Original Recipe Literature

Over on the Television Without Pity boards, there's a topic in the TV Potluck forum called "New Rules for TV" where we decide what would never be allowed on television again if we ran the networks. (Example: sitcoms with fat, stupid, bumbling husbands and their smart, thin, beautiful wives would no longer be allowed if TWoP were allowed to be in charge of programming.)

So if I ran book publishing, this would be my new rule for novelists: no more passing off fan fiction as literature.

You hear that, Alexandra Ripley? You started it, you know.

Actually, I don't believe the onslaught of truly awful violations of classic literature began with Scarlett. I don't even hold Scarlett up as a prime example - it was what it was - a mass-market paperback with an embossed cover and a ridiculous premise, that made a decentish miniseries featuring Colm Meaney, and having Colm Meaney in your miniseries could make anything good. It didn't pretend to be anything it wasn't.

But when it comes to more egregious instances of pretending a book is on par with classic literature just because it's a takeoff on actual classic literature, Gone With the Wind was definitely involved.

I'm talking about one of the worst books I've ever read - The Wind Done Gone. Sure, it created a buzz when it was released, and the idea that Rhett was secretly in love with a former slave resurrected some great debates on the way the original handled race issues. But the problem with The Wind Done Gone was that it was bad. Bad bad bad. Everything Scarlett did, the protagonist, Cynara, did better. Cynara had Mary Sue written all over her. The internet is full of fan fiction that's basically a retelling of the original movie/book/TV episode with an all-new, all-awesome, all-gorgeous protagonist inserted into the middle of it. (While browsing fanfiction.net recently, I found some fan fiction for my favorite TV show, Lost, which basically rehashed old episodes but supposed that Ewan McGregor was stranded on the island with the regular cast. And it was miles better than The Wind Done Gone. MILES.)

So in the wake of this particular novel, it seems like there are all sorts of classic tales being retold from a different point of view, and sequels written by people other than the author (usually because the author is dead and therefore can't protest). Some are great, this much is true. John Gardner's Grendel is a particularly neat spin on this concept. I haven't read it, but I hear Wide Sargasso Sea is great. And with children's literature, in particular, there are some brilliant new takes on old tales, from authors like Gregory Maguire, Jane Yolen, and Jon Scieska. But most, to me, just come off like the author wishes he or she had written the original, and lacks the writing chops to come up with characters half as good on their own.

People, there is no reason we need new versions of Rebecca, or Pride and Prejudice, or Huckleberry Finn, or Little Women. (A trip to any Barnes and Noble will show you that need them or not, we have fan fiction novels, from major publishing houses, for ALL of these.) What the world does need are new universes full of well-developed, multifaceted, brilliantly flawed characters who make us love them, visualize their lives, and speculate for ourselves on what happens to them next.

Anything less, in my opinion, isn't too far above all those smutty stories involving Kirk, Spock, and extended shore leave.

It's no wonder J.K. Rowling keeps threatening to kill off Harry Potter.