Twitterature

January 4, 2010
The age of Twitter has arrived, and precocious young writers Aicman and Rensin have taken it upon themselves to redo the world's most beloved literary classics for the Status Update generation. Taking the point of view of the protagonist (sometime several), the duo translate everything from The Old Man and the Sea to The Aeneid to the graphic novel Watchmen in under 2800 characters (20 "tweets" of up to 140 characters each). Splitting the focus between succinct mimicry and anachronistic wackiness (from The Great Gatsby: "Two bad drives met. :O," "Gatsby is so emo. Who cries about his girlfriend while eating breakfast... IN THE POOL?"), Aicman and Rensin can reach moments of inspired hilarity; from Oedipus: "this woman is ALL OVER ME! Total MILF." Juvenile comic asides and texting abbreviations abound ("WTF is Mercutio talking about?"), as do titter-worthy internet cultural references (from Frankenstein: "Just did a bit-torrent-style grave robbery"), though the target audience probably won't have much interest in running commentary on Goethe, no matter how clever (or brief) it is. Readers who persevere will find structured wit and classic charm that belie the authors' 19 years, making this a promising curiosity for the wired literary enthusiast.