MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - The Austen Project rewrites Jane Austen's classics for modern readers

Joshua Grasso · 10-26-2013, 04:10 PM

...should leave one in want of a readership.

The only time I would advise someone 're-writing' Jane Austen is in the case of her unfinished novels The Watsons and Sanditon, and even then, why bother? Even unfinished, they are glorious snapshots of what might have been (I particularly love what we have of Sanditon).

But re-writing them for a modern readership? A really sad, lowbrow way to make money. First it insults the readers for suggesting that Austen writes over their heads (as a professor, I have taught Austen numerous times, and rarely has anyone complained of the difficulty of her language); and second, it pompously suggests that Austen is no longer relevant as is, and she needs to be 'updated' as in Austen 2.0. This is why students resist literature so much in high school and college--our culture constantly tells them, "oh, this is no longer relevant for you! You're a 21st century Generation Z hypertext multimodal learner!" Sure, they make a buck but at the expense of many young readers who would love Austen just the way she is. And of course, re-writing changes her metaphors, her style, and the very essence of her insight. Austen didn't write romances, she wrote cutting social satire and insightful literature that responded to the other writers of her time--Fielding, Burney, Richardson, Radcliffe, etc. Re-writing that removes her from her cultural context and makes her into a sad doppleganger, but even worse than a remake ala Clueless, which at least translated ideas very loosely. God knows what these versions intend to do.

However well paid these authors are, they should be ashamed to remove Austen from some young person who will read their version of Emma or Pride and Prejudice and go, "hmm, it was okay, but nothing great. What's all the fuss?" I first read Pride and Prejudice at 16 and was totally bowled over. Smitten. In mad love. While these books won't knock Austen off the shelves--indeed, they'll probably come and go very quickly--it's still indicative of our approach to literature: anything old needs to be taken out back, shot, and stuffed into something useful. Enough already!

10-26-2013, 04:10 PM	#80
Joshua Grasso Enthusiast Posts: 27 Karma: 447660 Join Date: Oct 2013 Location: Ada, Oklahoma Device: Kindle Fire	It is universally acknowledged that modernizing classic literature... ...should leave one in want of a readership. The only time I would advise someone 're-writing' Jane Austen is in the case of her unfinished novels The Watsons and Sanditon, and even then, why bother? Even unfinished, they are glorious snapshots of what might have been (I particularly love what we have of Sanditon). But re-writing them for a modern readership? A really sad, lowbrow way to make money. First it insults the readers for suggesting that Austen writes over their heads (as a professor, I have taught Austen numerous times, and rarely has anyone complained of the difficulty of her language); and second, it pompously suggests that Austen is no longer relevant as is, and she needs to be 'updated' as in Austen 2.0. This is why students resist literature so much in high school and college--our culture constantly tells them, "oh, this is no longer relevant for you! You're a 21st century Generation Z hypertext multimodal learner!" Sure, they make a buck but at the expense of many young readers who would love Austen just the way she is. And of course, re-writing changes her metaphors, her style, and the very essence of her insight. Austen didn't write romances, she wrote cutting social satire and insightful literature that responded to the other writers of her time--Fielding, Burney, Richardson, Radcliffe, etc. Re-writing that removes her from her cultural context and makes her into a sad doppleganger, but even worse than a remake ala Clueless, which at least translated ideas very loosely. God knows what these versions intend to do. However well paid these authors are, they should be ashamed to remove Austen from some young person who will read their version of Emma or Pride and Prejudice and go, "hmm, it was okay, but nothing great. What's all the fuss?" I first read Pride and Prejudice at 16 and was totally bowled over. Smitten. In mad love. While these books won't knock Austen off the shelves--indeed, they'll probably come and go very quickly--it's still indicative of our approach to literature: anything old needs to be taken out back, shot, and stuffed into something useful. Enough already!