If I recall correctly a while back (maybe years) there was a discussion here at MR about a similar sort of effort. In that case it was a rewrite of
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The reasoning offered for that, removing language that might offend modern sensibilities, was different but my objection to rewrites remains much the same for The Austen Project.
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Originally Posted by poohbear_nc
This idea bothers me greatly - on a number of levels.
1. We revere authors and their works "as is" - not as we wished they had been written.
2. Reading older works with unfamiliar vocabulary, terms, customs allows us to discover the richness of the past - and is quite easily done now with dictionaries on board ereaders, Wikipedia available on many ereaders, - not to mention reading on a tablet, with its search capabilities.
3. Tackling 'difficult' books expands & enlarges our reading skills, not to mention our vocabularies.
4. Older plot lines simply don't translate to modern times - e.g., the husband hunt, entailment woes, etc. Lost or mislaid letters as a plot device transmuted into misunderstood twitter feeds?
5. As noted several times above, Austen in particular has been already "modernized" by many authors. Why meddle with the originals? If you want modern technology, read one of the existing "additions" based on Austen's characters.
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All of this. What's on the horizon, Twitter Classics?
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Originally Posted by HarryT
Joanna Trollope was on this morning's BBC news talking about this. Apparently many modern readers find the Georgian literary style of Austen's novels rather heavy going. Eg the first chapter of "Sense and Sensibility" is a lengthy and rather complex discussion of Wills and Entails, which I can well imagine might be rather off putting for many.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
A comment that Joanna Trollope made in her BBC interview, which I agree with, is that modern readers expect books in which something "happens". As anyone who's read Jane Austen knows, there is virtually no "action"; they are a "comedy of manners", and most of the books consist of conversations, rather than actions.
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Sort of an off topic aside, but there is television ad running here in America for a soon to be released or just released film. The main selling point in the ad is the promise of “non-stop action.” Presumably non-stop car chases & crashes, explosions, and gun fights. To attract the crucial demographic for film ticket sales the line between film and video games must be erased?
Anyway together with Poohbear_nc point regarding language I would have to ask this. If Austen's novels are to be rewritten to eliminate any words or phrases that modern readers might have trouble with, and if the novels are to be jazzed up to be “non-stop action” what's the point of even doing it? What's the point of reading Austen?