Friday 27 August 2010

Oh noes - they've been haiku'd!


I recently received a book called ONE HUNDRED GREAT BOOKS IN HAIKU by David Bader.

The premise of the book is that there are great works of literary art but no one has the time to read them, or alternatively that the modern attention span is so short it is too great a chore to read them.

So he condensed the novels into haiku.

A haiku is a three line poem containing seventeen syllables developed in Japan.

I was very impressed and thought I would share a few with you;


THE ODYSSEY

Homer

Aegean forecast-

storms, chance of one-eyed giants,

delays expected.


DE REVOLUTIONIBUS

ORBIUM CAELESTIUM

Nicolaus Copernicus

Guessus whatibus?

Earthus orbits the Sunnum!

Ptolemy doofus.


THE INFERNO

Dante Alighieri

Abandon all hope!

Looks like everyone's down here.

Omigod- the Pope!


MOBY-DICK

Herman Melville

Vengeance! Black blood! Aye!

Doubloons to him that harpoons

the Greenpeace dinghy.

(this could also apply to the Japanese justice system)


LORD OF THE FLIES

William Golding

'Kill him! Spill his blood!'

Marooned lads hold savage rites.

Choirboys lean to prey.


GULLIVER'S TRAVELS

Jonathan Swift

Thus I was first great,

then small, and much vexed to learn

that size does matter.

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