Condensed Cliff Notes

Guys! It's been like a month! I'm sure there have been some interesting things going on! Tell us!

Meanwhile...Allison and I were bored and looking stuff up in engineering. So, we Googled "condensed cliff notes," and these are some of my favorites:

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (to the tune of the Gilligan's Island theme song)

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a voyage long,
Of pilgrims headed 'cross the land,
Nine and twenty strong.

The Knight was a most distinguished man,
The Skipper brave and sure,
The Doctor had a love for gold,
The Franklin was a whore.
The Franklin was a whore.

The travellers, they found an inn,
The Tabard was its name;
If not for the segues of the Host,
The story would be lame.
The story would be lame.

The pilgrims set out on their course,
St. Christopher they sought;
With the Wife of Bath,
The Miller too,
The Summoner,
And the Reeve,
The Pardoner, and the rest,
To Canterbury they go!

Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

The allegorically-named Goodman Brown is GOOD. But, at the protests of his allegorically-named wife Faith, he visits the devil and unwittingly becomes BAD. Then he dies.

THE END

Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville

Narrator

Bartleby, do what I tell you.

Bartleby

I would prefer not to.

(Humanity is DOOMED.)

THE END

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon

Thomas Pynchon

A screaming thing comes across the sky. It's a V-2 rocket carrying twelve thousand pounds of symbolism, and it's coming down on your poor, deluded, postmodern head.

THE END

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Bad things happen. Worse things happen. Better things happen. Awful things happen. Jurgis discovers socialism and gets all happy.

THE END

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy

History controls everything we do, so there is no point in observing individual actions. Let's examine the individual actions of over 500 characters at great length.

THE END

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Hamlet

Whine whine whine...To be or not to be...I'm dead.

THE END