Last month, I spent a lot of time texting various friends about my progress finishing Middlemarch. Especially on that last night: “90%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” “95%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (You get the idea.) Often when I’m texting my friends, I use a lot of emojis. Emojis are like stickers for text messages. And stickers are cool.
But all that time texting about Middlemarch and using emojis got me wondering, what if Middlemarch were written mostly with emojis? It might go something like this:
My deepest apologies to George Eliot.
Roughly translated, it goes like this:
Dorothea is basically an angel. Blinded by her ideals, she marries Casaubon, a man old enough to be her father. They honeymoon in Italy. Dorothea, unhappy, is crying, when she is espied by Ladislaw, who more or less instantly falls in love with her. Dorothea remains very unhappy in her very unhappy marriage.
Rosamund is the prettiest girl in town and has the worst sort of princess manners. She loves a doctor. They marry. They have no money. There is ensuing anger, sadness, disillusionment, and tears.
Mary and Fred have been friends since they were children, and they love each other. Eventually they get married.
Interspersed throughout are various lengthy interludes spent with minor characters and endless prosing.
Eventually Dorothea and Ladislaw marry.
As the author herself might say, finis.
Ms. Grammarian 
:) Having read Middlemarch myself, I can totally relate! I love the cute little pictures to simplify the major plot points!
Yep. That decides it. I don’t think I’ll ever finish Middlemarch. This summary was by far more entertaining.
Not sure I really know what you are saying??? Guess I’ve not read enough of Austin or Eliot..
Hope you come to W. WA sometime soon….would love to see you!!
Could you do this with Ulysses? After 15 months of startstoppingrestartingstopping I Googled “why am I trying to read Ulysses?” and the first article that came up was a scholarly one that included a line to the effect that the writer had “never met a person who had not thrown the book across the room at some point.” Eagerly awaiting your version! JS
I’ll put my thinking cap on for Ulysses! If you do it yourself, I hope you’ll come back and let us know – we’d love to read it!!
I have a gorgeous copy of Middlemarch sitting on my shelf. This has inspired me to give it a go. I might try it after the next book I have lined up. Thanks for the simplified plot in case I get lost. =)
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I really love this post!
You know, there’s the ‘All-England Summarize Proust Contest’ – maybe all 4200+ pages of ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ could be handled with emojis? Would it really be that much of a challenge, given that at least 1/2 of one of the volumes consists of the description of a single party?
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