If These Famous Books Had Sequels

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette, and waltzing in with rings on his fingers and bells on his toes and a fluorescent scrunchie on each wrist, it’s our quiz guy, John Chaneski.

Hey, John.

Hello, Martha.

Hello, Grant.

I’m selling rings and bells and fluorescent scrunchies, by the way, if anybody’s interested.

Great.

It’s the only way I could think of to transport them around.

But anyway, my side gig, of course, is doing quizzes for you guys.

And here’s one. It’s about books.

And, you know, it seems like there’s very few original, really original works out there. We see a lot of rehashing of stories, and if we’re lucky, it’s a good sequel.

So I’m thinking of getting into writing sequels to classic books. I figure all I have to do is change a tense here and there.

For example, if I took a classic Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel and retold it in the past tense about two romantic youths who at one time became enamored in Colombia during the turn of the last century, I could just call it Loved in the Time of Cholera. There’s not much there, but you know, it’s simple, but it’ll still make a million. Got it? Okay. Yeah, I think. We’re just going to change the tense of some words and book titles and hopefully make a million dollars. All right.

Here we went. I mean, here we go. All right. It’s a spooky Stephen King novel about a kid who at one time had psychic powers at a haunted hotel.

Psychic powers at a haunted hotel.

This would be The Shown.

The Shown is fine.

Yeah, very good.

I’ve taken The Shined.

The Shined.

Either one is very good, yes.

Though he actually did write a sequel to that, so maybe I should move on to something else.

It’s the story of an Air Force bombardier during World War II who was trapped by a paradoxical loophole in military regulations.

Caught 22?

Caught 22, yes.

It all happened because most books happened in the past, but yeah, these are our past books.

My sequel to Jonathan Swift’s story of a fantastical journey plainly states that the titular character is finished with roaming about.

Okay, Gulliver traveled.

Gulliver’s traveled. Yes, Gulliver has traveled. Yeah, Gulliver’s traveled. Very good.

If Milan Cudera thought his four protagonists and their dog can’t take the etherealness during the Prague Spring, just wait till it’s all over.

The unbearable lightness of having been.

Very good. I would have also taken the unbearable lightness of been.

Having been is good.

Here, this one’s a play.

In this one, the boy who never grows up is disappointed to find out that the first play he was in was widely dismissed by the critics.

Peter Panned.

Peter Panned.

Don’t want to get on his wrong side, but they did.

Finally, in this book, I examine how author Elizabeth Gilbert is doing now that her travels to Italy, India, and Bali are finished.

Eight prayed loved.

Eight prayed loved.

A triple.

Yes, very good. I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ve got the skills to write these sequel books, but I’m going to try anyway. Thank you, guys. You did fantastic.

Thanks, John.

Thanks, John. We’ll talk to you next week. Take care.

You too. Bye-bye.

Call or text toll-free 877-929-9673. And if you’ve got a quiz or a puzzle or some stumper for us, the email address is words@waywordradio.org.