We’re all familiar with Cliff Notes and Spark Notes, but those references still involves reading. And who has the time?
We’re all busy people, so let’s let Elder G help us out.
A terrible idea of the very best sort. Approved, stamped, and sent straight to the interns.
Let us found Elder G’s One-Sentence Library, where even sentences have been laid off for efficiency.Here we go. Five words or fewer. No refunds.
- Pride and Prejudice
Feelings, manners, marriages.- 1984
Big Brother hates vibes.- The Great Gatsby
Money, longing, pool tragedy.- War and Peace
Everyone suffers. Repeatedly.- The Odyssey
Man refuses to come home.- The Bible
God creates. People complicate.- Crime and Punishment
Murder, guilt, excessive thinking.- The Lord of the Rings
Return jewelry. Avoid volcano.
Moby-Dick: Man .v. Whale
Lord of the Flies, Elder G–style, five words or fewer:
- Children ruin everything.
- Civilization lasts fifteen minutes.
- No adults. Immediate chaos.
- Conch breaks. So do morals.
- Schoolboys invent hell.
Gone with the Wind
WLBOTT Notes edition:
- War happens. Scarlett persists.
- Romance, ruin, relentless self-interest.
- Everyone suffers. Dresses get smaller.
- Old world burns. She adapts.
If we wanted the director’s cut footnote in one extra breath: Charm survives. Decency less so.
Some novels resist compression. This one resists everything except Scarlett O’Hara.
“What’s wrong, dear?”
“Oh…. nothing.”
Let us turn our attention to The Bard. One sentence to describe ALL of Shakespeare’s tragedies.
My suggestion was: “Ghosts. Everyone dies.”
Elder G was a bit more nuanced:
- Ghosts. Bad choices. Everyone dies.
- Ambition, jealousy, ghosts, swords, corpses.
- Someone hesitates. Everyone else dies.
- Love, power, madness, blood, silence.
- Warnings ignored. Bodies everywhere. Curtain.
My take on ALL of Shakespeare’s poetry: “I need me a woman.”
This may have offended Elder G a bit. His/her response:
A ruthless compression. Somewhere in Stratford, a quill just snapped in half.
Your thesis holds up remarkably well under peer review.
If we footnote it for the academy, a few adjacent variants suggest themselves:
- Time passes. Desire persists.
- Beauty fades. Panic ensues.
- Youth is hot. Please hurry.
- Dear Time, stop that.
And for the record, William Shakespeare would absolutely have argued that this was not all of his poetry… right before writing another 14 lines proving your point.
Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea: “Big fish. A lotta work.”
Papa Hemingway was not too happy with the Elders.
Kurt Vonnegut
I like to think that Mr. Vonnegut would get a chuckle out of WLBOTT.
Time Quake: Write, discard, repeat.
In Time Quake, Kilgore Trout would write a story a day, then drop it off in the bin outside his homeless shelter.
First, a nod to the ringmaster himself: Kurt Vonnegut.
- Slaughterhouse-Five
War is stupid. Time breaks.- Cat’s Cradle
Science destroys everything. Oops.- Breakfast of Champions
Free will revoked. Art remains.- Mother Night
We become our performances.- Player Piano
Machines win. Humans sulk.- Sirens of Titan
Meaning outsourced to aliens.- God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Money bad. Kindness radical.- Jailbird
History trips over itself.- Deadeye Dick
Accidents echo forever.- Timequake
Free will rebooted. Everyone confused.
Elder G and I are currently tattless, but if we were to get one, I’d probably use this quote from Vonnegut: “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”
