# Post disrespectful summaries of well-regarded works you don't like **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 8, 2009, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076 "2009-06-08T07:04:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/21 "2009-06-08T21:53:40Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#): > > Han Solo would be, but then isn’t he the smarmy crook? Wait, Han was a deserter, as well? Did that come up in any of the movies? The first, specifically? Or is it from the secondary canon? Like I said, I was referring to Obi-Wan, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/22 "2009-06-08T22:47:18Z")
Everything ever belched out by incontinent sentence scribblerr Jane Austen. This is a young woman. She isn’t married. Oh look, there’s a young man nearby (soldier, visitor, friend, whatever) who isn’t married either. It’s desperately important that they end up together. Let’s have a ball! Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk about nothing at all, in sentences unlike anything resembling real speech either then or now, that can fill entire paragraphs. Marriage, the end. Sorry, I want to be an author but as I’ve done nothing with my life except sit here in this small house, have never been anywhere or met anyone with a different experience of life, this is literally all I can write about. And I just don’t have the wit, passion, imagination or talent to turn out a true masterpiece like ‘Wuthering Heights’. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/23 "2009-06-08T22:49:59Z")
**24** Torture is almost always necessary, it will invariably lead to positive results, and the guy doing the torturing is probably the good guy. **Dexter** Capital punishment is wrong when the government’s in charge, but it’s cool when a freelancer does it. **Defiance** Note to European Jews who did not survive WWII: You have no one to blame but yourselves. You shoulda fought harder, pussies! ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/24 "2009-06-08T22:52:51Z")
Anything by Charles Bukowski: Drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, drink, vomit, drink, drink, vomit, sex with vomit-streaked drunk women, drink, diarrhea, drink, vomit, drink, drink, gamble, drink, diarrhea, drink, vomit. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/25 "2009-06-08T22:59:33Z")
_Star Trek_ is a science-fiction television show and movie franchise that has appeared in a number of variations. No matter the variation, it involves some sort of space vessel, whose crew has adventures while travelling through space, often involving interactions with a number of aliens. Sometimes, crew members who aren’t terribly important die in these encounters. More rarely, important crew members die. All in all, it’s not much different from those old TV westerns featuring something like a wagon train travelling somewhere, and the people on it. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2009, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/26 "2009-06-08T23:13:06Z")
**The Great Gatsby** Only one girl can give me a boner so I must find her or lose my boner forever. OOO blinking lights! **Schindler’s List** Its in black and white. Only good movies are in black and white. **The Godfather** The Mafia is mean, but here’s why: daddy issues **The Mona Lisa** Its just some chick ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/27 "2009-06-09T00:31:54Z")
**The Godfather** I’m a murderous criminal and I have to make hard decisions…oh my god who ever would have guessed! **The Shawshank Redemption** I’m a white collar nerd that’s been sent to jail and I’m being bullied…oh my god who ever would have guessed! **Deliverance** I’m an obnoxious city guy and I go up to hicksville and make fun of the hicks and they come get revenge…oh my god who ever would have guessed! A fictional accounting of the obvious as portrayed with no particular storyline beyond a linear account of the obvious is not edgy and deep. I’m sorry. ---
**Author:** ![Leiko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Leiko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leiko)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/28 "2009-06-09T00:42:23Z")
> [@Tengu](#): > > Wait, Han was a deserter, as well? Did that come up in any of the movies? The first, specifically? Or is it from the secondary canon? > > Like I said, I was referring to Obi-Wan, anyway. I think it’s all secondary canon, but I could be wrong- the Wookieepedia doesn’t cite nearly enough in its articles. In short, Han Solo was kicked out of whatever branch of the Imperial military he was with because he refused to kill Chewbacca, which is why Chewbacca owes him a life debt. [Wookieepedia](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Han_Solo) has more detail. So, not a deserter, but discharged. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/29 "2009-06-09T03:49:04Z")
The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Just kill yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Woodhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Miss\_Woodhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Woodhouse)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/30 "2009-06-09T04:02:19Z")
Wuthering Heights: Two selfish people manage to completely screw up their own lives and the lives of everyone around them because they are so hell bent on purposely trying to hurt the other person before he/she hurts him/her. It must be a masterpiece because it’s tortured! and sad! and there’s hubris! (don’t mess with Austen. 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/31 "2009-06-09T04:12:14Z")
> [@ianzin](#): > > …And I just don’t have the wit, passion, imagination or talent to turn out a true masterpiece like ‘Wuthering Heights’. _head asplodes_ I don’t know if I can do proper justice to ‘Wuthering Heights’, since it’s a while since I suffered through it. But I think it goes something like this: Mr Earnshaw has a gloomy depressing life, and dies. Hindley has a gloomy depressing life and dies. Cathy has a gloomy depressing life and dies. Isabella has a gloomy depressing life and dies. Edgar has a gloomy depressing life and dies. Linton has a gloomy depressing life and dies. Heathcliff has a gloomy depressing life, goes mad, and dies. ETA: Snap! ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/32 "2009-06-09T04:23:15Z")
**One Hundred Years of Solitude** Hidden in dense and lovely poetic passages are five generations of characters who all have the same name. Things may or may not have happened to them. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/33 "2009-06-09T04:28:21Z")
**What Dreams May Come** Being dead is great! You get to live in a pretty garden, and all your character flaws magically disappear. Because you live in a pretty garden! And you can fly and change what you look like and cool stuff. Oh, unless you killed yourself - then it’s straight to Hell for you. Or maybe not. But anyway, just think, if Hitler and Goering had had the sense to wait around for the hangman, they could be here too! Eternal misery for a few million clinically depressed folk is a small price to pay, don’t you think? ---
**Author:** ![StuffLikeThatThere](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc8723/32.png) [@StuffLikeThatThere](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StuffLikeThatThere)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/34 "2009-06-09T04:30:19Z")
**The Awakening** Self-absorbed spoiled ridiculous rich woman whines about her life and then ends it. Only book I ever threw. Bah. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/35 "2009-06-09T04:33:03Z")
> [@featherlou](#): > > Any Shakespeare play: > A bunch of people in weird clothes speaking weird English do stuff. Misunderstandings happen. There’s a swordfight. Everyone lives happily everafter (comedy)/everybody dies (tragedy). The end. I’m unsure why, but this reminded me of a joke that was making the rounds when I studied Russian literature. It concerned the basic plots of various national literatures: Any British novel: Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy meets girl again. They get married and live happily ever after. Any French novel: Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy takes mistress. Everybody lives happily ever after. Any Russian novel: Boy meets girl, and the boy and the girl agonize about it for 900 pages. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/36 "2009-06-09T09:45:12Z")
> [@Miss\_Woodhouse](#): > > (don’t mess with Austen.) Or else… _what_, exactly? Are you going to talk at me for 37 pages about the arrangements for the dance and why Man X absolutely _must_ be invited? Yeah, I’m scared. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/37 "2009-06-09T09:54:32Z")
**Sphere** : Oh look guys, a perfect sphere, how could it have gotten there ? It’s an alien. You went into the sphere. No you. NO YOU ! Umm… guys ? Think for a second. Damn, you’re right, we’re screwed. INCOHERENT DEUS EX MACHINA ! ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/38 "2009-06-09T10:03:48Z")
Actually, \*\*Ianzin \*\*I think you can describe pretty much all 19th C English literature like this: “A bunch of characters discuss various aspects of marrying into money”. Honestly, you can pick up any novel off Mrs P’s bedside table (which will invariably 19th C and English) and open at any page and the conversation will be about who is/is not marrying who, and what the financial implications are. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/39 "2009-06-09T11:15:15Z")
**The Princess Bride** : A story presented as a “the good parts version” of another work, that is ironically spoiled by exposure to its own “the good parts version” in the form of pop culture. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2009, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076/40 "2009-06-09T15:31:05Z")
**Macbeth** Witches: You’ll be king! Until the woods move up to the castle! No man of woman born can kill you! Audience: So a woman could. Or a bear. Or lightning. Or a fall off a cliff. Or… Macbeth’s wife: Kill Duncan! Macbeth: OK. Macduff: Hey - I have a great idea! Let’s carry these woods uphill to attack! Macduff’s army: Why? Macduff: It will conceal our number! Audience: _groans_ Macbeth: Is that ten guys, or five thousand? I can’t tell for the shrubbery! Macduff: I’m gonna kill you! Macbeth: Can’t. No man ‘of woman born’ can kill me. Macduff: I was a c-section. Macbeth/Audience: That totally counts! You couldn’t even bring some dogs to kill me/him? You suck! Macduff sticks Macbeth. Macbeth: Total bullshit. _dies_ Moral: Witches lie. Witches aren’t even real. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-disrespectful-summaries-of-well-regarded-works-you-dont-like/499076.md?page=3)