I'm thinking about two books today. I'm not going to give them a thumbs-up/thumbs-down. This post will be more concerned with their genres than the actual books themselves.
• Great or Nothing by Joy McCullough, Caroline Tung Richmond, Tess Sharpe and Jessica Spotswood. Why does this single novel have four authors? Because it's a reimagining of Little Women, and each March sister has her own voice and, therefore, her own author. This time it's set in the 1940s, The March family is reeling from two blows: the bombing of Pearl Harbor and Beth's fatal illness. I know Gone with the Wind received a similar treatment in the 1990s with a sequel called Scarlett. (Though Alexandra Ripley left Rhett and Scarlett in the 1800's.) Are there classics that you'd like to see updated or continued?
• All About All About Eve is an exhaustive look at the making of the 1950 film, All About Eve. To this day it remains the only movie to receive four Oscar nominations for its lead actresses. That's how good it is. Influential, too. One of its lines, "Fasten your seatbelts! It's going to be a bumpy night!" has made its way into the vernacular, and it spawned a Tony Award winning play and Emmy nominated made-for-TV movie (both called Applause). Author Sam Staggs tells us how a short story in Cosmopolitan magazine started this juggernaut, explains the role of the set designers and costume designers as well as the writer/director, and dissects the performances (and off-screen shenanigans) of the actors. Staggs tried to interview the last surviving cast member, Oscar-nominated Celeste Holm, when he began this book. She refused to cooperate, saying, "A work of art speaks for itself. A book like this is a waste of time." Do you agree? Do you enjoy the reviews and analysis of a book, movie, poem or play? Or do you prefer to let the art speak for itself?
What a fascinating question you pose! I'll have to mull it over.
ReplyDeleteRevisions of highly popular classics really don't appeal to me. I thought Louisa May Alcott did just fine with Little Women, no redo needed. And the second book sounds like someone's ego trip, more than anything. I could be missing something.
ReplyDeletebest... mae at maefood.blogspot.com
I like to read as much as I can about movies I love, so I imagine that a book like All About All About Eve would appeal greatly to people who love All About Eve. Now that's a movie I haven't seen. Maybe I need to add it to the list for our Sunday evening movie club.
ReplyDeleteSometimes it's fun to reimagine a classic. Really, there are just a couple of stories anyway, right? Everything else is a reimagining.