When Falls the Coliseum » Classics of literature — titles starting with definite articles (#1)

Classics of literature — titles starting with definite articles (#1)

Posted on November 3rd, 2010 by Mark A. Rayner

If you have ever watched the Rocky & Bullwinkle show, you may remember their fractured fairy tales. Here are a few short (fractured) reviews to help you decide which classics to read.

The Odyssey
The Odyssey is a story about a homicidal maniac (Odysseus) who refuses to ask for directions. This tragic flaw, shared by many men, leads his crew to disaster. Some are eaten by monsters, some are eaten by their crew-mates, and some finally get fed up with this cruise from hell (literally at one point), and take a flight back to Greece on their own.

Finally, Odysseus returns home, and is shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that after a 20-year absence, his wife is entertaining the possibility of remarrying.

Bloody hi-jinks ensue.

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again
This is another tale of vacations gone awry. Bilbo Baggins is a wealthy hobbit who hires Gandalf Travel to take him on a grand tour of Middle Earth.

But Gandalf plays a little bait-and-switch on Bilbo, and our hero soon discovers that it will not be Gandalf leading the tour, but a cadre of fat, venal and mentally challenged Dwarves. Even worse, he is expected to do most of the work himself. Though he finds the experience trying, Bilbo discovers hidden reserves of talent, bravery and pluck.

Everything goes well until Bilbo inadvertently starts a race war.

The Stranger
I read this originally in French class, sometime during my storied high school career. Most of this famous existential work was read aloud in class, by a collection of students with a wide variety of accents and grasp of the French language. If I remember correctly, Lorne’s delivery was hilarious, but that might have been because he was pretending he was Soupy the Clown.

Despite the fact that I was doing poorly in this class, I was secretly in love with my French teacher. (A fact I only now reveal for comic effect, but back then I would have been mortified if the world had known.)

The novel is about the farcical nature of French justice, and the benefits of not washing.