Classics Retold Runners Up

Labels: , · Posted by Lisa ::
I've downloaded a copy of Jekyll and Hyde onto every electronic device I own. It's time to start my Classics Retold journey, but I thought before I did that, I should share with you a couple of the other books I had considered taking on for this project.


The Scarlet Letter by  Nathaniel Hawthorn

The first time I read this book was for an English class in high school.  I remember most of the class disliking the book.  I don't know if it was because of the book itself, the language and the subject matter, or if it was the tedious questions and halfhearted discussions that followed, but a lot of the class was downright miserable during the unit.  I, on the other hand, was in love.  Hester's strength inspired me, Prim fascinated me, and both Dimmsdale and Chillingworth fascinated me.

While I haven't seen any strict adaptions of the text, I have seen other more liberal interpretations, my favorite of which is Easy A, one of my favorite movies.  While having an excuse to rewatch the movie and reread the book, which is also one of my all time favorites, as I said in my intro post, I was looking for a new experience, and so I had to set the book aside and hope someone else would pick it up so I can excitedly spam them come September. 


O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

This was another book I read for an English class, and another of my absolute favorites.  The first time I read it, I picked it up intending to read the assigned portion and then go on with my day.  Instead, I read the entire thing in one sitting and started it a second time.  I love Alexandra, I love her strength, I love her connection with the land, the understanding she has of the world and I absolutely love Cather's writing.  One January day, thirty years ago, the tiny town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska table land, was trying not to be blown away. 

 Ultimately O Pioneers! didn't make the cut for Classics Retold because there's not a whole lot out there that I could find in terms of adaptions.  There's a stage adaption, and several other works by Cather that contain similar themes, but not the varied mediums I was looking for.


The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett

And now it's time for me to 'fess up.  I have never read The Secret Garden despite my immense and undying love for its adaptions.  One of the first shows I remember seeing on stage was The Secret Garden.  I have vivid memories of straining to watch the set changes through the unnatural blackness of the theatre.  I can remember watching the 1993 film adaptation for the first time and being overwhelmed by my emotions.  I can remember the last time I watched it, sitting curled up on the couch sniffling at one am  because it was still as beautiful and as touching as it had been the first time.

Like the other books on this list, there's a lot of great commentary and discussion on the text, but there isn't a lot that was new to me, at least not in terms of the adaptions themselves.


Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier

I haven't read Rebecca despite it being on my TBR list for years (possibly since 2004/5 *twiddles thumbs*).  It's not a book I know that much about.  In fact what I know about the book can be summarized in a thirty second clip from an episode of JAG.  Here's the thing about me though,  I have a serious geekout every time a fictional (particularly tv) character mentions a piece of literature (or media), particularly if it ties into the story line or their personal development.

In this particular case, it's the first line of the novel that's quoted, the first line and then nothing.  There's no further reference to the book, at least not that I can discern, and this drives me a bit nuts every time I watch the episode because I know there's more to it than that, I just don't know what.  While this might seem like a good reason to pick up a book and read it, for this project I was looking for something I was a bit more familiar with.  I wanted to pick something I had some understanding of, a framework with which to work and Rebecca doesn't fit that bill.

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