Thursday, 14 January 2010

The Unlikely Cash-In Department

The Unlikely Cash-In Department has been founded to showcase the most unlikely attempts to hoist classic literature onto the confused consumers of popular culture. It would include, of course, the Twilight-aping Wuthering Heights from this post. It would include this ludicrous tie-in edition from 2000...



..and to this collection we must now add this new edition of Dante's Inferno. "The timeless classic of a journey through the horrors of hell. The action adventure blockbuster that's rocking the video game world. All hell is breaking loose."




Yes. Yes it is.

(UPDATE: And now this idea is parodied here.)


* * *

That Inferno is from Random House US. Fortunately, they're not all bad--here's another book they're about to release, with a clever (and also monster-featuring) cover by a designer unknown to me.


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10 comments:

  1. Matthew Adams14 January 2010 at 17:40

    I have one of those old Dante's Inferno books with the illustrations by Gustave Dore. Even with the illustrations to encourage (distract) me I found it almost impossible to read, though I like to blame it largely on the horrible translation, which seems incredibly forced. I can't imagine any fanboy picking up the book and reading it when he can play an exciting and voilent game that is only vaguely linked to the book in the first place

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  2. Keir Hardie14 January 2010 at 17:55

    I remember seeing the O Brother Where Art Thou Odyssey, and squirming. It's a Penguin, isn't it? That made it particularly painful for me as a Penguin lover.

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  3. JRSM14 January 2010 at 18:06

    Matthew: I can't imagine there's going to be any real overlap between the two audiences at all--it's not as though Dante and Virgil hack and slay their way through the Nine Circles, is it? (Though the Dore illustrations are ace.)

    Keir: I felt the same way!

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  4. Anonymous14 January 2010 at 23:36

    You know, I thought that first one was a photo-shopped joke-- but I guess it's screamingly real.

    Yuck. I need a shower.

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  5. Jonas18 January 2010 at 13:10

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/1/15/

    Others have noticed as well

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  6. JRSM18 January 2010 at 13:21

    Nice one! I'll link to that in the post.

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  7. Will1 March 2010 at 13:36

    I was just browsing the "most popular" Dante translations on Amazon US and this monstrosity is now the best-selling edition (I searched for the ISBN and was 100% sure I would find it here). It looks like it's the Longfellow translation!

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  8. JRSM1 March 2010 at 13:56

    That's a depressing state of affairs, but the thought of the bemusement of all those gamers makes it worthwhile.

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  9. Craig D.6 March 2010 at 18:32

    That Odyssey cover is bullshit gold. I did a search on Amazon, and unfortunately, there was no Dangerous Liaisons edition that ties into Cruel Intentions, no Emma edition that ties into Clueless, and no Romeo & Juliet edition that ties into Romeo Must Die.

    Oh well. There's always the Bram Stoker's Dracula novelization by Fred Saberhagen, the Mary Shelley's Frankenstein novelization by Lenore Fleischer, and the Great Expectations novelization by Deborah Chiel.

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  10. JRSM7 March 2010 at 00:01

    I'd seen the pitiful Dracula novelisation, but was unaware of the other two. You have broadened my horizons in sad and alarming ways.

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