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Shrinklits: Seventy of the World's Towering Classics Cut Down to Size
From Antigone to Lolita , from Beowulf to The Hobbit . The world's greatest literature is summarized in Maurice Sagoff's hilarious light verse. The result-70 intoxicating distillations of the classics everyone has been taking far too seriously for far too long. Selection of the Quality Paperback Book Club and a New York Times Best Seller. 180,000 copies in print.
111 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
September 27, 2017
Pretty uneven – some of these are clever, many are just “meh.” A few, like The Hobbit which, uniquely, gets two poems to allow Sagoff to fully express his scorn for the work, are just dumb and pretentious.
(Here is “Hobbit [2]”)
Most of them are better than that, anyway.
I thought his take on A Doll's House, by Ibsen, was particularly snappy.
Antigone, Lolita, and The Great Gatsby are also good, and for a fifty cent library sale purchase this was okay, but if you skip it you aren't missing much.
(Here is “Hobbit [2]”)
”Hobbit-hole (“Bag End”) is small,
Opening on a tube-shaped hall
Through which Bilbo is deployed.
(Are you listening, Sigmund Freud?)
Thus begins a life-long quest
Fraught with every horrid test
Man must undergo, at length
To achieve his ego-strength
And identity. The story
Teems with brilliant allegory!
Dragons, goblins, spiders, elves –
Are they not our darker selves?
Middle Earth is simply rife
With symbologies of Life:
“Misty Mount” – Parnassus? Sinai? –
View it through your fancy's fine eye:
“There and Back Again” – that's Hegel!
“Magic Ring” – perhaps a bagel?
“Thirteen dwarves” – a human clone?
Buy the book and roll your own.
Most of them are better than that, anyway.
I thought his take on A Doll's House, by Ibsen, was particularly snappy.
”Husband treats her like a doll,
Nora's just a toy, that's all.
Comes a time when Thorwald's ill –
How to pay the doctor's bill?
For his sake, but secretly,
Nora stoops to forgery;
One of Thorwald's workers knows –
“Save my job or I'll expose!”
When he learns of Nora's plight,
Thorwald reams her out of sight!
Where she hoped he might be big,
He just proved an M.C. Pig.
Wiser now, she's set to rough it;
His forgiveness? He can stuff it.
Doll no more, she hoists her jib,
Slams the door! Joins Women's Lib.
Antigone, Lolita, and The Great Gatsby are also good, and for a fifty cent library sale purchase this was okay, but if you skip it you aren't missing much.
February 16, 2008
A real time-saver and a genuine service to hew-manity!
Har-de-har-har.
"Holed up
With bunny,
Pre-teen
Acts funny,
Aberrations -
Hallucinations -
Wild Scenes -
Tarts, Queens -
Clearly, she
Needs therapy."
Har-de-har-har.
"Holed up
With bunny,
Pre-teen
Acts funny,
Aberrations -
Hallucinations -
Wild Scenes -
Tarts, Queens -
Clearly, she
Needs therapy."
January 10, 2022
It's a fun idea, but these poems aren't all that crafty. Many of them have the same cadence, and don't convey a love of the works represented.
March 22, 2019
Really funny at times, at other times obscure, if you want a laugh, read this, for sure.
December 31, 2008
To enjoy this book, you must have actually Read the books that Maurice Sagoff has "shrunk" into "Shrinklets, Seventy of the world's towering classics cut down to size". I might have preferred "Gilgamesh" to say, "Lolita", and even shrunk, "Catcher in the Rye" is still dull, but blessedly shorter.I love this book. Messers Strunk and White would have approved. Their motto was "Omit Needless Words." If you find yourself educated in Literature, these little bits are Gems, easily memorized to startle one's friends, my personal favorite is quoted in part, here:
"Beowulf"
Monster Grendel's tastes are plainish.
Breakfast? Just a couple Danish.
King of Danes if frantic, very.
Wait! Here comes the Malmö ferry
Bringing Beowulf, his neighbor,
Mighty Swinger with a saber!
Find The "ShrinkLits Book" for more.
"Beowulf"
Monster Grendel's tastes are plainish.
Breakfast? Just a couple Danish.
King of Danes if frantic, very.
Wait! Here comes the Malmö ferry
Bringing Beowulf, his neighbor,
Mighty Swinger with a saber!
Find The "ShrinkLits Book" for more.
October 18, 2015
This little book packs a huge punch with witty and pithy poems that sum up classic novels in a few brief stanzas.
January 17, 2026
Classic works of literature distilled into short poems. Like many books of this type, it claims that you don't have to read the originals, but the truth is that you won't appreciate the humor unless you have.
November 3, 2008
What if a person took the notion of a condensed book to the extreme? You'd have a copy of Shrink Lits! The author rewrites classic literature in just a few short lines of poetry. The results are hilarious.
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
Raven lurches
in perches
over door.
Query --
Where's Lenore?
Creepy bird
Knows one word:
Nevermore.
"The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe
Raven lurches
in perches
over door.
Query --
Where's Lenore?
Creepy bird
Knows one word:
Nevermore.
January 13, 2020
From: https://atkinsbookshelf.wordpress.com
"We live in the Google Era, where information comes so fast, it’s like drinking out of a fire hose. That information overload combined with the prevalence of apps like Twitter and TikTok has dramatically decreased the reader’s attention span to 144 characters or 15 seconds — whichever comes first. With that kind of an attention span, who is ever going to take the time to read literary classics. And let’s face it — some of these classics run a little long; for example, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes runs about 900 pages (containing more than 180,000 words), while Moby-Dick by Herman Melville runs about 700 pages (containing 135 chapters, and more than 209,117 words). If you read 250 words per minute, it would take about 19 hours to read Don Quixote and 14 hours to read Moby-Dick. (Incidentally, at readinglength[dot]com you can enter any book title and see how long it takes to read it based on your own reading speed). Who has that kind of time?
That’s where Maurice Sagoff’s little book, ShrinkLits comes in. Sagoff has managed to shrink 70 of the world’s most famous literary classics down to size. If you have a minute, you can read a summary of one of the classics, like Don Quixote, Moby-Dick, King Lear, or The Great Gatsby. Here is the ShrinkLit version of Melville’s magnum opus, Moby Dick.
Whale chomped Ahab’s leg in two.
“Hunt that beast! he tells his crew.
First, a welter of whaling schmooze,
Then comes Moby and hell breaks loose.
Smashup! Ahab’s drowned in brine,
Lashed to the whale by a harpoon line.
Good (symbolic) with Evil vies,
If you’d fathom it, you must rise.
"We live in the Google Era, where information comes so fast, it’s like drinking out of a fire hose. That information overload combined with the prevalence of apps like Twitter and TikTok has dramatically decreased the reader’s attention span to 144 characters or 15 seconds — whichever comes first. With that kind of an attention span, who is ever going to take the time to read literary classics. And let’s face it — some of these classics run a little long; for example, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes runs about 900 pages (containing more than 180,000 words), while Moby-Dick by Herman Melville runs about 700 pages (containing 135 chapters, and more than 209,117 words). If you read 250 words per minute, it would take about 19 hours to read Don Quixote and 14 hours to read Moby-Dick. (Incidentally, at readinglength[dot]com you can enter any book title and see how long it takes to read it based on your own reading speed). Who has that kind of time?
That’s where Maurice Sagoff’s little book, ShrinkLits comes in. Sagoff has managed to shrink 70 of the world’s most famous literary classics down to size. If you have a minute, you can read a summary of one of the classics, like Don Quixote, Moby-Dick, King Lear, or The Great Gatsby. Here is the ShrinkLit version of Melville’s magnum opus, Moby Dick.
Whale chomped Ahab’s leg in two.
“Hunt that beast! he tells his crew.
First, a welter of whaling schmooze,
Then comes Moby and hell breaks loose.
Smashup! Ahab’s drowned in brine,
Lashed to the whale by a harpoon line.
Good (symbolic) with Evil vies,
If you’d fathom it, you must rise.
February 11, 2018
"Inside every fat book is a skinny book trying to get out". That is the premise of this short book of poems that give a poetic synopsis of famous books. Some of the rhymes are quite clever but most of them fell flat for me. Admittedly I have not read many of the books that are referenced so my opinion is a bit skewed I surmise. I do rather like the author's take on Jane Eyre:
"My Love behaved
a bit erratic;
Our nuptial day
Brought truth dramatic:
He had a wife,
Mad, in an attic.
I fled! I roamed
O'er moor and ditch.
When life had struck
Its lowest pitch,
An uncle died
And left me rich.
I sought my love
Again, to find
An awful fire
His home had mined,
Kippered his wife
And left him blind.
Reader, guess what?
I married him.
My cup is filled
Up to the brim:
Now we are one
We play, we swim.
This power we share
Defies all pain:
We soar above
Life's tangled plain -
He Mr. Rochester,
Me Jane!"
"My Love behaved
a bit erratic;
Our nuptial day
Brought truth dramatic:
He had a wife,
Mad, in an attic.
I fled! I roamed
O'er moor and ditch.
When life had struck
Its lowest pitch,
An uncle died
And left me rich.
I sought my love
Again, to find
An awful fire
His home had mined,
Kippered his wife
And left him blind.
Reader, guess what?
I married him.
My cup is filled
Up to the brim:
Now we are one
We play, we swim.
This power we share
Defies all pain:
We soar above
Life's tangled plain -
He Mr. Rochester,
Me Jane!"
April 16, 2024
A small book full of small poems about famous literary works. The poems are written in witty forms and content, ranging from AABB to ABAB and other related variations(forms), as well as satire and parody(content). The works explored include well-known poems, plays, novels, philosophical, expository, argumentative and inspirational texts that have been studied worldwide. Some of these works are "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, A Doll's House, Beowulf, Oliver Twist, Common Sense, The Great Gatsby, The Communist Manifesto and Critique of Pure Reason. This book is, thus, great, not just for entertainment, but also serves as witty summaries of these works, especially for those who don't know them in full.
January 13, 2020
Amazing little book! Seventy classic works, fiction and non-fiction, each reduced to a small page of rhymes.
Jane Eyre in 30 lines, Canterbury Tales in 21, Candide in 20, The Communist Manifesto in 8.
It makes Cliffs Notes seem like a veritable tome.
Quite amusing.
Jane Eyre in 30 lines, Canterbury Tales in 21, Candide in 20, The Communist Manifesto in 8.
It makes Cliffs Notes seem like a veritable tome.
Quite amusing.
September 3, 2020
The author observes that "inside every fat book is a skinny book trying to get out," and delivers tongue-in-cheek couplets in their service. This book was published in 1980, and I was afraid that the humor would be a little dated, but no. I even laughed out loud a few times.
January 2, 2018
Amusing. Sometimes does enough to give the gist of the book. Sometimes I don't recognize a book I know well
I'd have liked a translation for the Latin
I'd have liked a translation for the Latin
August 14, 2018
This is very clever and it's illustrated. The author condenses 70 literary classics into 70 short poems. It made me smile.
July 13, 2019
This is a fun book. It takes 70 classics and pares it down to one or two small pages of verse.
I enjoyed it.
I enjoyed it.
September 14, 2020
Some of it is kind of clever, and some of it is a bit lazy. I do enjoy the illustrations.
October 23, 2020
It's a summary of famous books written in verse. It's exactly what it sounds like.
March 29, 2022
Some clever ones, but others aren’t very memorable.
Read
February 2, 2024was mentioned in le ton beau de marot so i had to check it out - it’s cute
September 11, 2020
A quaint little book that gives concise summaries of some of the classics of literature. I love the brief, fun poems that give you an idea of what each book is about. A fun, quick read!
April 6, 2024
This is one of those rare books that expanded how I view things: specifically, my other books aren't just books, but starting points for doggerel summaries. Thank you, Maurice Sagoff, for introducing this wonderful game.
----------------------------
Half the Products of Lovecraft
My great-great-grandpa was most feared:
his hostile neighbors disappeared.
Now I've inherited his books
and, quite shockingly, his looks.
Both have led to stranger things —
horrid towns and hilltop rings —
but I have followed, step by step.
Iä! Iä! Nyarlathotep!
----------------------------
Half the Products of Lovecraft
My great-great-grandpa was most feared:
his hostile neighbors disappeared.
Now I've inherited his books
and, quite shockingly, his looks.
Both have led to stranger things —
horrid towns and hilltop rings —
but I have followed, step by step.
Iä! Iä! Nyarlathotep!
May 28, 2010
[These notes were made in 1986:]. This is cute, clever, and reasonably literate. Some of the "poems" are fairly straight (tho' tongue-in-cheek) reductions of plot and situation; some also contain less-than-flattering comment on the masterworks themselves. The range is wide - everything from Beowulf to Kinsey!
March 9, 2013
Clever and sometimes genuinely funny, these are sing-song little renditions of some of the intimidating literature of the world. They are also illustrated in an engaging cartoon fashion.
As a quibble, there may be some factual errors in the poems. But actually educating one about books is presumably not the point of the volume.
As a quibble, there may be some factual errors in the poems. But actually educating one about books is presumably not the point of the volume.
November 15, 2019
I'm not sure how or where I acquired this book, but suspect it may have been a stocking stuffer one Christmas past. At any rate, I'm trying to get my reading total up for 2018 and this was one of the shorter books on my shelves, so I went with it.
The premise is interesting and the short poems creative. Yet overall I felt kind of meh about this read.
The premise is interesting and the short poems creative. Yet overall I felt kind of meh about this read.
Want to Read
January 4, 2008Will it be as excellent as The 5 Minute Iliad ? Only time will tell
March 4, 2008
I've never enjoyed Hemingway more than when "A Farewell to Arms" was just a silly little poem!
March 16, 2018
Absolutely freaking hilarious little book. Clever stuff. My favorite was "Lolita." "Effable," indeed. A scream.
January 3, 2010
This is a fantastic mini classic. It's a crash course in the literary canon.
March 26, 2010
Fun, but you do need to know the classics to fully appreciate the cleverness. And this just reminds me of how many I don't know!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews