So my sister and I, in our book club, are currently reading The Aeneid. We generally like it, but were discussing tonight how we wish more time was spent on Dido and Aeneas doomed love and how someone should really write a novel further exploring the story. We started imagining how we would write it. Set in modern times, Dido (in this version we call her by her greek name Elissa) is now a plucky but dim governor of a frontier state, her evil brother is the leader of the local militia, Aeneas is a indecisive terrorist who inexplicably brings his band of comrades to said state, her stupid sister Anna is now her special needs sister Anna. The final scene is in a long empty hall filled with benches, where Elissa (having killed herself after Aeneas left for a promised haven in canada) refuses to accept Aeneas's (departing somewhat from virgil's version, in our masterpiece, aeneas returns to terrorism and blows up himself and the statehouse when he returns from canada only to find Elissa has died) post mortem apologies. She sits several benches in front of him and cries silently while he gives a quite moving speech, and then turns towards the shadow of her ex husband (killed by her evil brother in a hunting "accident") without ever looking back at Aeneas. A tear jerker.
Our final judgement:
Sister: maybe we should write a screenplay
and not the great american novel.
or, let's be real.
The Great America novel will be a Screenplay.
about Sarah Palin.
Needless to say, we did not have any serious discussions about the devil, god, or ancient literature during this week's meeting.
No comments:
Post a Comment