Rewriting the classics

I've seen Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead". I've read Joyce's "Ulysses". I've not seen Disney's "The Lion King". These works all allude to earlier texts - some more explicitly than others. For the reader/viewer some of these works are enriched by knowledge of the original but can stand alone, whereas others almost require pre-knowledge of the original.

In the last few months I've listened to two fairly recent novels that rewrite a classic from a different Point-of-View, sometimes injecting anachronistic concepts -

• "James" by Percival Everett - I've not read "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", which remains (in revised ways) controversial. James (Jim) is Huck's slave friend.
• "Julia" by Sandra Newman - this uses much (maybe all?) of Julia's dialogue from "1984". Julia is Winston Smith's girlfriend. By presenting her words in a new, more feminist context, they take on new meanings. This idea (of not changing the original words or action, but letting them take on new interpretations) is used to a greater or lesser extent by other works of this type.

I enjoyed both novels. Knowing the original means that there are spoilers, though the treatments continue to offer surprises. The authors needed to decide how much the original work would be used as a constraint - how closely their book needed to track the events of the original. I suspect that they didn't want to contradict anything in the original - it's better to leave an event out entirely rather than bend it to fit the new plot. The picaresque nature of Twain's work eases Everett's task in this respect. Julia isn't so central a character as Jim, so Newman had more space to work in - more back-story to add. Reviews of "Julia" often comment on the ending, which goes beyond the time-frame of the main body of "1984".

Some of the satisfaction of reading such novels derives from recognising the borrowings from the originals. My memory of the originals is hazy at best. I found myself at times wondering whether details were in these books because they had to be (being in the originals) or whether they were significant additions by the author. Did the original Julia work in Fiction section of the Ministry of Truth or is this a meta-fiction twist? Did Jim really tell Huck that Huck was his son?

I've recently listened to "The Family Chao" by Lan Samantha Chang. It parallels "The Brothers Karamazov" though I only realised that when I read the reviews afterwards. I think it works fine as a stand-alone book. It deals with son/father conflicts in a family of Orientals in the States. I've not read "The Brothers Karamazov", but reading the Wikipedia summary of it I can see how close the parallel is. It's clever - Chang had to find analogues for many features, in the way that Joyce did.

Richmond, London

It's where Alexander Pope lived for a while, having made money from doing translations. A memorial to him includes some quotes from his works including "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".

An old prefabricated urinal is hidden away there. Having recently been to Paris I can say that the Richmond one compares well with the competition, though Paris also has urinals for females.

I visited Eel Pie Island too, where a now defunct music venue hosted Bowie, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, etc.

Liverpool: summer milestones

Over summer,

• my litrefs reviews site got its millionth hit
• my litrefs articles site got its half-millionth hit

I've retired too. This may explain why I've already written more prose this year than in any previous year: 32 Flashes and 6 stories so far. I've only written 3 poems though. None of the 2025 stuff has been published yet.

In the last month I've visited Paris, Nottingham, Chester and Liverpool. In my travels my biggest surprise was when I visited the Liverpool street where I used to live - much smarter than how I recall it. It's cobbled with a stylish bar at the end, and closer than I thought to the landmarks I recall - the 2 cathedrals, the Unity Theatre, the Everyman Theatre and the Casa.

I'm surprised that the Casa still exists. In my day it had soggy carpets, cheap booze and dubious curries. We went there after the pubs closed. It didn't draw attention to itself. It looks smarter nowadays but still seems rather out of place. Without the barrels and the letters over the door it might be just another family house. The old Casa (short for Casablanca) "nightclub" is now the Community Advice Service Association (CASA) set up by sacked Liverpool dock-workers, with a bar and performance area.

While I lived in Liverpool I went to a Writers club. I wrote some SF and got a poem on BBC Radio Merseyside, but I was too busy doing a Masters to progress much with my writing. Now time isn't an issue.