Novel Reading

I just finished reading Jincy Willett’s The Writing Class, where the protagonist has a blog subtitled A Solipsist’s Commonplace Book of Lists. One of the lists that she decides to start on this blog is that of hybrid novels. If you are an avid reader, like me, these titles might amuse you.

Pages 45-46
Call of the Wild Duck
A plucky dog survives life in the frozen Klondike with the help of a symbolic duck.

Old Man Riverdance
Paul Robeson is kicked to death by stampeding robots.

The Runaway Bunny Jury
Desperate jurors avoid being profiled by ingeniously disguising themselves as birds, flowers, boats, rocks, and fish.

Page 72:
The Bell Jarhead
We are at war with terrorism, racism, and clinically depressed adolescents.

Gone With the Windows for Dummies
Starting the Civil War; Customizing Your Decimated Plantation; That Scary General Sherman.

Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot the Piano Player
A dimwitted cop meets a timid musician with a mysterious past, and together they push Estelle Getty out a window.

Page 139:
Little Women Who Run With the Wolves
…try valiantly but can’t keep up, which is probably just as well.

The Scarsdale Diet of Worms
Drastic weight loss through unrecanted heresy.

Suddenly Last Summa Theologica
The prolonged agony and hideous death of an effete young man at the hands of ravenous street urchins brilliantly sums up all that can be understood of Christian theology.

Beast in the Jungle Book
On his deathbed, Mowgli is horrified to realize that he has wasted his entire life in the damn jungle.

National Blue Velvet
Dennis Hopper does something unspeakable with Elizabeth Taylor’s ear.

Jurassic Mansfield Park
Fanny and Edmund avert their eyes while Mary and Henry Crawford are slaughtered by velociraptors.

20,000 Bottles of Beer Under the Sea
Al Gore attempts to befriend a giant squid. A struggle ensues.

Page 220:
The Martian Chronicles of Narnia
The Lion, the Witch, and Ylla K.

Gentle Ben Hur
Thrill to the heartwarming saga of a 600 lb. brown bear who befriends a lonely young boy, wins a chariot race, and witnesses the crucifixion of Christ.

I was curious, so I did some research. Apparently the author did something similar in “real life” (the link is here). Her contributors had some equally as humorous suggestions. My favorites?

Of Mighty Mice and X-Men
A retarded super-hero saves a petting zoo from alien attack.–Tom Hartley

Lord of the Rings of the Nibelung
Hobbits sing themselves to death.–Tom Hartley

Hey Jude the Obscure
Take a sad song and make it into a tale of deception, despair, and dead babies. –Stephen Meyer

Hey, what can I say? It's Friday and I'm very easily amused.