‘War and Peace’ … in a handful of sentences
July 7, 2009 by Geneva ReidPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Tech News, Uncategorized
What if the great literary classics were reduced to a handful of sentences? A new book, Twitterature, promises to do just that.
It’s true.
University of Chicago students Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman say they’re combining the two most important forms of expression for their generation: literature and Twitter.
“After all, as great as the classics are, who has time to read those big, long books anymore?” the 19-year-olds ask on their Web site.
So you’d better come prepared with a sense of humor. “To be or not to be” may be chopped down to “To be,” since each work is limited to 20 140-character Tweets.
Penguin plans to have the book on the shelves before the year is out. Target audience: 18 to 35-year-olds.
“Twitter has refined to its purest form the instant-publishing, short-attention-span, all-digital-all-the-time, self-important age of info-deluge that is the essence of our contemporary world,” the authors say on their site.
Hmmm… that statement’s more than 140 characters.
What do you think about Twitterature? Let us know in the comments section below.
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Tags: twitter, Twitterature, University of Chicago
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July 8th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Cliff notes run amuck! If kids can make the time to twitter, text, im, and whatever, they can make the time to read at least Cliff Notes of these wonderful literary works. There’s no way to capture the essence of such deep works in 120 words or less. Instead of wasting your time, producing worthless Twitterature, take the time to read the big, long, books; you’ll be glad you did.
July 8th, 2009 at 11:11 am
I find this truly sad that today’s students feel the need to reduce such great works of literature to afew sentences. I guess this is unfortunately a statement about today’s youth and how “technology” has greatly diminshed their attention spans.
July 8th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Born. Good stuff. Bad stuff. Meaning? Purpose? Die.
Kind of trivializes things doesn’t it? And yet, I think people will really think they’ve “read” and “understood” the Great Books by reading the Twitterature version.
July 8th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Isn’t it a shame that our language, the very thing that separates us from the grunting animals, is be reduced to a few grunts. And all this so the participants can quickly move on to the next mono- or bi-syllabic message. Umm, progress? Why did our ancestors work so hard to free us from the restrictions imposed by the ruling classes which kept most people illiterate and ignorant? No one can keep up with the amount of silly information passing as important data anyway. It’s all twit….
July 8th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
So, just because kids have a short attention span we should encourage that? I am hoping that this is meant as some sort of humor.
In many ways this just encourages the sort of behavior that everyone is angry about in the financial world. Faster is better, who has time to cultivate business or knowledge for the long term? I think this also contributes to the poor political leadership we see from both sides of the aisle. This why politicians focus so much on making 10 second sound bites that don’t have any substance, but sound great on the surface.
This is the next generation of leaders, which is a little scary to me. And for the record I am not far out of the target age group at only 36.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Although I bemoan the lack of attention span and the hyper-connected reality of so many who think they should be entertained all the time and see their main function in life as consumers, I don’t think that this undertaking has anything to do with the things posters are complaining about… other than that it is capitalizing on it. I suspect that it IS supposed to be humorous, and the only people who will get anything out of it will be those who have read the classics that are being twitterized. Sounds like an entrepreneurial couple of kids.
July 10th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
What’s New? A generation of A.D.D.’ers with an education at pretigous university think that they will speak directly to and for the Techno-Generation by reducing the spirit and imagination of literature’s genious to the monosyllabic grunts of Homoerectus!
July 15th, 2009 at 9:29 am
It’s just humor, folks. Don’t despair.
July 15th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Except for Jenny and Michael above, here’s a quarter each for the rest of you. Go buy yourselves a sense of humor.
July 15th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
My first reaction was astonishment, my second was anxiety, my third was disgust. The US is dumbing- down to such a sad level the most brilliant thoughts of the greatest minds can be reduced to the level of ‘Dick and Jane’ and pass as knowledge.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Capitalism unfurled; tongue-in-check; completely anticipated; NBD.
I’ve taught college for 26 years and this is just normal adolescent behavior. Only the technology and opportunities have changed. Does anyone remember configuring the output of your first TI-80 calculator to read obscene words, depending upon how you held the display? Same thing.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
I think this is a great idea! I have always wanted to read War and Peace but have never made it past the first chapter. This way people might be exposed to books that they would never have experinced reading or otherwise; and honestly what is the best thing about reading a good book but discussing it with others.
July 24th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
No time to read the classics??? Some people need to rethink their priorities.
April 23rd, 2010 at 1:46 pm
War and Peace; it’s about, uh, War and Peace. The End.
“This way people might be exposed to books that they would never have experinced (sic) reading or otherwise. . .”.
Reading a short synopsis is not the equivalent of “reading a good book.” Aside from this, as a college literature teacher, I generally find no joy discussing a “good book” with people who have only read one page out of 350.