Enough of Austen
While "researching" for my last blog entry about library Web sites, I happened to notice that Hedberg Public Library's book of the day was "Murder at Longbourn: A Mystery."
It's a new twist on the old "Pride and Prejudice" story. The main character, of course, is named Elizabeth, and we have a Darcy-esque character, but it's set in the present and also is a murder mystery.
Yawn.
You might think an Austen addict like me would be excited by a book like this. But I've spent the last two years glancing over books with titles such as "Mr. Knightley's Diary," "The Jane Austen Book Club," "Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict" and "What Would Jane Austen Do?"
For the really adventurous among us, there's also "Mr. Darcy, Vampyre" and "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies." And I'm just getting started. Try typing "Jane Austen" on Amazon.
Enough already!
I have no doubt some of these books are well written. (I actually read "The Jane Austen Book Club," and it wasn't awful.) But how many more "new twists on an old classic" can they come up with? Sometimes I just want to tell these authors to find their own stories to tell.
Here's the thing: "Pride and Prejudice" is my favorite book for a reason. So why should I read these imitations (or reinterpretations, as they like to call them) when I have the real thing sitting on my shelf?
Dec 9, 2009 at 3:38 p.m.
Suggest removal
The fact that Jane Austen gave aid and comfort to the enemy during the Vietnam War still rankles a lot of people.
Dec 8, 2009 at 12:52 p.m.
Suggest removal
When I was young and finished a book I really loved, I'd sit down at my old Royal typewriter and laboriously tap out new stories for the characters I didn't want to leave yet. I think that's the gist behind a lot of literary pastiche. Some of the Sherlock Holmes pastiche aren't bad at all - often written by talented writers who also wanted to revisit that world, those characters. Authors often continue the works of others to satisfy their/our itch to see how a story turns out after the ending.
I'm not saying that it isn't all too often done with profit in mind, or that it isn't often done quite badly. But if you, the reader, care *very* much about a book - one of your "life's books" - you should avoid such reading altogether, lest it influence or change how you feel about the original, and forget what is really "true."
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