What does Veeky Forums think of abridged books?

you're complaining about detail in two works of non-fiction

get a grip dude

this is the most cancerous image i have ever seen on Veeky Forums.

>war and peace
>everyone is sad. it snows.
how about
>war and peace
>man writes transcendant literature which describes the complex facets of humanity through a large (but not as large as is memed) cast of characters.
was he thinking of anna karenina?

>moby dick
how about
>man vs. god. god wins

everybody is just so lazy w/r/t reading books today, myself included. at least i have the good sense to be disgusted.

I don't understand why anyone would want that book to be shorter. It's incredibly entertaining and readable.

I read an abridged Les Miserables in 7th grade
and by "read" I mean I did a close skimming of it and convinced myself I was this badass speedreader
my dumb fucking parents thought I was so smart LOL

this.

and why doesn't dilbert talk deeply about his existential angst in the monotony of the modern workplace while referencing camus?

why doesn't garfield dispute the arguments against hedonism?

why doesn't calvin discuss the social relativity that permeates the world of mental health and the possible benefits of schizophrenia?

In general, they're okay of you're not used to heavy literature, I guess. But then it would be better to start with smaller, easier to digest books and progress to bigger, more complex ones later.

Don't read an abridged Moby Dick, tough. The world building is important and well written, and I imagine that's the first thing that'll be chopped. Can't say for Ulysses.

Chill out, dude. It's meant to be comical, not an actual summary. Don't get triggered.

Pretty much the only part of the iliad I'd argue is skippable is the ship catalog, but that literally only happens once and there's no fucking reason to abridge it, you can just skip over it if you don't want to read it.

>I plan on tackling some longer books this summer including Moby Dick and Don Quixote
Where does this "Moby Dick is a doorstop" meme come from? It's not even that long, and abridging it is royally fucking stupid.

Honestly abridgement in general is dumb. Even if you feel like you're only cutting "unimportant" things, you're still altering the work, and almost always that results in a difference in interpretation. Like, while the ship cataloging is boring to read in the Iliad (for modern readers at least), it helps set the mood of the historical context from which the Iliad was performed in.

You could more accurately put W&P as Tolstoy's thoughts on the forces that move history and the nature of personal freedom.
It's not even comical because of the artist's poor conception of what those novels are since he clearly didn't read them. arguably it requires more understanding to make a joke about a work than a summary.

calvin does ramble philosophic precociously—it's just undercut by a one-liner by hobbes. their names are calvin and hobbes, for christ's sake; of course they talk religion and philosophy.

>whence cometh this "moby dick is a doorstop" meme?
three words: nautical technical chapters

thats a meme. theres hardly any of those chapters and theyre at most 10 pages. the whole book is like 500 pages. its a novel, not a doorstopper

I'm reading Monte Cristo right now. I'm at the part where the Count is about to watch an execution with Franz and Albert before Carnival.

I feel like ever since the resolution with M. Morrel ten years prior that there's been a lot of fluff. Am I wrong?

I liked the backstory about Luigi Vampa, though. That stuff was choice. Are they going anywhere with all of this Franz/Albert shit?

>why doesn't garfield dispute the arguments against hedonism?

But it does.