Yesterday, an article in the Guardian was headlined Joanna Trollope to rewrite Jane Austen.
The article announces that:
“The pairing is the first in a what the publisher has dubbed a ’major’ new series, in which it will team modern authors with Austen’s six novels, asking them to reimagine the books in a contemporary setting.”
My first impulse was to be outraged. How dare they think they need to update Jane Austen? Then, I stepped back for a moment and realized that my outrage was probably decades (maybe even a century) too late. Writers have been piggy-backing on Jane Austen for years and why shouldn’t Joanna Trollope, who is a really good writer, get on the bandwagon? Lord knows the publishing world has seen enough pretty awful interpretations of Jane Austen’s books and characters. Let’s see what Joanna Trollope can do.
Interestingly enough, yesterday I read an interview with David Liss, Author of The Twelfth Enchantment on the Austenprose blog. Mary Crawford (of Mansfield Park fame) is a major character in The Twelfth Enchantment and Mr. Liss says this of using Jane Austen’s characters in his fiction:
Writers always work in the shadows of their predecessors, and there are few writers as influential as Austen, who revolutionized both what kinds of characters were fit subjects for novels and how those characters can be brought to life. On the one hand, taking Austen’s characters and continuing their stories is an act of fandom and devotion, but given Austen’s influence on the form, I think it could also be argued that that’s what most novelists are doing most of the time anyhow.
I think, for many writers, he’s possibly quite right. What are we all doing but an act of fandom and devotion to Jane Austen? Bring it on, Joanna. Let’s see how you bring one of our favorite novels into the 21st century.
Myretta is the co-founder and current manager of The Republic of Pemberley, a pretty big Jane Austen web site. She is also a writer of Historical Romance. You can find her at her website,www.myrettarobens.com and on Twitter@Myretta
Photo of Joanna Trollope from http://www.guardian.co.uk/
