The Five Minute Iliad Other Instant Classics

Great Books for the Short Attention Span

By: Greg Nagan

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Paperback | 28 August 2000

At a Glance

Paperback
224 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
22.15 x 13.77 x 1.32

Paperback

$37.35

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Was Homer really blind, or was that just his shtick? Was Dante a righty or a lefty? Why aren't there any pictures of Jane Austen in a bikini? What made Oscar so Wilde? How much did Hemingway? These are just some of the many great questions of Western literature ignored in this book.
From the author of A Prairie Home Companion's beloved "Five-Minute Classics" comes The Five-Minute Iliad and Other Instant Classics, a witty and profane lampoon of the Western literary canon -- the Spinal Tap of literature.
"I will never write such wordy trash again," Leo Tolstoy said of War and Peace after reading Homer in the original Greek. Tolstoy's pledge inspired humorist Greg Nagan to whet his double-edged verbal sword and offer this gleefully twisted take on what contemporary readings of the Great Books say about our society today.
From The Iliad to On the Road, these fifteen parodies provide a riotous romp through Western civilization (one version of it, anyway) from Homer to Kerouac, from Ancient Greece to Postwar America, from the Lyrical Epic to the Breathless Gush. Nagan's mirthful mayhem will delight those who've read the Great Books, and those who haven't read them will find these literary caricatures entertaining in their own right.

Industry Reviews

Garrison Keillor Funny and well done....America wants comedy that is both gentle and weird, and these are qualities Mr. Nagan possesses.

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Comedy & Humour Parodies & Spoofs Fiction Modern & Contemporary Fiction

Author's Introduction: Why Read the Great Books?
The Five-Minute History of Western Civ
The Iliadby Homer
The Divine Comedy:Part I,Inferno
Paradise Lost
Sense and Sensibility
A Christmas Carol
Moby-Dick
Crime and Punishment
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Dracula
The Metamorphosis
Ulysses
1984
The Catcher in the Rye
The Old Man and the Sea
On the Road
Acknowledgments
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

The Five Minute Iliad Other Instant Classics

Great Books for the Short Attention Span

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

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