2B Or Not 2B

A mobile phone company has announced a scheme to provide text message quotations and plot summaries of seven works -- from Hamlet to Paradise Lost to Lord of the Flies -- to act as an aide-memoire for undergraduates.

These will be devised by John Sutherland, emeritus professor of modern English literature at University College London, and chairman of this year's Booker jury. He says: "You could shrink the whole five-act text of Hamlet into a few thousand characters. And those syllables could serve as an aide- memoire, enabling you to back translate into the golden syllables of the original."

Ovr 2 u, Harold Bloom

Update: Meanwhile, Bookslut points to a version of Romeo And Juliet, told entirely in emoticons. Yes, it's one of those King Canute days...