Literary merger

In Competition 2818 you were asked to merge two literary classics and provide a synopsis of the new title.

You obviously had great fun with this one. Frank Osen came up with Pollyanna Karenina: ‘A girl from New England is so relentlessly upbeat about her affair with a Russian aristocrat that he throws himself under a passing train’; and A Dance to the Music of Time Management for Dummies: ‘This deluxe boxed set includes many helpful organising tips that will have you breezing through the 12-novel series in only a few hours.’ Mae Scanlan’s pun-packed blend of Henry Gray and Dorian Gray made me laugh, as did Sylvia Fairley’s Life of Roo. John O’Byrne’s Waugh-Mantel mash-up, Bring up the Vile Bodies, also warrants an honourable mention.

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In The Wonderland Delusion, co-authors Richard Dawkins and Lewis Carroll present an allegorical tale of a young girl’s coming of age as she learns to reject religious superstition and embrace scientific truth. The protagonist, Alice, falls down a deep hole into a topsy-turvy theocratic realm where science and reason are anathematised, and absurd doctrines are proclaimed as fact by insane authority figures who threaten to behead any rational thinker who dissents from their groundless beliefs. An evangelist gradually disappears as he delivers a sermon, until nothing is left of him but a vacant grin hanging in the air. A bishop in a ridiculously oversized mitre torments Alice with readings from a cate-chism of nonsense riddles, demanding, ‘How is a woman like a man’s rib?’ Dragged before a religious court to be condemned for heresy, she courageously liberates herself at last by exclaiming, ‘It’s nothing but a pack of lies!’
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Dorian indulges in sado-masochistic practices involving whips, knives, and mysterious metallic implements, but maintains his air of innocent youthfulness as his painted portrait develops large bags under its eyes and a dazed, debauched look combining horror and mad concupiscence.