Summarise a Novel in 25 Words

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Three men infatuated with one beautiful woman. Guy she ends up with is too good for her.

The Collector by John Fowles

Boy meets girl, boy imprisons girl, girl withers away. Boy meets girl...

The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason

Apocalypse Now but with Brahms instead of The Doors.

Madame Bovary

"Is the grass greener on the other side? It must be. Oh, it isn't. Time to die."

Slaughterhouse Five by Vonnegut

"Being in World War II was so bad that now I hallucinate about aliens and time travel."

Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Rural tart gets mixed up with local bounder. Dad is constantly pissed. Too upbeat? OK, I'll add a dead baby and a murder. Stonehenge. Hanging.

Man/Woman uncovers dark secret from law firm/corporation. Spends a lot of time xeroxing things.

Ok - I'm cheating. That's every John Grisham novel.

Robinson Crusoe:
Being a second son stinks, but so does being stuck on a desert island, building lots of things, and teaching a local to speak English.

"Our Bodies, Ourselves"
Touching now and proud of it.

whoops, not a novel ;)

It's alright, I did the bible.

Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth: Pass me that sock, will you? Thanks.

Portrait of a Lady

Boy loves girl. "I'm too original for you," sniffs girl. Girl proves originality by marrying gold-digging asshole. First boy stalks girl.

The Idiot by Dostoevsky

"You're an idiot," says Rogozhin. "Yes," smiles Myshkin. "I'm going to mistreat a woman now," says Rogozhin. "Unhand her, you beast!" says Myshkin. His brain fries.

I also had a prof in college who liked to summarize all of Soviet Social Realism this way:
Boy meets tractor. Boy and tractor fall in love. Boy and tractor live happily ever after.

One last, not a novel:

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs

WHOOP! Benzedrine's great Romilar's cheaper! NGK ZRRRRZSSST Noise is primal actfact of funky/tragic pullulation (cf. Velvets, 1965) ZAP! OK, what was I talking about?

John Henry Days
"You never know when someone might die, but you can always count on a writer mooching"

In the Cut.
Blowjob, observed. Hot Cop. Cop's a killer? Screw him. Then, again, again. Wait, student's obsessive. Oh. This is quite bad. I'm dead.

The Unnamable

I think therefore I am...but that's it, baby.

Brave New World

A frenzy of drugs and sex, somewhat like a frat house, only in the near future.

Middlesex:

She's a man, baby! Or is s/he?

The Rabbit Series by John Updike

Being young is better than being old. Marriage sucks. Men are assholes.

I will always be alone. I'm so filled with sickness and bitterness that i deliberately sabotaged my one chance at love. Remind you of anyone?

Dostoyevsky "Notes From Underground"

[Greek] Daylight...Been a long night and something ain't right...Head games, I don't wanna play the...Head games...[slap!]

The Magus by John Fowles (9/10ths of this, Foreigner)

Please assist me
"i would prefer not to"
tell me why
"i would prefer not to"
you used to sort dead letters...
"I am dead now"

Batleby the Scrivener

Lolita

Get there before the hair.

Lolita

If there's grass on the field, then play ball.

Naked Lunch

What an asshole. No, seriously, what an asshole!

"Religion is a delightful smorgasbord! By the way, I survived crossing the Pacific in a lifeboat with a Bengal Tiger." You gonna believe this guy?

-Life of Pi

One part Seinfeld, one part Stephen Wright, three parts Updikean WASP.

The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker

A spoiled rich southern belle is so obsessed with getting what she can’t have that she looses what she does. There’s the civil war, too.

Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther

If you're having girl problems I feel bad for you son; I got ninety-nine problems but a bitch ain't one.

hahahahaha

speaking of 99 problems (this isn't book related, sorry)

visit grey tuesday to download the grey album before emi blocks it for good. jay-z's black album mixed with the beatle's white album. v good.

back to the books...

THE MAGUS
by John Fowles

conchis shoots 85 greeks. it drives him insane. he kidnaps nicholas and fucks with his head using greek culture. nazis and penises.

INVISIBLE MAN
by Ralph Ellison

whitey sucks. DESTRUCTION!

CATCH-22
by Joseph Heller

war totally sucks. i don't want to die. i want sex. sex is good. everyone is crazy. crazy is funny. funny is tragic. JUMP!

As I Lay Dying
By William Faulkner

If only they had a hearse.

War and Peace: It's about Russia. (Woody Allen)

Les Miserables

Huge guy is bad, then becomes really good. Rescues a bunch of people. They all abandon him, but he saves more people anyway, then dies.

White Noise by Don DeLillo

Consumerism sucks. But not as much as death. Actually it's not so bad. Unlike death. Also, the art of being funny by not being funny.

Fight Club

I hate my life. Almost as much as Marla. Anarchy is liberating. No, anarchy is bad. Wait, anarchy is, I don't know. Ask me. The other me.

Last Orders by Graham Swift:

"Boy, the meat trade really fucks you up, doesn't it?"

Jane Eyre:

"Everybody who gets in my way, suffers. MWA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

The James Bond Series by Ian Fleming:

Bond only eats margerine from Fortnums. Bond wears P.J.s. Bond is good at everything. Bond feels bad about killing. Bond hates women but shags many. Author has teeny-tiny penis.

The God of Small Things

India's cool. I want to fuck my brother. My mom's lover got lynched. India's not so cool.

The Lovely Bones.

I was raped and murdered. Still, look on the bright side.

The Long Goodbye

The bastard lied to me.

Brideshead Revisited.

Rich people are cool, especially Catholic ones.

American Psycho.

Whitney Houston made me do it.

The End of The Affair.

God can be a right bastard sometimes.

City of Light by Lauren Belfer:

Boo, Grover Cleveland. Boo.

Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series

Stuff makes other stuff happen.