Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook

By Sarah Schmelling

Book Overview

Following everyone from Frankenstein's Monster to King Lear's Fool, Charles Dickens to Virginia Woolf, this is a loving spoof of our literary favorites, and a hilarious collection for a twenty-first century generation of readers. Long live the Classics: 2.0

When humorist Sarah Schmelling transformed Hamlet into a Facebook news feed on McSweeney's, it launched the next big humor trend--Facebook lit. In this world, the king "pokes" the queen, Hamlet becomes a fan of daggers, and Ophelia renounces her interest in moody princes. Now, what began as an internet phenomenon is a book.

Ophelia Joined The Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook is a clever spoof of the most-trafficked social networking website and a playful game of literary who's who. The book brings more than fifty authors and stories from classic literature back to life and online, and it is sure to have book lovers and Facebook addicts alike twittering with joy.

From The Odyssey to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Pride and Prejudice to Lolita, Schmelling brings the conventions of social networking--profile pages, status updates, news feeds, games and quizzes--to some of literature's most well-known works, authors and characters.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0452295734
• ISBN13: 9780452295735
• Release Date: August 2009
• Publisher: Penguin Adult Hc/Tr
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.0" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Absolutely inspired, and great fun

This is a highly entertaining collection of Facebook updates from characters of the a number of the classics, including Wuthering Heights, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, the eponymous Ophelia and co. from Hamlet, and Dracula, who can't work out why Buffy, Edward Cullen, Bella Swan and the Sesame Street Count would be "People He May Know" or how to get the vampire application to work. It's an affectionate parody of the works themselves, as well as the conventions and idiosyncrasies of Facebook itself. As S. McGee notes, this is not necessarily a "read from cover to cover" book; you can, but it's just as much fun, if not more, to dip into chapters at random. Very funny and extremely clever - I wish I'd thought of it myself.

What a fun read.

The perfect type of book for lit nerds, English majors, or people who were forced to read all of these classics in school. I absolutely recommend it.

ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!

This is the funniest, smartest book I have read all summer! I recommend it heartily!

S. McGee Joined the Group Fans of Classics-Gone-Facebook

Jane Austen says it is a truth universally acknowledged that in the depths of a recession, people need something to laugh about. Elizbeth Bennet posted a comment: OK, Jane, but did you HAVE to tell the world about all those ridiculous gifts Mr. Collins sent me, especially that Chai Cream Frappucino? (And what is that, anyway?) William Shakespeare (through the best efforts of author Sarah Schmelling) has founded the Classics-Gone-Facebook Network. Miss Havisham, Humbert Humbert, Dr. Jekyll and Beowulf joined the network. Scrooge joined the network, but is rejecting friend requests. Huck Finn, Oscar Wilde and Ernest (call me "Papa") Hemingway have joined the network. Sarah Schmelling reports that Jane Austen is now friends with Helen Fielding, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, and 4,534 others, and is still wondering who all these people are and why they are all forming clubs to discuss her books. If I were one iota as clever and witty as Sarah Schmelling, I would try to write this review in the same Facebook style that Schmelling has used to celebrate and poke fun at her favorite literary figures (both authors and characters) as well as to settle scores with those she could live without. (To his disgust, Humbert's admin blocks his account for his yearnings over Lolita, while still allowing Lady Chatterley and the gamekeeper to continue with their antics.) I know my limitations, and will have to stick to the traditional format, however... Schmelling's first stab at turning literature into Facebook feeds was a hilarious reinterpretation of Hamlet that 'went viral' on the Internet a year or more ago. (The book's title comes from that.) From the moment when "Ophelia removed "moody princes" from her interests", I was hooked, and laughed so loud that I ended up with a severe case of hiccups that took at least an hour to cure. So I was delighted to learn that she was taking her talents to a wider stage and tackling a larger array of literary targets, and snapped up the book at the first possible opportunity. The result is clever in a smart way -- the kind of humor that feels more and more hard to find these days. It's likely to appeal to everyone from die-hard Shakespeare fans (Imogen wonders if she's trapped in a 'problem play') to those who all-too-vividly recall their losing battles with great works of literature in high school. (Odysseus adds 'Homeward Bound' his playlist, while Romeo misses out on a crucial personal message from Friar Lawrence, with unfortunate consequences.) Facebook itself doesn't escape a deft skewering at Schmelling's hands, as she creates an ersatz FB-style quiz, "Which Dystopia Are You In: 1984, Brave New World, or Social Media?" This is a great book to dip into when you need a laugh, and it's the first to really spoof the whole social networking phenomenon, with the proliferation of not-always-friendly 'friends', offbeat lists of "25 things about me" (Darcy, we learn, is fed up with being an arch

Fun for Smart People

This is, to my knowledge, the first book that uses the conventions of social networking to create a clever entertainment. All the great writers and literary figures of the canon--from Holden Caulfield to Chaucer's Pilgrims--have their own Facebook pages. They preen, complain, challenge each other and otherwise connect in hilariously literate ways. It's original and full of sophisticated humor--fun for smart people.