Blogging & Musing...

Old Wine in New Bottles

Saturday, 23 January 2010 08:30

A real challenge for any author is the remaking of a classic story. The new novel might set the older work in the modern era (Hamlet → Edgar Sawtelle). Or it might use the older novel as a starting point—for a sequel, or a retelling of the story from a different perspective (Wizard of Oz → Wicked).  Here’s what I’ve come up with so far...

Makeovers
Resetting a classic in the modern era. 

Anna Karenina .......... What Happened to Anna K by Irina Reyn
The Great Gatsby ...... Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
Hamlet ..................... The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David
                                  Wroblewski
Howard’s End ............ On Beauty by Zadie Smith
King Lear .................. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
Mrs. Dalloway ........... The Hours by Michael Cunningham
The Odyssey ............. Ulysses by James Joyce
Pride & Prejudice ....... Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
Sense & Sensibility .... The Three Weissmanns of Westport (added: 1/2011)

Starting Points
Writing a sequel, ”prequel,” parody, or using a secondary character’s point of view.

A Christmas Carol  ...... Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard
Dr. Jekyll &Mr. Hyde  ... Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin        
Gone With the Wind ..... Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley
Gone With the Wind ..... The Wind Done Gone by Alice Randall
Great Expectations ...... Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones
The Great Gatsby ........ The Double Bind by Chris Bohjalian
The Great Gatsby ........ Jack Maggs by Peter Carey
Jane Eyre ................... The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Ryhs
Huckleberry Finn ......... Finn by Jon Clinch
The Illiad .................... The Human Stain by Philip Roth
King Arthur ................. The Mists of Avalon
Mansfield Park ............. Murder at Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd
Moby-Dick ................... Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund
Pride & Prejudice ......... Pemberley by Emma Tennant
Pride & Prejudice ......... Pride & Prejudice & Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
Rebecca ...................... Mrs. DeWinter by Susan Hill
The Scarlet Letter ........ Angel and Apostle by Deborah Noyes
A Tale of Two Cities ..... A Far Better Rest by Susanne Alleyn
The Wizard of Oz ......... Wicked by Geoffrey MacGuire
Wuthering Heights ....... Heathcliff: The Return to Wuthering Heights by Lin Haire Sargeant

What have I missed?  Surely, there are more.

On the Air...Again

Wednesday, 13 January 2010 09:18

Apparently, I’ve got a good face for radio. Two days ago, I was on the air again, this time on Martha Stewart’s Living Radio—Sirius Radio/XM, the satellite radio.

No, it wasn’t Martha but instead two shock-jocks, Kim and Betsy, who banter their way through morning drive time.  They’re a hoot.  We talked about starting a book club, how to talk about a book, etc.—the usual book club stuff. Here’s the short version (6 min.):

Read Till Your Heart Stops

Sunday, 27 December 2009 09:21

I just came across this wonderful quote from Colum McCann, author of Let the Great World Spin.

Literature can stop my heart and execute
me for a moment, allow me to become
someone else.*

This is truly fiction’s greatest gift—the chance to crawl inside another being, poke around his consciousness, feel what it’s like to “be” that individual. Often it means changing age, gender, race, or nationality. No other medium does this so completely.

Fun Book Club Exercise
Is there any one particular fictional character you most enjoyed “being”?  Or a book that carried you most completely into the mind of its primary character?

Happy Endings—are they good for us?

Tuesday, 01 December 2009 09:28

This comment caught my eye, from a Publishers Weekly review of Bridget Asher’s The Pretend Wife. 

It’s more than a little disappointing...that Asher inserts an improbably happy ending.

Ouch. I’m not sure which word is more distressing in that sentence: “disappointing” or “improbably.” And here’s another comment on happy endings, this one from Josh Henkin, author of Matrimony:

Nothing is more depressing than a happy ending that feels tacked on, and there can be great comfort in literature that doesn’t admit to easy solutions, just as our lives don’t.                                       From I Laughed! I Cried – 9/19/08.

Fortunately, Henkin isn’t discounting happy endings per se, only those that feel forced or “tacked on” (i.e., improbable). Still, there’s the suggestion that happy endings are “easy solutions.”

Some questions for Book Clubs . . .

1. What kind of books do you like to read? Ones with happy endings—always ... mostly ... sometimes?
2. What about the great works of literature…so many end on unhappy notes? Does that mean books with happy endings aren’t considered good literature?
3. Do all happy endings feel manipulative, or as Henkin says, ”tacked on”? Can books end happily in a natural, unforced manner?