Summer Reading
by Brendan Smith
Weirs Times Editor
Now that we have been told to “Stay At Home” for another two weeks, it is no surprise that folks are running out of things to keep them occupied.
You have played all the board games, binge watched everything, painted all the rooms in the house and have lost all or most of the friends you had before the shutdown due to ridiculous arguments on Facebook and Twitter.
Now what?
Yes, it is time to crack open a book.
I prefer some of the classics, but I have found out that some of these have been rewritten recently to reflect how our society has changed in only a matter of weeks.
For example, in the new version of the “Lord Of The Rings” Trilogy, now set in America, instead of a fictional land, Frodo Baggins and his companions set off on a journey to bring the ring to a safe place. Each book in the trilogy finds the travelers in a different U.S. state that has completed one of the three phases of reopening. Will they ever get to a place that has fulfilled all the requirements for a complete reopening, or will they find, just when they thought they were safe, that the powers that be have changed the rules again?
In “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”, the original story told of Dracula’s attempt to move from Transylvania to England so that he may find new blood and spread the undead curse. In the new version he is moving from China to Transylvania and catches the last plane before the travel embargo takes place. The ruler of Transylvania is blamed for not stopping him in time and sets up the CDC (Center for Dracula Control) who make up stuff that may or may not help with the situation.
In “Murder On The Orient Express”, Detective Hercule Poirot must find out who the killer is on a train when a passenger is found dead. In the new version, Poirot’s efforts are hindered by the fact that the room where the murder took place has to be completely sanitized with bleach and anything that may have been touched, and might now have the virus, has to be removed before Poirot is allowed to enter and investigate. Finding no clues, the book is over in two chapters.
In the new version of “Lord Of The Flies” the original story of schoolboys stranded on an island has been changed to be about adults who find themselves trapped in a grocery store when the automatic doors stop working. Half are wearing masks and the other half are without masks. Over the course of a couple of hours anarchy ensues between the two groups who are just about to come to a final, deadly confrontation, when the automatic door guy shows up just in time.
In the updated “Moby Dick”, Captain Ahab is still obsessed with having his revenge on the great white whale who took his leg, but he is having a lot of trouble trying to gather a crew for the expedition. It seems that the government’s generous unemployment package is keeping the crew at home since they are being paid more money sitting at home then they will ever make working hard on a dangerous sea journey. After 135 chapters, Ahab finally gives up and never gets back to sea to catch the whale.
The latest version of Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” has Scrooge visited on Christmas Eve by the three ghosts of the Pandemic. First the spirit of “Flattening The Curve.” Then the spirit of “We Have Flattened the Curve..Now What?” Finally, Scrooge is visited by the Spirit of “There Still Might A Couple Of Germs Out There So We’re Not Ready Yet…Just A Few More Weeks…We Think.” In this new version, Scrooge is more miserable at the end of the story than when it started.
When it was published in 1949, the classic book “1984” by George Orwell was a futuristic tale about government overreach, mass surveillance and the repression of all people within a society. The main character, Winston Smith, works at the Ministry of Truth where his job is to rewrite history on a daily basis. The new version, now called “2020” is basically the same story line, except Winston now works for a cable news network.
There are also some new versions of books for kids.
In the updated version of “The Wizard of Oz”, Dorothy is transported to Oz because of a tornado, only to find when she arrives that she must observe a 14-day quarantine. The Tin Man also needs to be wiped down and completely sanitized every quarter mile of their journey to Oz since Tin has been suspected as a place where the virus can live for days. (Of course, in later versions, that might be changed to straw.)
Some kids book have new titles as well, like “Oh, The Places You Used To Be Able To Go And May Be Allowed To Again…Maybe” and “Charlie and The Hopefully Soon To Be Reopened Chocolate Factory That Is Close To Going Out Of Business.”
So, there you have it, I hope some of these books help you pass the time. Heck, you can even bring them to the beach now, though it may be a little difficult to read since you can’t sit down in the sand yet.
BrendanTSmith.com
