SBD -- Nothing new under the sun
Aug. 7th, 2006 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksI don't have a rant or a piece of insight to share for Smart Bitch Monday, just a gripe.
There are no new stories, just new ways of telling them. I'm not sure if that is a truism or I should be crediting someone for a quotation. That explains why there are paradigms or archetypes or patterns in literature. And by extension, in romance. In the end (like the earth) everything just gets recycled, right? While recycling is a good idea generally, there is something to be said for original thought.
I know that other stuff is getting published, but really, couldn't modern writers give the poor Jane Austen a break? I love her books, but I'm pretty much JA'd out. Carrie Bebris has a sort of paranormal mystery series; Stephanie Barron has Jane Austen mysteries; Linda Berdoll has Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife and Darcy & Elizabeth; there is at least one series that begins with Mr. Darcy's Daughters or a similar title. The Man Who Loved Jane Austen. The Jane Austen Book Club. Enough already!
And JA is hardly alone. I read the bookflap of Wuthering High today, a YA book that seems to involve classic lit plots superimposed onto modern life. Jasper Fforde created a world in which people can jump into literary texts and change their outcomes, and literary characters intereact with Thursday Next. BBC America is broadcasting "Shakespeare: Told" (with the play on works Shakespeare Retold) -- Much Ado About Nothing this week, Macbeth next week.
I love Shakespeare (although the BBC version doesn't hold a candle to the Emma Thompson-Kenneth Branagh version of Much Ado, imo) and JA, but please, authors, find something else to "borrow" from. Recycle Don Quijote (wouldn't an honorable hero, however cracked, be cool to read about?). Or Ivanhoe (for those readers who like the idea of a tortured bad guy who might maybe possibly be redeemed by love in the end, but redeemed too late).
What other classic books -- other than Jane Austen -- can you see rewritten as modern genre romances?
There are no new stories, just new ways of telling them. I'm not sure if that is a truism or I should be crediting someone for a quotation. That explains why there are paradigms or archetypes or patterns in literature. And by extension, in romance. In the end (like the earth) everything just gets recycled, right? While recycling is a good idea generally, there is something to be said for original thought.
I know that other stuff is getting published, but really, couldn't modern writers give the poor Jane Austen a break? I love her books, but I'm pretty much JA'd out. Carrie Bebris has a sort of paranormal mystery series; Stephanie Barron has Jane Austen mysteries; Linda Berdoll has Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife and Darcy & Elizabeth; there is at least one series that begins with Mr. Darcy's Daughters or a similar title. The Man Who Loved Jane Austen. The Jane Austen Book Club. Enough already!
And JA is hardly alone. I read the bookflap of Wuthering High today, a YA book that seems to involve classic lit plots superimposed onto modern life. Jasper Fforde created a world in which people can jump into literary texts and change their outcomes, and literary characters intereact with Thursday Next. BBC America is broadcasting "Shakespeare: Told" (with the play on works Shakespeare Retold) -- Much Ado About Nothing this week, Macbeth next week.
I love Shakespeare (although the BBC version doesn't hold a candle to the Emma Thompson-Kenneth Branagh version of Much Ado, imo) and JA, but please, authors, find something else to "borrow" from. Recycle Don Quijote (wouldn't an honorable hero, however cracked, be cool to read about?). Or Ivanhoe (for those readers who like the idea of a tortured bad guy who might maybe possibly be redeemed by love in the end, but redeemed too late).
What other classic books -- other than Jane Austen -- can you see rewritten as modern genre romances?
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-08 02:34 am (UTC)David Weber rewrote the "Horation Hornblower" stories by C.S. Forester as the futuristic SF series about "Honor Harrington". Not so much romance, though Honor does have a few relationships during her career with the Royal Manticore Navy.
Sometimes it's best not to rewrite the classics as modern genre romance. Whoever did that with the Demi Moore version of "The Scarlet Letter" out to be taken out and shot.
More books to check out!
Date: 2006-08-08 03:07 am (UTC)Some books should not be redone as modern genre romances -- The Scarlet Letter would be on that list, IMO. Not so romantic to me. I could see a modern version as some sort of women's fiction or (again) literary fiction, though.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-08 12:54 pm (UTC)*sigh* And I didn't even have anything to drink last night.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-08 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-08 02:22 pm (UTC)Clearly, I need to start drinking again.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-08 02:12 pm (UTC)Oh no!
Date: 2006-08-08 02:49 pm (UTC)Re: Oh no!
Date: 2006-08-08 02:52 pm (UTC)Re: Oh no!
Date: 2006-08-08 02:56 pm (UTC)Re: Oh no!
Date: 2006-08-09 08:41 am (UTC)Whoops! I think I'm off point.
CindyS
Re: Oh no!
Date: 2006-08-09 12:14 pm (UTC)