Sequels, prequels and influences

The new sequel to Peter Pan triggers a very interesting article on the BBC new website. The article looks into the business of writing sequels/prequels/spin-offs of famous novels.

The genre has gained serious momentum in recent years. Once copyright laws have yellowed with age anyone can have a go at disinterring the corpse of a fictional randee and making it dance to their particular tune.
Works by the Brontes and Jane Austen are favourites, with one website listing 17 sequels and spin-offs to Pride and Prejudice alone.

It's all because of that Mr Darcy ;)

Philip Womack, from the Literary Review, said: "It is incredibly hard to effectively write something like this. "There is simply no way of stepping back into the mindset of someone from the 18th or 19th Century.

Very true. But some novels do manage to come as close as possible to it. Others - well - fall short of having the servant microwave the meals :P

"These books seem to be written because either the authors feel an irresistible draw to the characters or simply there is an undeniable demand from the public." The results, while often popular, have received mixed responses. Scarlett attracted reviews such as "Frankly, it's damnable", while Jean Rhys's The Wide Sargasso Sea - a prequel to Jane Eyre - won awards and praise in equal measure.

Some of these prequels/sequels sometimes belong to the realm of fan fiction. And the opposite is true as well, some fan fiction belongs in the world of published books.

Emma Tennant is arguably the queen of the historical spin-off, having written books inspired by Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma and Wuthering eights.
She has just completed The French Dancer's Bastard, which also revisits Jane Eyre.
For her the reason for the classic sequel is simple. "It's about characters. There hasn't been a really powerful literary character written in decades. "These figures from the classics have such depth and potential that there is a need to find out more about them.
"It's a mistake to take on the task if you don't have a deep personal feeling for the book and its people and that feeling is what you have to tap into."
She also rejects any suggestion readers are annoyed about familiar books being rewritten.

You can read more about Emma Tennant's new book if you scroll down a few posts or - more easily - by clicking on this link.

Something else that should be discussed is the morality of comparing too many recently-published books to the Brontë novels, the obvious stars being Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Today's example are:

How Nancy Drew Saved My Life by Lauren Baratz-Logsted which is described as 'part Charlotte Bronte, part chick-lit and part Nancy Drew.'

We are very happy to see so many people influenced by such great novels and so many literate reviewers comparing the books they review to the classics but most of the time it's sadly nothing but one more commercial ploy. (And we are not talking about this book reviewed today in particular!)

Categories: Books, Jane_Eyre, Sequels