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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Mordor: twinned with Slough
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
The Jane Austen outside the Big Six that I love is the juvenilia Love and Freindship (sic). A glorious send up of the sentimental, melodramatic novel.
A sensibility too tremblingly alive to every misfortune of my freinds, my relations and above all myself, was my only fault, if fault it could be called. (I quote from memory.)
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
I've just finished The White Princess by Philippa Gregory - one of the Cousins' War series about the Wars of the Roses. This one is told through the eyes of Elizabeth of York, who was forcibly married to Henry VII after he won the Battle of Bosworth to unite the houses of York and Lancaster. Quite unputdownable, and it made me want to read the ones I haven't read yet (The White Queen, about Elizabeth Woodville, Lady of the Rivers about her mother, Jacquetta of Luxembourg and The King's Curse, told through the eyes of Margaret of Warwick).
I'm even beginning to forgive her for writing them in the present tense, which I find annoying, particularly in books set 500 years in the past.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
Somebody at my wonderful library clearly has an interest in classic thrillers, so I have just read Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest. Oddly, the thing it reminded me of most strongly was the movie Dogville; I found it hard to believe that a place could be that cut off from centralised authority and still accessible by car!
I wanted to rewrite the first paragraph and reduce the number of simple sentences by using a relative clause but soon got used to his style, which did fit the action very well. As it is written in the first person, we know very little about the main character, not even his name, which felt odd, but it was a gripping read.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
I recently finished a selection of poetry by Kevin MacNeil called "Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides". I'm not a poetry natural, but did find this collection pretty accessible (it probably helps that I've been to the Outer Hebrides), although the more Buddhist themes were a bit beyond me sometimes.
I've got a couple of books on the go now: Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" (which I've had for years and years but never got round to reading), and Charles Maclean "Island on the Edge of the World" which is a history of St Kilda. I'm yet to be convinced of "Curious Incident..."'s status as life-changing. It's clever, yes, and gripping. But I haven't completely warmed to it yet. The Maclean book yet again is making me want to visit St Kilda, it's such a fascinating place, with such a tragic history.
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"My body is a temple - it's big and doesn't move." (Jo Brand)
wiblog blipfoto blog
Posts: 5767 | From: the land of the deep-fried Mars Bar | Registered: Oct 2002
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by piglet:
I'm even beginning to forgive her for writing them in the present tense, which I find annoying, particularly in books set 500 years in the past.
Yes - some of her novels feel more like a vicarious fantasy than anything.
Currently reading "Broken Homes" by Ben Aaronovitch, the fourth in the series about Peter Grant, the young London policeman who deals with supernatural crimes. I loved the first three books but somehow this fourth one isn't grabbing me half as much and I feel I can take it or leave it.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
A sensibility too tremblingly alive to every misfortune of my freinds, my relations and above all myself, was my only fault, if fault it could be called. (I quote from memory.)
My favorite phrase from Love and Freindship describes someone opening someone else's desk and "gracefully purloining" some money. I love the idea of purloining gracefully.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
Moby Dick can be hard slogging. The Arion Press edition reprint makes it easier because of all the lovely wood block Barry Moser illustrations.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
Currently reading "Broken Homes" by Ben Aaronovitch, the fourth in the series about Peter Grant, the young London policeman who deals with supernatural crimes. I loved the first three books but somehow this fourth one isn't grabbing me half as much and I feel I can take it or leave it.
I felt the same. Very disappointing.
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
I rather enjoyed Broken Homes - partly the sarky comments about post-war architecture and partly seeing just how formidable Nightingale can be in a fight! And it's got quite the cliffhanger ending....
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
I'm rereading Iain Baines "The Hydrogen Sonata". I had just read his non SF book "The Quarry" about a Asperger teen taking care of his father who is dying of cancer and enjoyed it.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
I just finished am unpublished book bu a Shipmate: it is a story of true love written by SHipmate Mr. Curly and his colleague Stephen. For more info on this, see the Writer's Block thread on this board. He may let you beta-test this as he did me.
For my part, I am struggling with my second unpublished novel which may involve vampires and zombies: I am not sure yet!
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eigon:
I rather enjoyed Broken Homes - partly the sarky comments about post-war architecture and partly seeing just how formidable Nightingale can be in a fight! And it's got quite the cliffhanger ending....
The Nightingale bit was good, I agree. He's my favourite character, anyway. I'm re-reading it to see if I like it any better.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
Moo, thank you for mentioning Never Cry Wolf I am about halfway through and I love it.
Jodie Picoult has also written a book where one of the main characters lives with wolves. I don't know how accurate the information is, but I found it more interesting than the actual story.
I also have The Dog Who Wouldn't Be on reserve at the library.
Alongside these I'm reading Phineas Finn on my kindle. It seems really weird to be reading a Victorian novel on a e reader, a kind of time clash.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
Alongside these I'm reading Phineas Finn on my kindle. It seems really weird to be reading a Victorian novel on a e reader, a kind of time clash.
Obviously I am unimaginative as that has never struck me; when I first got my Kindle, most the things I downloaded were from Gutenberg and tended to be from the 19th century.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
The majority of my reading has always been set in the 19th century. I haven't tried going there through Kindle.
I'm currently reading, Jack Finney's Time and Again, set and written in 1970, except that it's also set in 1882 because it's about time travel. I like that the way the character travels has a lot to do with simply reading books and newspapers set in that period. I've experienced more than once in my life, the slight shock of looking out the window and seeing current American things after being lost in Victorian England for days.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
I was very pleased to pick up a hardback copy of Queen's Play by Dorothy Dunnett yesterday, while browsing the Honesty bookshop. I was thinking about re-reading the Lymond series after I finish Gemini (the last Niccolo book), and this will give me an extra push to do it.
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
I've been having an orgy of science-fiction recently. Reread Simon Morden's Samuil Petrovich trilogy (Equations of Life, Theories of Flight, Degrees of Freedom), then Hive Monkey by Gareth Powell. All excellent. The Petrovich books are about a post-apocalypse London; Hive Monkey is also alternative history, featuring an intelligent macaque (sequel to Ack-Ack Macaque, which I got for Christmas; steampunk meets James Bond). I can't say much more without giving the whole plot away, but suffice it to say that no book featuring a nuclear-powered airship can be entirely devoid of interest.
[ 19. May 2014, 13:00: Message edited by: Jane R ]
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
When Pete was here last winter he introduced me to the Vish Puri books by Tarquin Hall - okay, it's not great literature but it is well written, humourous detective stories. Great fun and a bit of a taste of India in all its contradictions.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
TIME AND AGAIN is a great time travel novel. However, I advise you to avoid the sequel like the plague. Finney wrote it after a gap of many years, and it is in no way as good as the first.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Thanks, Brenda, I will heed your warning. Just recently I read a later-day novel by a writer I had loved earlier. It seriously tainted my feelings about the first book.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
I've been having an orgy of science-fiction recently. Reread Simon Morden's Samuil Petrovich trilogy (Equations of Life, Theories of Flight, Degrees of Freedom)
I am leading the Ship's book group in February with a new 700-page book by Simon M. The first three chapters were great! See the thread for details and join us next year.
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If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
When Pete was here last winter he introduced me to the Vish Puri books by Tarquin Hall - okay, it's not great literature but it is well written, humourous detective stories. Great fun and a bit of a taste of India in all its contradictions.
Good to know that the taste of India is authentic. I must admit I read "well written, humourous detective stories" much more than great literature these days. (On reflection "these days" is superfluous.)
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Sir Kevin: quote:
I am leading the Ship's book group in February with a new 700-page book by Simon M. The first three chapters were great! See the thread for details and join us next year.
I was planning to - I've already read it, and it's good all the way through.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
... set in the 19th century. I haven't tried going there through Kindle ...
I knew these Kindle thingies were clever, but I didn't realise they did time travel ... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
Had an interesting conversation yesterday regarding trilogies. I've read the 1st part of The Forsyte Saga and in my review, I made a comparison to The Lord of the Rings. I received the following comment: quote:
The Lord of the Rings is not a trilogy; it's a single work in six parts. It was only published in three volumes rather than one, or even six, for technical (cheaper to make three books than a huge one) and marketing reasons.
So my query to shipmates is this: when is a trilogy not a trilogy? Or when does a work in several part cease to be a single work and become a compilation?
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I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Terminology is difficult.
LOTR is not really a trilogy, but it is always called that since it did appear in 3 books. It was (as others have pointed out) a gigantic single novel snipped by publisher demand into three chunks. I am told that post-war paper shortages forced this.
A true trilogy therefore must be three novels about the same people/place/subject. They should each stand independently alone as single novels (none of this 'continued' stuff on the last page). A good example might be the Space trilogy of C. S. Lewis (OUT OF THE SILENT PLANET, PERELANDRA, and THAT HIDEOUS STRENGTH).
You can see that there is nothing in particular special about the number three, and duologies, quadrologies and so forth are easily found. After the number gets fairly large, people give up and simply call it a series. A great example might be the Vorkosigan series, by Lois Bujold -- I think she is up to 14. She wrote each one so that it would stand entirely by itself, but reading all of them is enormously enriching and in fact you cannot just read one anyway, since they are the equivalent of methamphetamine between covers.
Another variant is the roman fleuve, the extremely long novel. This tends to be chopped into hunks and published every 300 pages or so. The premiere example of this would be the Aubrey and Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. I think it ran to 20 volumes. These must be read in order otherwise you will lose track.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Stercus Tauri
Shipmate
# 16668
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Posted
I staggered off the plane back from Scotland a few days ago hauling Tatlow's "Highland Railway Carriages and Wagons" - an essential read; to re-read on the plane, Ian Bradley's "Columba - Pilgrim and Penitent", a good book, demythologising the saint and still leaving a heroic holy man; and four copies of the new blockbuster by North East Quine's talented son Alex, "Attack of the Giant Robot Chickens". He is a writer to watch.
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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Welease Woderwick
Sister Incubus Nightmare
# 10424
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Posted
Yesterday morning I finished my re-read of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows - the short biography of the author in my new copy gave me some better insights into the book - but really it is just a good and fun read.
Do other people agree that presentation helps a lot? This new copy, a cloth covered hardback with a nice font and all well spaced on cream paper was just a joy to read partly because it was a better presented book.
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I give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
Fancy a break in South India?
Accessible Homestay Guesthouse in Central Kerala, contact me for details
What part of Matt. 7:1 don't you understand?
Posts: 48139 | From: 1st on the right, straight on 'til morning | Registered: Sep 2005
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
Totally. (This is one reason why I won't have an e-reader.) Paper, font and design play a large part in the enjoyment of a book, IMO.
I have Garth Nix's "Sabriel" books which are all set in some slightly wacky font or other, most likely intended to appeal to the youth market, but which actually detract from enjoyment of the text - for one thing it's a bit distracting. It reminds me a bit of a serif version of Comic Sans. But until they're reissued in some other more mainstream font, there's nothing to be done.
Meanwhile, I just finished reading Diana Wynne Jones' "Eight Days of Luke" which a shipmate recommended to me. Very enjoyable and interesting and like much of her work, bears a second read as you try to figure out who the characters are.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
Diana Wynne Jones is a glorious writer, and all of her works are worth reading!
Book and font design is a sore point for me, because I have impaired vision. The annoying tendency for 'steampunk' novels to be printed on cream colored stock in dark brown ink means that they are essentially illegible to me. (And any deviation from a standard font is a killer too.) Ebooks are wonderful because I can pump the font size. At my very worst I was reading books that were formatted about four words per page. But at least I could read them!
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
LOTR is not really a trilogy, but it is always called that since it did appear in 3 books. It was (as others have pointed out) a gigantic single novel snipped by publisher demand into three chunks. I am told that post-war paper shortages forced this.
Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight archives has run into a similar injunction... and Jack Chalker was forever complaining that his books had to be chopped up into trilogies...
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
Posts: 889 | From: Surrey Heath (England) | Registered: Jun 2012
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There's a new Sanderson out -- I saw it yesterday at the Baltimore SF convention. It is nearly cubical in shape. The PB edition is thick enough to kill a man with. Printing and binding technology has clearly improved since Tolkien's day.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Tina
Shipmate
# 63
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
The Jane Austen outside the Big Six that I love is the juvenilia Love and Freindship (sic). A glorious send up of the sentimental, melodramatic novel.
A sensibility too tremblingly alive to every misfortune of my freinds, my relations and above all myself, was my only fault, if fault it could be called. (I quote from memory.)
I re-read that a while back, after seeing a post from ken of blessed memory that 'Love and Freindship is hilarious when you realise she's taking the piss'. Run mad as often as you chuse, but do not faint ...
Count me as another one who's reading through all manner of old stuff on an e-reader via Project Gutenberg. Did a chronological re-read of Jane Austen's work, now reading Trollope's Palliser novels, along with various eighteenth-century novels I skim-read 15 years ago for my dissertation, but didn't really appreciate at the time. (Does make me realise just how good Jane Austen is though, the plot structures feel quite modern ...)
Also borrow e-books from my local library, and have been working my way through Mary Hoffman's 'Stravaganza' Young Adult time-travel series!
Posts: 503 | From: South London | Registered: May 2001
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Paul.
Shipmate
# 37
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Posted
Just finished The Martian by Andy Weir. Enjoyed it it even if there were a little too many sciencey info dumps for me personally.
Posts: 3689 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2004
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Listening to everyone talk about their Kindles, etc. makes me fear that I won't be able to get my large print books in paper stacks much longer. I'm currently reading, "Life after Life," by Kate Atkinson and it's so huge, about four inches thick, that I can barely hold it with my arthritic thumbs. An affliction common to those same old people who need large print.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
What you need is a bookchair and a laptray. Put together with you most comfortable chair and they make a very easy way to read.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Cool. I'm imagining the laptray with legs that will fit over my dachshund, who must always be in my lap in the recliner I bought just for her, with a "chaise" foot area so she won't fall through. All I ask is perfect comfort for everyone.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Eigon
Shipmate
# 4917
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Posted
I decided not to go back to the beginning of the Lymond books by Dorothy Dunnett, because A Presumption of Death by Jill Paton Walsh was on my "to-be-read" shelf as well. It's a new Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet story, set at the beginning of the Second World War, with Peter away doing intelligence work and Harriet at Talboys dealing with the Home Front, the children, and the murder of a land-girl. The details of rationing and so on are very good, and she does a good imitation of Dorothy Sayers.
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Laugh hard. Run fast. Be kind.
Posts: 3710 | From: Hay-on-Wye, town of books | Registered: Aug 2003
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There is a new Walsh Lord Peter just out --I must go and look for it. I found the first 3 or 4 only mildly interesting, but with the last one, suddenly, three-quarters of the way in, the entire work leaped to life and it was thrilling. (If and when you get there you will know it.) I am hoping that in the new volume she will have retained that thrill.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Tina:
Count me as another one who's reading through all manner of old stuff on an e-reader via Project Gutenberg. Did a chronological re-read of Jane Austen's work, now reading Trollope's Palliser novels, along with various eighteenth-century novels series!
How are you enjoying the Palliser novels? I'm now up to The Prime Minister and am really enjoying them. Some years ago (OMG - maybe 25 or 30) they were adapted for TV with Susan Hampshire (I think) playing Lady Glencora.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
There is a new Walsh Lord Peter just out --I must go and look for it. I found the first 3 or 4 only mildly interesting, but with the last one, suddenly, three-quarters of the way in, the entire work leaped to life and it was thrilling. (If and when you get there you will know it.) I am hoping that in the new volume she will have retained that thrill.
I've just read it (The Late Scholar). As with all the Jill Paton Walsh Wimsey books, it doesn't quite capture the flavour of the original, but is a good read in its own right. I liked that this one was set at Oxford.
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Books and things.
I lied. There are no things. Just books.
Posts: 7428 | From: Closer to Paris than I am to Vancouver | Registered: Mar 2004
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I agree she does a good Sayers pastiche. But I always notice how she is weaving in back references to the Canon - plus putting in self-conscious contemporary references. There isn't the freedom of someone working with their own imaginative material.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I've been reading The Collected Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers, and I think she would have hated having other authors use her characters.
I'm not sure she would have minded someone else finishing Thrones, Dominations, but I am sure she would have objected to someone else making up brand new stories.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Brenda Clough
Shipmate
# 18061
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Posted
There are plenty of authors who feel that way. Are there any Modesty Blaise fans here? The author, Peter O'Donnell, took care to fix it so that no one else could write more of them.
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Science fiction and fantasy writer with a Patreon page
Posts: 6378 | From: Washington DC | Registered: Mar 2014
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
Having been unable to resist 40 stories by Frances Hodgson Burnett for 37p, I am now reading The Secret Garden, I think for the first time. I'm guessing that, if I had read it as a child, I would not have been so appalled at the way Mary is treated by the adults in her life. Having read a defintion of emotional abuse a couple of days ago dos not help.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I've been reading The Collected Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers, and I think she would have hated having other authors use her characters.
I felt that way about the Geraldine Brooks novel, March based on the father from Little Women. Brooks has said in interviews that she always thought the character, Marmee, March's wife, was a simpering goody-goody -- so she changed her completely. I liked her the way she was and wondered why Brooks didn't just write a novel from scratch and invent her own feisty, firebrand, with feminist ideals far ahead of her time?
Don't get me started on, Mrs. Poe.
I don't mind the purely playful spinoffs about zombies in Austen-land or novels based on very peripheral characters, but why completely rewrite cherished characters or disregard what we do know about people in history?
Sorry, if that's too hellish for Heaven.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
OTOH, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea has been widely recognised as an impressive novel in its own right.
In my postgrad year at library college we had to do a themed bibliography of children's books. I chose as my theme ones which built on pre-existent stories - the best was probably T H White's Mistress Masham's Repose, which imagines transported Lilliputians. And of course he also reworked the Arthurian material.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jack the Lass
Ship's airhead
# 3415
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
Having been unable to resist 40 stories by Frances Hodgson Burnett for 37p, I am now reading The Secret Garden, I think for the first time. I'm guessing that, if I had read it as a child, I would not have been so appalled at the way Mary is treated by the adults in her life. Having read a defintion of emotional abuse a couple of days ago dos not help.
Yes - I read that recently and felt exactly the same (and wait till you come across Colin later in the book!). There was also a lot of classist stereotyping which I found quite hard work. I hadn't read it as a child, and had to try and remember how much 'of its time' it was. I did read (and reread, several times) "A Little Princess" as a child, and would like to reread it as an adult, but I'm worried that reading it with 21st century adult eyes will spoil the childhood memory of a magical story.
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"My body is a temple - it's big and doesn't move." (Jo Brand)
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Posts: 5767 | From: the land of the deep-fried Mars Bar | Registered: Oct 2002
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