actually read the book?????
Here’s a novel (pun there folks) idea how about NONE!!!!! Let’s put an end to this and encourage people to actually READ books, I read and I tweet, but they never need to go together let’s put an end to this stupidity and everyone start READING you might actually LEARN SOMETHING they’re lucky Joyce’s corspe did’nt reanimate itself and dismember, torture and disembowl these loons!
How about “Hell to the naw!!”? Some ideas are fun, and some ideas need to be forgotten with the quickness. Breaking up great literary pieces into 140-word chunks rates among the ideas that should be stepped away from quickly!
Tweeting Ulysses is like trying to transmit the Bible via Morse code. On a pager. Twitter was built for breakfast foods and break-ups. Let’s leave it to its own devices.
OMG, that version of Twitter Pride & Prejudice linked below is fantastic. I cried laughing. I am sending it to all my Austen-loving friends. Zombies and Twitter. What’s next? P&P can adapt to anything!
Your article asks why someone would adapt a literary classic for Twitter. Some of your commenters scoff at the very notion of wanting to do so, and in the process they valourize book literacy as antithetical to the literacy gained through social networking.
I wrote the adaptation of Pride and Prejudice that’s linked to below. Here is my answer to your question:
1. Jane Austen is arguably the greatest social satirist to have ever written.
2. Twitter is a social medium that invites, nay demands, a little soft-hearted mockery.
3. What better way to do this than to adapt the trappings on Jane Austen to the Twitter environment?
4. Despite so much dismissive commentary about social networking, the Internet is chock full of highly literate people who not only have read Austen but also understand the vernacular of Twitter.
5. The novel was considered a crude, lower art form in Austen’s day. Ditto, social networking today.
6. I clearly have too much time on my hands.
BTW, “Mad” is my internet moniker and is no indication of my emotional or mental state. You know, just in case people were thinking I wrote that comment while angry.
Ulysses was tweet on Twitter, but it was about NASA’s Ulysses Probe.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/06/rip-ulysses-solar-probe.html
Ulysses was tweeted on Twitter, but it was about Ulysses the NASA Probe.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2009/06/rip-ulysses-solar-probe.html
P&P (and I think most of Dickens) does not count as highbrow literature. Dickens wrote to be paid by the word and in Austen’s day novels were considered lowbrow. Joyce is the highbrowest of highbrow and thus much less important outside of academia than the popular Dickens and the immortal Jane.
I also failed to read Ulysses. Maybe after the Infinite Summer is over. Would love to read Godot since I know the basic plot. It seems the perfect Tweet-able book since we all Twitter while waiting.
As someone who has read Ulysses and studied Joyce, I can tell you that he would have LOVED the idea. Ulysses is full of humor and satire and pathos and the ultimately boring drivel that flows through our brains on a minute by minute basis. And how is this different from Twitter? Ulysses is not a monolith of highbrow snootery–it’s a warm, funny, shocking, heartbreaking, philosophical, and sometimes hard to read treatise on the human condition. Joyce LOVED popular culture, and used it extensively in his writing. He would have been all over Twitter. Drunkenly, and with song.
To much information to be condense and you don’t experience the full effect of the story. Trust me you will enjoy reading it than just getting the short scenario. Joyce is a genius!
i can’t find ulysses on twitter… also why can’t people just pick up a book and read it? some people depend too much on the internet for things.
A twitter of Beloved would be hilarious. “Grifter comes in and wets the bed. Might be the baby I killed with a shovel. What kind of name is Denver?”
Whether Twitter is here to stay or just a fad, this idea is hilarious! I still prefer real books, though.
I recommend reading the article (or do you prefer glossy EW summaries to reading? Irony overload!). It was a very clever derivative work of art that would only be understood by those who’ve read the book (that’s you, snobs).