Ever happened? Why not? Take an older book and re-write it for modern times. Or is it a case that the literary world has’nt run out of ideas yet and doesnt have to resort to such tactics?
Do you honestly think the only reason a person would rework a classic artwork was because they had run out of ideas?
Journeys Through Bookland, a ten-volume book set that anthologised hundereds of classic novels and short stories (It was essentially a survey course in children’s English lit), abridged and truncated a lot of the stories therein.
Seems to me the Hardy Boys were rewritten for a couple of new generations, by different writers (but credited to Franklin W. Dixon).
When Little Women was made into a Winona Ryder movie a while back, there was actually a rewrite edition that adapted the movie. Pretty bizarre, huh?
Mary Shelley rewrote Frankenstein at least twice. The Third Edition is the one most modern readers are familiar with.
The Rocketeer started out as a comic book serial in the early 80s. The installments were months, even years, apart. The Disney movie circa 1990 was surprisingly faithful to the source material, but a new artist and writer were commisioned to do the film adaptation.
Aaron Sorkin rewrote the stage version of A Few Good Men to incorporate a plot twist Rob Reiner suggested for the film version. It was, by all accounts, a substantial improvement:
Originally, Kaffee had the documents to prove that Col. Jessup had ordered the Code Red. Reiner looked at the script and said “I could walk into court and win this case!” Sorkin changed it so Kaffee had to bluff Jessup into confessing.
Depends on how you define it. There are tons of stories that have been rewritten over and over…take, say, the story of King Arthur. And if you count plays as literary (or would that have been more like the movie version?) almost all of Shakespear (like his contemporaries) were rewritten stories.
I’m trying to think of more modern examples. I don’t think we do that as much…or at least in the same way, since the birth of the Author and the Novel some 150- 200 years ago. Kind of how we don’t redo songs the same way we did used to since the '60’s.
Children’s book sections have tons of adapted classics (even of classic children’s books which are deemed as too advanced in their original form). I now collect all the children’s adaptions of classic horror & sci-fi stories I can find (when I was in grade school, I’d have given at least a finger for a child’s adaptation of DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN.)
There’s been movies that were modernizations of books. Like “The Oddyssey” -> “O, Brother Where Art Thou?” and “Taming of the Shrew” -> “10 Things I Hate About You”
Apparently Stephen Fry’s book “Revenge” (which I just read - very good!) was a re-telling of “The Count of Monte Cristo”. According to Fry in the afterward of the book, he says he got a great idea for a story and developed it three chapters in, then realized he knew the story from somewhere. He figured out it was “The Count of Monte Cristo” and went to the library to confirm it. While there he also figured out that the story (a wronged man who comes back from being considered lost/dead and seeks revenge on the folks responsible) was “kind of an urban legend that he [Alexander Dumas] had greatfully lifted”.
So Fry finished the book, and gave the characters names that were anagrams and homynyms of the Dumas characters. You can find a list here in Fry’s Wiki biography.
Lots of cases – unfortunately, many times, it’s flor the worse.
The first translation of Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon was a “translation” in which the translator introduced a lot of his own writing that had nothing to do with Verne. Pretty awful.
Philip Jose Farmer effectively rewrote some Fench author’s science fiction work from 100 years ago (not Verne) . I Can’t recall the title, and haven’t read it.
In the wake of filmed versions of movies, you often get rewrites that match the film plot more closely than the original book. Marooned is one of the few cases I know of where the original author rewrote his work to match the film. Peter George did the same, turning his novel Red Alert into a novelization of Dr. Strangelove (as Peter Bryant, but it’s the same guy).
More often it’s someone else who does the movie novelization rewrirte. as noted on this Board in the past, they rewrote The Iasland of Dr. Moreau for the 1977 Michael York/Burt Lancaster film. Alan Dean Foster wrote a novel of The Thing (the film was based on John Campbell’s Who Goes There?) and Piers Anthony wrote the novelization for Total Recall (based on Philip K. Dick’s We Can Remember it for you Wholesale). Chistopher Wood wrote James Bond and Moonraker for the release of the movie Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me for the James Bond film of the same name. He had been the screenwriter for both, neiother of which much resembled the Ian Fleming novels of those names.
And, of course, they rewrite for the children’s market. My daughter has child’s editions of some adult titles that have been completely rewritten.
Before international copyright law was fully established and enforced, piratical rewrites were everywhere. Charles Dickens had to deal with it several tuimes. His “A Christmas Carol” was a prime target. I’ve read an American re-write from shortly after the original release. It’s awful. It’s not that it’s technically filled with errors, but it’s tedious to read and boring. It lacks Dickens’ charm and ability in storytelling. If they hadn’t stolen his plot, there’d be no “draw” to make you read it in the first place.
Christopher Moore re-wrote part of the New Testament and called it Lamb * The Gospel According To Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal.
I must admit, this is one of my all time favorite books.
As betenoir said, there are lots of stories that are constantly being rewritten: King Arthur, Romeo & Juliet, Dracula, etc. Sometimes they’re conscious reworkings, other times not. And isn’t every Robert Ludlum/dan Brown/whomever thriller pretty much the same story?
I’ll also mention a great Borges short piece, “Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote”, a pretend review of a version of Don Quixote (word for word identical to Cervantes) written by a modern writer. It’s about how the same words written by different people, can have different implications and meanings.
What about a book like Wicked? That is a pre-quel to The Wizard of Oz series. It takes established characters and uses them for a story. (or is that just fan fiction?)
Holy Blood, Holy Grail was rewritten fairly recently. I can’t be bothered to read the re-write but I understand it was fairly well received, generally.
I had a similar thought recently. I went to the pub to see The Pearl Jam Show, a “tribute” band that did a damn good PJ show. I wondered whether I could get away with being, say a “Stephen Wright tribute comedian”. I imagine not.
Bridget Jones’s Diary is a sortof re-write of Pride and Prejudice. And Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason borrows from Persuasion.
I always wish someone would go back and rewrite Ludlum’s Bourne series. I like the stories, but reading Ludlum himself is like hitting my head against a brick wall, and not in the good way.
(Bolding mine)
???
Well there are folio society reprints which add illustrations that are analogous to cover songs, since the content is the same, but the presentation is changed.
Then there is also all the Reader’s Digest awfulness.
I’ve seen qute a few classics rewritten, but from a different POV.
Jane Eyre— Wide Sargasso Sea (crazy ex-wife)
Beowulf—Grendel (Grendel)—Whose Song is Sung (a dwarven companion)----Eaters of the Dead (a Moorish companion)
Jeckyll and Hyde—Mary Shelley (the housekeeper)
Lord of the Rings---- The Sundering (Morgoth/Sauron)
I’m sure there are others. Many of these are quite good, actually.
Mary Reilly, I think you mean. Easy to trip.
I remember reading this film synopsis when the movie **A Thousand Acres ** came out.
A bitter rivalry develops when a rich farmer near death divides up his farm amoungst his three daughters. Based on the book of the same title.
Huh?
A Thousand Acres is King Lear in Iowa.