Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized that like most books, it had too many words. The plot was the same one that
all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but
James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive
women. There, that's it: 24 words. But the guy who wrote the book took
thousands of words to say it.
Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's about these two brothers who kill their father.
Or maybe only one of them kills the father. It's impossible to tell because what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages. If all Russians talk as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a
major world power.
I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise
the question of whether there is a God. So why didn't he just come right
out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me."
Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words:
* "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize
nature and will kill you.
* "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy.
There's a song from Mecano. Two lines always hit me. I will try to translate it.
And while Earth was trowing a giant party
where happiness mixes tears in the champagne
Laika just was looking out the window
What could be that giant colored ball?
And why do I keep spinning it around?
Akino Arai also had a haunting song about the Sputnik 2 mission as a metaphor for a breakup.
Translation:
With enough air and water for seven days
And someone's uncompromising wishes
The laika dog on Sputnik
Doors which will never again open now close
To think that I must go on living
In some distant place unfamiliar to you
That we can never feel the same things
In the Czech Republic, they have an oldie 50s style rock tune based on "Rock Around the Clock", with lyrics mentioning the Laika.
Sovětští mužici Those Soviet chaps
vypustili družici Let out a satellite
Lajku do ní nacpali They stuffed Laika into it
a nažrat jí nedali. Not giving her anything to eat
Na kytaru trsaj rock'n'roll. Strum rock'n'roll on your guitar
Lajka letí k Měsíci Lajka's flying to the Moon
hlady žere družici Eating the satellite out of hunger
Lajka volá SOS Lajka's calling "SOS"
ať tu chcípne jinej pes! "Let another dog croak here!"
Na kytaru trsaj rock'n'roll. Strum ...
The Prague Spring events put a damper on this kind of thing.
Well, anyway, I was reading this James Bond book, and right away I realized that like most books, it had too many words. The plot was the same one that all James Bond books have: An evil person tries to blow up the world, but James Bond kills him and his henchmen and makes love to several attractive women. There, that's it: 24 words. But the guy who wrote the book took thousands of words to say it.
Or consider "The Brothers Karamazov", by the famous Russian alcoholic Fyodor Dostoyevsky. It's about these two brothers who kill their father.
Or maybe only one of them kills the father. It's impossible to tell because what they mostly do is talk for nearly a thousand pages. If all Russians talk as much as the Karamazovs did, I don't see how they found time to become a major world power.
I'm told that Dostoyevsky wrote "The Brothers Karamazov" to raise the question of whether there is a God. So why didn't he just come right out and say: "Is there a God? It sure beats the heck out of me."
Other famous works could easily have been summarized in a few words:
* "Moby Dick" -- Don't mess around with large whales because they symbolize nature and will kill you.
* "A Tale of Two Cities" -- French people are crazy.