Have you seen this? I don't even know what to say. I've been meaning to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for awhile now, and I thought this whole monster/classic hybrid thing was kind of cute. But this might be out of control now. A book about suicide and social morality AND robots? I just don't think this works for Tolstoy for the exact reasons Jay Parini states towards the end of the article.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jan/13/android-karenina-tolstoy-centenary-upgrade
What do you think?
Not to mention how inadequate I'd feel as a writer if I was tasked to rewrite perhaps the most perfectly-structed novel in all of literature...
ReplyDeleteThere's also Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters
ReplyDeleteYou may very well be correct that this modernizing method does not apply well to Tolstoy, Beth, but, having hesitantly read PPJ and actually enjoyed it, I'd recommend trying a chapter or two in the bookstore before actually forming your own opinion. The writer who adapted PPJ was so incredibly familiar with the characters, etc., in PP, that the "spoof" actually helped me get some new insights on the original. Just a thought!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I will probably check it out when it debuts this summer. But the whole thing still weirds me out. How many books can they do this with before it gets old?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I try to be open-minded but if they try this with any Fitzgerald novels, I'm not sure how I'll react. I might go right out and buy it, or I might threaten death....Or, if the publishers were really smart, they'd ask a Fitzgerald-fanatic like me to write the fantasy/sci-fi version :)