I want to weigh in today on a slightly-off-topic-but-increasingly-on-topic subject: monster mash-up classics. Mostly these still reside in the realm of literature, but Hollywood is always looking for a good idea to cop, which is why we're all looking forward to Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which is slated for theaters next summer.
I have already expressed my enthusiasm for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, even while commenting on the dubious nature of casting (I have recently learned that Mary Elizabeth Winstead is playing Abe's wife Mary Todd, to which I say: I'm glad she's working again and I hope she can bring the crazy). In addition, the rumor mill has been turning around Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (by the same author as AL: VH, Seth Grahame-Smith) for ages; first it was attached to Natalie Portman, then it wasn't, it had a director, then it didn't, then it did again, and now it's in that wonderful little blank space that projects occupy after they get a director but before they get actors. I have no doubt that we'll be hearing more from it, and soon (that last article regarding director Craig Gillespie is dated April 19, 2011) but until then, Abe Lincoln is filming and the literary world is buzzing around these unconventional retreads of classic literature.
When P&P&Z was released in May of 2009, it garnered a whole lot of attention and spawned a mess of "sequels" (Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Jane Slayre, Android Karenina, etc.). Some of them are really good and some of them...not so much. I read P&P&Z and enjoyed it immensely - I could not even finish S&S&S. I'm embroiled right now in Alice in Zombieland, which, once again, I'm enjoying immensely. And I adored Abe Lincoln. In my personal view, I found P&P&Z to be so much fun because it was deliciously subversive: about 85% of it is Jane Austen's original prose, with key words and phrases interjected at the right time to transform the English countryside into a zombie apocalypse. S&S&S, on the other hand, is almost entirely fabricated monster-story, and it didn't retain enough of the original text for me to find it clever or entertaining. Alice in Zombieland is composed mostly of wording changes (instead of a White Rabbit, Alice follows a Black Rat down an empty grave), but I'm finding it retains Carroll's tone of the original work. I think these stories work best when they stick harder to the original source material, which makes the horror-film changes that much more entertaining. It's not all that witty or original to read about sea monsters assailing an island; zombies in an otherwise pleasant English countryside, on the other hand? While everyone is speaking in charming Austenian dialect? Fabulous.
But that's just my take - why have these taken off so well in the populace at large? I may have read many of the canon works these monster manuals are based off of, but many people haven't (this is not a comment on the literacy of the US, by the way. This isn't meant to be a chastisement.). So why have people been devouring them off the shelves of bookstores and libraries alike? My theory is two parts: the current mad popularity of anything supernatural, and the desire for people to cheat.
The spat of supernatural in the media can't really be denied, because it's everywhere. My second point takes a little explaining: I think that many people read these books because they're easier to digest then the classics they're based off of. This is my hypothesis and it's largely unfounded in statistical fact, but c'mon, how many people have read Anna Karenina? I wouldn't go near it with a 20 foot pole. Android Karenina, frankly, sounds both far easier to chew on and much more interesting (please don't kill me if you're a Russian lit fan).
So anyway, that's my weigh-in. In regards to the impending Lincoln movie: the first set pic has been released, and it's a suitably boring one of Walker in costume giving some sort of presidential speech. (NOTE: I JUST learned that Rufus Sewell is in this movie, and he is NOT playing John Wilkes Booth. WTF BEKMAMBETOV) What I appreciate about this photo is what I appreciated about the book: in as many ways as possible, Grahame-Smith kept it historically accurate. I mean, yeah, there are vampires, but the skeleton the story is hung on is historical fact that we know about Lincoln's life. I think the movie will be more effective if it keeps that accurate feel, and from this (single, I know) photo, it looks like the filmmakers are trying to do just that.
I have already expressed my enthusiasm for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, even while commenting on the dubious nature of casting (I have recently learned that Mary Elizabeth Winstead is playing Abe's wife Mary Todd, to which I say: I'm glad she's working again and I hope she can bring the crazy). In addition, the rumor mill has been turning around Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (by the same author as AL: VH, Seth Grahame-Smith) for ages; first it was attached to Natalie Portman, then it wasn't, it had a director, then it didn't, then it did again, and now it's in that wonderful little blank space that projects occupy after they get a director but before they get actors. I have no doubt that we'll be hearing more from it, and soon (that last article regarding director Craig Gillespie is dated April 19, 2011) but until then, Abe Lincoln is filming and the literary world is buzzing around these unconventional retreads of classic literature.
When P&P&Z was released in May of 2009, it garnered a whole lot of attention and spawned a mess of "sequels" (Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, Jane Slayre, Android Karenina, etc.). Some of them are really good and some of them...not so much. I read P&P&Z and enjoyed it immensely - I could not even finish S&S&S. I'm embroiled right now in Alice in Zombieland, which, once again, I'm enjoying immensely. And I adored Abe Lincoln. In my personal view, I found P&P&Z to be so much fun because it was deliciously subversive: about 85% of it is Jane Austen's original prose, with key words and phrases interjected at the right time to transform the English countryside into a zombie apocalypse. S&S&S, on the other hand, is almost entirely fabricated monster-story, and it didn't retain enough of the original text for me to find it clever or entertaining. Alice in Zombieland is composed mostly of wording changes (instead of a White Rabbit, Alice follows a Black Rat down an empty grave), but I'm finding it retains Carroll's tone of the original work. I think these stories work best when they stick harder to the original source material, which makes the horror-film changes that much more entertaining. It's not all that witty or original to read about sea monsters assailing an island; zombies in an otherwise pleasant English countryside, on the other hand? While everyone is speaking in charming Austenian dialect? Fabulous.
But that's just my take - why have these taken off so well in the populace at large? I may have read many of the canon works these monster manuals are based off of, but many people haven't (this is not a comment on the literacy of the US, by the way. This isn't meant to be a chastisement.). So why have people been devouring them off the shelves of bookstores and libraries alike? My theory is two parts: the current mad popularity of anything supernatural, and the desire for people to cheat.
The spat of supernatural in the media can't really be denied, because it's everywhere. My second point takes a little explaining: I think that many people read these books because they're easier to digest then the classics they're based off of. This is my hypothesis and it's largely unfounded in statistical fact, but c'mon, how many people have read Anna Karenina? I wouldn't go near it with a 20 foot pole. Android Karenina, frankly, sounds both far easier to chew on and much more interesting (please don't kill me if you're a Russian lit fan).
So anyway, that's my weigh-in. In regards to the impending Lincoln movie: the first set pic has been released, and it's a suitably boring one of Walker in costume giving some sort of presidential speech. (NOTE: I JUST learned that Rufus Sewell is in this movie, and he is NOT playing John Wilkes Booth. WTF BEKMAMBETOV) What I appreciate about this photo is what I appreciated about the book: in as many ways as possible, Grahame-Smith kept it historically accurate. I mean, yeah, there are vampires, but the skeleton the story is hung on is historical fact that we know about Lincoln's life. I think the movie will be more effective if it keeps that accurate feel, and from this (single, I know) photo, it looks like the filmmakers are trying to do just that.
To be honest I haven't read any of those "mash-up classics" neither any of the movies based on the books, neither reading the actual books. But like you said most of them are easier for the average reader (12th graders, geeks and college students), but I'm sure that some will be interested enough to pick up the original source after reading the contemporary-updated-zombie-craze version. For example I can tell from my own experience that I started reading Dante Alighieri's "La Divina Commedia" after I played the "Dante's Inferno" videogame, well isn't the same case but the game really pushed me to read Alighieri's original work.
ReplyDeleteP.S.
I read first "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer" and then watch the movie, the only thing I remember about the film is the cute girl and the orgy and the end, from the book, that I'll never read it again.
kill or be killed!
bastardsword
I think things that push people to try or read something new inherently have value, even if maybe the thing in itself has only questionable value. While I have not played the Dante's Inferno game (I read some pretty negative reviews about it), I do think that if it got you to read the Divine Comedy, which is a great work of literature, then it's done some good. (And that is pre-supposing you did not enjoy the game; if you DID, then it wins all around).
ReplyDeleteSome of the mash-ups aren't great...but if reading Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters gets people reading Sense & Sensibility, then I'm glad the mash-up exists.
Thanks for reading!