The Guardian Slams Twitterature
emember that post from a few days in which I mentioned Twitterature? You know, the *ahem* brilliant idea that two U of C freshman came up with to turn classic novels into Twitterature (i.e. reiterate the story in 20 tweets or less)? Well, Michelle Pauli at The Guardian recently posted a short article in which she denounces their idea as unoriginal and criticizes their site for lacking any examples of their work. I must agree; their site, as it stands, is pretty bad. Further, not only is their idea unoriginal, but this whole things smacks of a terrible scheme to make a buck without putting in too much effort. Personally, I’d rather read a work of original literature than a remake by a college student trying to make a buck. Bravo, Ms. Pauli.
¶ Discussion (4)
2010, February 5
Just now saw this. It’s quite inaccurate. First, the Guardian “slam” was posted in June 2009, when Twitterature was first announced. The book wasn’t published until November in the UK and December in the US. So Ms Pauli couldn’t know what she was talking about, as there wasn’t a book to read. The site, as it was, was clearly marked as a holding place for an updated site — which now has a few examples of Twitterature (though not so much as to make buying the book moot; one need not apologize for wanting to make a little money from having intelligent fun), and it has been since totally redesigned. There’s also a long list of the overwhelmingly positive press the book’s received. Ms Pauli’s comments smack of absolute certainty in the absolute absence of fact. And you simply passed on the misinformation. Now, you may read the book and not like it; that’s fine. But much effort was put into the book, like the authors having read all but one of the 81 books they repurposed using the twitter haiku. Bottom line: this is a humor book. It doesn’t threaten our literary canon. And anyone who can’t see that, well … just takes themself way too seriously.
PS: While slamming a very orginal idea, Ms Pauli, in the same breath, solicits more of the same, asking readers to submit their attempts at twitterature. Eating one’s cake and having it, too? Precisely.
2010, February 5
Any time Penguin wants to pay me that much money to summarize books I may or may not have read, I’d be more than willing and I’m probably equally as clever as both of those guys.
2010, February 6
[...] You can read my original post about it here. [...]
2010, February 6
Thanks for your comments, Bob. I found that I had a lot to say in response. You can see my post about it here: http://publishchicago.com/2010/02/06/this-time-im-slamming-twitterature/