When I was a lad in college, we had an assignment that went over very well. We were to take a few sentences from one author and rewrite them in the style of another. It taught us something about the nature of composition or some such. Here's an example, and I beg the denizens of this fine community to contribute.

JRR Tolkien as written by Hunter S. Thompson, from The Hobbit

Gandalf moved over the hill, his nerves at the breaking point, dreading the final confrontation with the lightweight hobbit who had too much power over him. "Good morning," he said, feeling the scratch of too many vodka martinis finally catching up with him.

Bilbo was a low-rent punk...living on the edge since he was old enough to walk. He'd been up all night drinking Singapore slings with the Gamgees, and his eyeballs felt like twin beavers about ready to build a dam between his ears. "Good morning," he said, stuffing his pipe again, grasping at straws to calm him down, wondering whether the Gamgee boy had run off with his twenty dollars.

The old wizard swatted absently at a hallucination, trying his damnedest to focus on the diminutive little prick who'd probably been out all night buggering the local schoolchildren. "Look," he said, "pay attention. This is important. I need you to go over these mountains, see, and do something about this dragon. He's a dragon for fuck's sake. Been tormenting the land about the mountain for years; time he cashed his check. Are you willing? Have you got the nerves?"

Bilbo's first sane thought was, what's in it for me? But his inborn greed and instinct for self-preservation won out, coupled with delirious dreams of what might be if he winged it across desert miles with an expense account and a wizard in his pocket. He said, "You'll provide the dwarves, of course. And I'll need mescaline, lots of it...."

Break of Day by John Donne, as written by Son House.

I woke up this mornin'
with you in my bed
I woke up this mornin'
ya, on my shoulder was yo' head
Oh, I woke up this mornin'!
You was lookin' so sweet
but that 'larm clock went off
and you jumped up onto your feet
Man, I gots the breakin' day blues

I'll tell ya baby
that the dark don't put me to bed
so could you tell me
why the day fills me with dread
ohhhh... the dark don't put me to bed
but man, oh man, the day fills me with dread
I'm tellin' ya, the night's not why I go to bed
but I'm scared of the day
cuz of the things the light has said
I got the breakin' day blues

I know when the sun comes up, you're gonna leave me, Mamma
Sure as light to day
when the sun comes up you leave Ahhhh!!!
sure as the light to day
You work so hard honey
I just don't know what to say
Ya! Ya! Ya!
Ahhh... I got the breakin' day blues...

I woke up this mornin'
I put on my shoes
Don't know what to tell ya
I got the walkin' man's blues...

Melville's Moby Dick, as interpreted by Dr. Seuss

Ishmael, Ishmael is my name!
Ask me again and I'll tell you the same!
Once I was bored and broke as can be
So for some fun I set off to sea.
I do this when I can't find my smile
Because it helps to clear my head for a while.

Over here, over there -
People, people everywhere!
People clogging up the docks
Or in stores buying clocks.
They fill the streets and every house -
There's hardly room for a mouse!

Why do they crowd this seaside town?
Many can't swim. Will they drown?
The ocean is what draws them here,
The life of the water holds them dear.
Near the surf which meets the sand
These people choose to live on dry land.

I go to sea as a sailor -
Not as a butcher, a cook or a tailor.
The captain says to swab the deck,
To do it right because he'll check.
To be a sailor you must be strong -
The work is hard and the nights are long.
The Hobbit,by J.R.R. Tolkien, as written by james joyce.

once up on a time there was a magicman coming down the road and very nice magicman it was too and it came across little bilbo in the middle of the road and sat down. Hello little bilbo it said with a sigh all ticketyboo and then it proceeded to tell him a story, a long story, with dwarves and hobbits and orcs and trolls and gold in it lots of gold, and the hobbit was entranced with the vision of the sight of the magicman and the gesticulating and the ring with the words and the gold.

then not much happened for a time a small time a yabba-dabba-doo time.

when it was later there was a green person small and green yes green preciousssss and he wanted the ticketyboo ring to-whit that the hobbitses had in its pocketses. but the magicman had told little hobbo bilbo that it was the ring the one ring yesss and the green persons didn't gets it, precious, magic, kazam, bippityboppityboo.

then much much time past time passed time passè-d with the words talking the words talking in small fast rhymes that suddenly he was too dizzy to read so he began to think about the rivers and the barrels and the waters as he did so and it went something like this in his head

the rivers of the middleearth flow, they flow all of them into places and from places and through mountains and moria and hills and elendil and all and beneath the two true towers, the blue towers. thirteen rivers meet at fifteen points and exchange seventeen million gallonses of water, of water, and they all must meet for there is one ring, one ring to find them, one ring one ring not two not bracelets luv but one ring. then they meet near the land of the brown who was a necromancer, or the necromancer who was brown until he went bad, and there was one for mortal men doomed to die but some for the dwarven king in his halls of stone of stone yes stone like all was built but the ents could break the stone HOOM and when they did the water came rushing through in rivulets streams and rills.

one ring to find them. the hobbitses needed a good pint by now he did yes sir, and naturally near the rivers (from the lakes with the barrels) there was a fine pub a good tavern must've been old butterburs, yes, that's right, and

there was a dragon in the story boys and girls a big worm a wyrm with a brain and infravision which later went on to be a staple of ad and d yes. the story tells of how he went up to the dragon then the hobbit did

what a fine dragon you must be my goodness magnificent

and the dragon said why yes who goes there that's very perceptive of you little thief and where are you and it turned its glowing eyes to him

but the hobbit was quick and slick and invisible (quite a trick) and then he had some gold a little gold and Sting and a small mail and gold and the Wyrm came after them but the chink was there and the black arrow flew and

IN THE DARKNESS BIND THEM.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, as written by Ernest Hemingway (or is it Raymond Chandler?):

The Vogon Captain barked out his poem. Art had heard worse. The Babel Fish squirmed in Art's ear. Ford had passed out next to him.

Art propped himself up on one elbow. He pulled a fine Havana cigar out of his pocket. He borrowed the guard's blaster and lit it.

The guard shouted "HEY, DON'T MESS WITH THAT! THAT'S MY BLASTER!"
The Captain broke off his poem suddenly. "You do not seem to understand the situation you are in", the Captain said. "I am reading you a poem."

Art had heard an accent like the Captain's from some Hungarian tourists on his trip to Greece. Good fishing in Greece.

"I've heard worse."

The Captain's face suddenly turned bright green. He must be getting angry.

"Are you telling me my poem is bad?"

Art exhaled a cloud of fine Havana smoke into the Captain's face. It turned greener still.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"I'll give you one last chance. Did you like my poem?"

"I've heard worse."

"Guard! Throw these scum out of the airlock!"

The Guard picked Art up under one arm. He tucked Ford under the other.

"RESISTANCE IS USELESS!" The guard shouted as he carried Art and Ford out the door towards the airlock.

"I'M SORRY I HAVE TO DO THIS TO YOU, MR. DENT. BUT I HAVE TO DO MY DUTY. MY GRANDFATHER WOULD BE DISAPPOINTED IN ME IF I DIDN'T".

"I understand. A man has to do what a man has to do." What a wimp thought Art.
Charles Darwin, as written by H.P. Lovecraft, from The Origin of the Species.

If, in the unimaginable length of time since the formation of this, our unknowable and limitless universe, there has been accidental and sometimes horrifying changes in the forms of the many and varied creatures which roam our planet; if there is, as cannot be argued against, a constant and unending struggle amongst the creatures on our planet for their very survival (be they shuggoth or Arkham professor); then, considering the unimaginably vast and unknowable relations that creatures of our planet have with each other, it seems highly unlikely that there never would at some point be a subtle, possibly infinitesimal, variation in the character of a creature which dwells upon our world that would unimaginably help the individual creature.

If this is the truth, as unknowably as that difficult to describe phenomenon is known, then it is highly probable that such a variation might assist the creature in finding a mate and procreating, possibly in some dark and unimaginable hole in the earth, and thus through the principle of inheritance it would be passed on to its small, squirming offspring. This principle, in the interests of keeping the term which I shall use to describe it brief, I have decided to call by the highly logical and understandable name of "Natural Selection".
From pg. 127 of the First Edition.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens as written by Raymond Chandler.

It shook me, I have to admit it, I mean it isn't every day you see a dame go up in smoke.

Okay, so she was no angel, she'd made a patsy out of me, and I bet she laughed her skinny ass off when I was sap enough to fall for her scam. Okay, the way she screwed up Estella's life was as twisted and evil as anything you'll find lying in the gutter at 3am on a Sunday morning, but Jesus, nobody deserves that.

And all because of some man. Some low-down, cheating, lying, thieving, piece of scum, who took an innocent babe's dreams and wiped his slimy feet all over them.

If I was a crying man, I'd weep right now.

But there's no tears for Phillip Pirrip. Instead, I light a cigarette, turn my back on the wreck of the house and give Estella the up and down. She's not the looker she used to be, for sure, but she's still quite a dish, and the broad oozes class.

I was dizzy for her, way back when, but she's always been out of my league and now I'm man enough to face it. A chick like that wants a mug to drape her in silks and hang marbles and ice around her neck, not some hard-working joe like yours truly.

"You said you forgave me Pip," she says, "Is that true, even now? Are we friends?" You can hear the strain in her voice, it's as taut as a bowstring. This matters to her, I can tell.

"Yeah," I say, "We're pals."

"Then goodbye, pal." And she breezes away, like a ghost or a nightmare, leaving just a whiff of her perfume to haunt my dreams.

There is nothing left for me here, so I turn up my collar and take a bunk. I've got a job to do and a living to make, and it's time I left the stiffs to sleep and started looking where I'm going, not where I've been.

No regrets.

Lady Chatterly's Lover by D.H.Lawrence as written by the author of the "Janet And John" reading primers

See Mellors.

See Constance.

See Mellors and Constance.

Mellors and Contance are fucking.

See Mellors fuck.

See Constance fuck.

Fuck, Constance, fuck!

Etc...

Gerard Manley Hopkins' "Pied Beauty" as written by Andrew Kevin Walker.

Glory be to God for cancerous things -
For tumours of mottled purple as a rotting cow;
For murder, rape, war, famine, kids killing kids, the baby who can't swim;
Elm disease-ridden chestnut tree falls; tearing off finches' wings;
Landscape gutted and raped--tear, burrow, and plough;
And hollow eyed people, their melanomas malignant, their hope dim.
Genocide in the name of religion, how strange;
Whatever is good, is swiftly destroyed (who knows how?)
With life, death; love, death; laughter, faces grim;
God brings forth children beset with disease and mange:
Fuck him.

We had to learn some of Hopkins' "poems" at school. He is one of the most awful, serial abusers of the English language I have ever encountered. Never content simply to use the word "nice", he has to say things like "dappled, joy-speckled honey blossom" and crap like that. This has been a long time coming - if you're watching me, Manley, from Heaven, your poems are shit. Nobody likes you. Note: I've kept the rhyming structure intact, otherwise it would have deviated too far from the original and become just a poorly written stream of bad language (like most of my other nodes).


The Exorcist, as written by Roger Hargreaves (author of the Mr Men books).

"Stop shaking that bed at once!" said Mrs MacNeil.

"I won't!" said Little Miss Possessed. "I won't and I shan't!"

"Oh bother," said Mrs MacNeil. "I suppose now I shall have to call Mr Exorcist."

Mr Exorcist arrived, and was astonished to see how bad Little Miss Possessed had got. Extraordinarily bad!

"Now then," said Mr Exorcist. "Let's stop all this nonsense, shall we?"

"Your mother sucks cocks in hell!" retorted Little Miss Possessed, before vomiting in Mr Exorcist's face.

She was a very, very possessed little girl.


Fight Club, as written by PG Wodehouse.

I'd been feeling a bit out of sorts lately, but I was dashed if the doctors could find a thing wrong with me. Just get yourself outside of some food and have a good night's sleep, they'd say. All very well and good, but if a chap can't sleep, that's no help, is it?

I sighed.

"You know what you need," said Tyler, kind of manifesting himself.

"No, what's that?"

"You need to give me a good sharp blow to the ear, that's what."

"I say! Are you absolutely off your rocker?"

"Very probably," Tyler replied. "Now come on, be a good fellow, and nobble me one. Be quick about it, I've got bun cricket with Tuppy at the club in half an hour."

Much later, I sat in the chair on the top floor of the Dorchester with Tyler pointing a pistol at me. He pulled back the hammer, and I remember thinking "Not even Jeeves could get me out of this one..."

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