The Ernest Hemingway Foundation has released a series of 15-second Instagram videos based on the writer’s works.

Ernest Hemingway likely isn’t at the front of most Instagram users’ minds, unless they’ve been assigned one of his books in English class. In an effort to drum up interest in Hemingway’s novels among the social network’s youthful user base, the Ernest Hemingway Foundation has condensed several of his books into 15-second videos.

Now this is some clever stuff. Whether or not this all leads to millenials embracing Hemingway is anyone’s guess, but these brief videos are highly entertaining. The animation looks great, and the stripped-down stories are quite funny.

My favorite is “A Farewell to Arms,” in which the tragic romance between Frederic and Catherine is boiled down to three brief exchanges of dialogue. (Catherine’s deadpan “I’m going into labor and dying” had me in stitches.)

“For Whom the Bell Tolls” likely does the best job of creating interest in the source material, selling Hemingway’s Spanish Civil War tale as an intriguing adventure story. “The Old Man and the Sea” is the least-successful of the three adaptations. It still elicits a chuckle, but I’m not sure who would ever want to read the book after watching the Instagram video.

This campaign is an exceptionally clever move on the part of the Hemingway Foundation. I can’t think of a much better way to make books from nearly a century ago relevant in 2014. As for me personally, I don’t think these videos will drive me back to the bookshelf to catch up on my Hemingway. However, I did just read his entire Wikipedia page, so that’s got to count for something.

Howard Davidson Arlington MA