Old Stories, New Settings: on modern-day adaptations of classic literature

I always used to consider myself a purist when it came to adaptations of beloved books. I have a button badge that says "The Book Was Better," and yes, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, it is. And yet we book-lovers do like to watch film adaptations of familiar stories, to see the stories and characters we know and love brought to life. Woe betide anyone who gets it wrong! But can anyone really reproduce the films that play out in a person's mind when they read a book? No one ever reads the same book as anyone else, or so they say; everyone brings something new to the reading. But a good story is timeless, and so often people demonstrate this by bringing old stories to a new setting, to show how themes and characters can transcend a single place and time. It's an idea I used to frown upon, but have come to appreciate. Viewing a familiar tale in a new way can give you a new understanding and better appreciation of the original text.

The point at which I first acknowledged this was in the summer of 2010, when the BBC showed the first series of Sherlock. I recognised the brilliance of casting Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (even without a moustache) as the Great Detective and his sidekick, before I even identified that they were dressed in modern clothes. They were Holmes and Watson, there was no doubt about it. From before Holmes appeared on-screen, from the first time he spoke, his character was clearly defined, given new life free from the trappings of the smoggy setting of Victorian London and its formal language.

 

I didn't need to read the back blurb of Jacqueline Wilson's recent novel Katy to know what it was. A Katy on a swing? Well, that would be a modern-day telling of Susan Coolidge's What Katy Did, a classic that was inevitably a big part of my childhood - and indeed now Nick Sharratt has illustrated a paperback of the original to match, a visual confirmation that times may change but children do not.

I knew that Wilson had liked that book as a child, although to the modern or older reader, the Victorian moralising is rather unpalatable now. Jacqueline Wilson specialises in stories about dysfunctional families and flawed but believable child heroes and heroines, so adapting What Katy Did plays to her strengths. I really liked how closely she stuck to the original, especially in the first half of the book, mirroring even the minor details: the ice-house, on which the children love to sit, has become a garage roof. Aunt Izzie is now Katy and Clover's stepmother, and middle-child misfit Elsie their stepsister, while the younger ones are at least half-siblings. It was the details of the children's make-believe storytelling and games that made that story come alive for me as a child, so it's really interesting to see what their modern-day counterparts get up to (and it is really not that much different at all. Katy and her friend Cecy have mobile phones now, instead of "post-offices" in the garden, but they use them to taunt and exclude poor Elsie in just the same way.) Halfway through, at the time of the accident, the story moves away from the original What Katy Did and becomes a new Jacqueline Wilson book with 21st century values. Katy does not need to become reformed (and utterly dull) and be rewarded with miraculous healing. The world doesn't work that way, and by giving her heroine the challenges of accepting her limitations and setting herself new goals as a person with a disability, Jacqueline Wilson has written a more relatable young heroine for modern-day Katys to relate to.

Possibly the most adapted and updated story of them all is Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, the tale of hate turning to love that has formed the starting point of most romantic comedies. Bride and Prejudice brings a Bollywood twist to the classic tale. The world has grown smaller, but human nature remains, and the formalities and misunderstandings of Regency England translates well into the cultural divide between a rich, haughty American businessman and a bright young Indian woman whose mother wants to arrange good marriages for all her daughters. Oh, you know the story! Bride and Prejudice is a smart, funny, sometimes corny but feel-good adaptation of the old story.

Then, of course, there's Bridget Jones's Diary, based on the novel by Helen Fielding (which I think was originally published as a weekly newspaper column.) I read and watched this before I ever read Pride and Prejudice (yes, there was such a time!) and haven't seen it for ages, but although it's more loosely based on Austen's novel, there are clear parallels in this tale of a thirty-something singleton surrounded by smug marrieds, with the charming cad on one side, and on the other hand the snob called Darcy who looks like Colin Firth (the ultimate bit of meta-casting.)

The latest adaptation Pride and Prejudice heralded a new kind of storytelling in the form of the Literary-Inspired Webseries. Filmed in short episodes in video-journal format, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries give us Lizzie Bennet, a twenty-something graduate student who has moved back home with her family in a difficult financial climate, wondering what future there is in store for someone with an English degree - a painfully relatable variation on the theme. Most of the drama happens with Lizzie relating events to her video journal (with some interruptions from friends and family, and some excellent re-enactments.) Ashley Clements is sassy and expressive as Lizzie, Laura Spencer (wasn't she in The Big Bang Theory as Emily?) is sweet and lovable, while Mary Kate Wiles is lovably obnoxious as Lydia, as you'd expect, but shows more character growth than Austen allowed her, and a rare vulnerability later on. The other two sisters are relegated to being Mary the Emo Cousin who Lizzie (perfect!) and Kitty is literally Lydia's adoring cat.

Since The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Youtube has been rather overrun with modern-day video-diary versions of every classic imaginable: all the Austen, I think, Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes, Little Women, and my beloved Anne of Green Gables has got not one but two webseries inspired by it. Green Gables Fables came first, starring Mandy Harmon as Anne, and in September returned for its second season. I think it took a little while to get really good, as the actors grew into their characters. It is very faithful to the book, although I wasn't quite sure that some of the substitutions quite reflected the original - having a manicure at the salon, for example, doesn't quite have the same importance as finally getting to wear nice clothes, and the hair disaster and the cake disaster less dramatic. But by the time Gilbert Blythe turns up in the middle of the first season, it got into its stride, and it is notable for its amount of "transmedia" with Youtube channels for supporting characters, who all have regularly-updated Twitter accounts interacting with each other for things that can't be shown in a five-minute video diary once a week. Tanner Gilman is a magnificently lovable, nerdy Gilbert Blythe, who is more important to get right than a Mr Darcy (and I'm sorry, women everywhere, but I still don't get the appeal. Not when I've grown up with Gilbert Blythe.)

Between the first and second seasons, Green Gables Fables filled in with some of the events of Anne of Avonlea updated and the stories told through their social media. Season two focuses on Anne of the Island, which follows Anne at Redmond College. It diverged a little from the book at the beginning with a subplot about Diana, who never went to university in the book, and yet it seems mostly to remain true to their characters - the growing distance between two friends, Diana being more of a homebody while Anne is academic and ambitious. The format doesn't always quite work; how do you show intensely private moments in a "Hello world, this is what happened to me today" video diary? And fitting four years' worth of events into one academic year also has its occasional uncomfortable juxtaposition of events happening too close together (notably Anne's romantic woes.) But I'm so glad to see Anne of Green Gables being talked about more - and discussions use the books as a starting point, instead of the (albeit excellent) 1985 TV miniseries. Green Gables Fables is an immersive storytelling experience, putting the viewer into the story and living through it as it unfolds. There's been some extraordinary writing and acting, and Ruby Gillis's last video made a fine adaptation of a particular scene in Anne of the Island. 

And I'm completely spoilt in having Project Green Gables as well. This Finnish-made adaptation re-imagines Anne Shirley as a black foster kid in a mostly-white community, a decision that gives added weight to the story in a contemporary setting. Like her ginger counterpart, Anne has her own hair woes, though with its natural texture rather than colour, and this change gives a deeper, more serious interpretation than mere vanity. Gilbert is going to have to work very hard at repentance for his hair taunts, and you can't blame Anne or laugh about her unforgiveness under these circumstances. This isn't a petty matter any more. As I write this, the story is up to the point of the Great Hair Disaster, and in Project Green Gables, Anne's rash mistake is buying a cheap chemical hair relaxer from the internet, with devastating results.

Project Green Gables may be less polished than Green Gables Fables, but it is more adventurous when it comes to adapting scenes and chapters of Anne's life to a modern setting, and by doing so it better retains and underlines the nuances of the original. It is not a brooch that Marilla accuses Anne of stealing, but her prescription medicine, an accusation that cuts much deeper and has potentially far-reaching consequences. She's not an orphan any more, but a foster child of unreliable parents. And just her gossip about Avonlea school goings-on makes me think about the original, so-familiar text in a different light. Laura Eklund Nhaga plays a very different Anne Shirley to Mandy Harmon - and yet they both are Anne, bringing out complementary sides to her personality. Both Annes are aged up to about sixteen or seventeen, whereas in the book she first appears as a precocious eleven-year-old. Laura Eklund Nhaga brings out her innocence, her passion and enthusiasm, her non-stop joyful chatter, instantly convincing me that she was Anne. The supporting cast are also wonderful, and like Anne, they are the book characters come to life but in a very different way from Green Gables Fables. A special mention for including the hilariously obnoxious Charlie Sloane, not a character who tends to be very prominent in film adaptations. The series shows a deep knowledge of the source material, easily making reference to the little things as well as the defining events.

With two webseries adaptations as well as a film and a new television adaptation in the works, I'm over the moon. Anyone who knows me will tell you that Anne of Green Gables is the book that defines me, and although I can hardly fault the best-known television adaptation, as far as I'm concerned, the more Anne, the better.

A Girl of the Limberlost - Gene Stratton-Porter

"But what is a limberlost?" my childish self wondered. I was at the height of my school-story-loving days, which would place me between ten and twelve years old. I must have been at some family function, and bored, so my Grandma went to her bookshelves and found an old favourite from her own schooldays, an ancient red-covered book held together by tape, smelling of dust and vanilla. Flash forward to 2015, and A Girl of the Limberlost now sits on my own bookcase - or rather, that same antique bookcase with the glass doors, but now in my room and full of my own childhood favourites. When my Grandma moved out of her house into a retirement flat, she let me choose from a selection of her books, as well as the bookcase, and I vividly remembered enjoying this one, even if I probably didn't finish it, and didn't actually remember what the Limberlost was. (It was an area of swampland in Indiana, full of wildlife and secrets.)

A Girl of the Limberlost is a sequel to Gene Stratton Porter's novel Freckles, but I read it as a stand-alone novel and didn't feel as though I'd missed out on much. It follows Elnora Comstock, a determined young girl, as she works her way through high school, against the wishes of her loveless mother Katharine. Although the language and details had changed, the opening chapter read just like so many modern-day books for teenagers, as Elnora turns up to her new school unprepared, unfashionable and humiliated. It reminded me a lot of the start of Eleanor and Park, and I realised that although fashions may change, high school students do not.

Luckily, Elnora has a kindly aunt and uncle, who are determined to make sure that she gets the upbringing and love that her mother has neglected. Katharine resents Elnora due to her being born at the same time that her husband, who she idolised, drowned in the swamp. Their fraught relationship is central to the book, and eventually Katharine comes to realise that the man she's been resenting her daughter over for sixteen or more years was not the perfect husband she has believed.

Elnora bears a few warning signs of being a turn-of-the-century paragon of virtue: generous to the poor, hard-working, beautiful and devout. But she is a very human character, one who may have an optimistic outlook, but who feels keenly her mother's neglect and the shame of being the outsider. She is proud when it comes to money, not allowing anyone to pay for her schooling but herself, which she does through selling moth and butterfly collections, and through tutoring younger children about natural sciences. She also inherits her father's talent for the violin, which she practices in secret, away from her mother, who would have none of it. But she is not so good at keeping track of her money, and when it runs out, she turns to her mother for help. This was where I thought she had a weird switch from being the Good Girl to being a bit of a brat: her high school graduation requires not one but three new dresses, but instead of buying them, her mother washes last year's white dress for her. Oh, the horror! Cue the horrified cries of "I've got nothing to wear!" and the frantic clubbing together of other friendsandrelations to customise someone else's cast-offs instead. For someone so normally thrifty, it seemed very out of character for her to throw a tantrum about wearing one white dress instead of another, but perhaps I just don't understand the importance of having a brand-new outfit for high school graduation (or perhaps prom.)

If Taylor Swift can do it, so can Elnora Comstock.

Elnora spends that summer working with a sickly young man called Philip Ammon, and they become close friends. He is engaged to another woman, a great beauty, but conveniently one who is an utter harridan, and who breaks off their engagement out of jealousy over Elnora, in front of all their friends and family. Elnora, it is implied, has developed feelings for Ammon, and as soon as his fiancee breaks up with him, he comes running back to Elnora. I didn't have a lot of patience for Ammon, finding him a bit of a drip. Like Romeo - and I don't mean that as a compliment; remember how Romeo mopes over the loss of his true love Rosaline at the beginning of the play, only to fall straight into the arms of someone he's only just met? But Elnora has more sense than to take Ammon at his word, and insists on giving him space to see if he really is over his first love. But he plays the persistent lover, which I'm not so sure is so romantic as it is intended to be. When he proposes formally to Elnora later on, her response is essentially, "Ooh, a ring, shiny! Let me try it on and see if I like it before I decide whether or not to marry you." Um... not quite sure that's a great basis on whether to marry someone or not. The whole romance element to the story is rather melodramatic and silly. A Girl of the Limberlost is not quite up there in the classic girls' coming-of-age canon with Anne, Katy and the March girls, but it is a good contemporary of them to keep them company.

Sunday Summary: My Great British Summer Holiday

Hello all. Today's post is a rather late one as I've just been spending the afternoon and evening celebrating my friend's birthday, an age-appropriate event for someone in her late twenties, with board and card games and pizza. Lots of pizza. Gotta love Domino's!

So last week was the week of the great Lake District camping trip, which Judith and I have been planning probably for the last two years or so. I grew up having the Swallows and Amazons books read to me for bedtime stories, and these are among the stories that formed the framework of my childhood. I play-acted Swallows and Amazons, even tried writing Swallows and Amazons fanfiction (with myself as a character with my very own boat.) I think I got about two pages of A5 paper and a drawing! Judith didn't read these books as a kid, although she enjoyed the first book when she read it recently, and was quite happy to go along with my dream of re-enacting these stories - though without the sailing. I wouldn't trust myself in charge of a yacht.

We had a gorgeous campsite, a pitch in a woodland clearing with just two or three other tents around us, and it was just a very short scramble down to the lake. Of course we went swimming - we couldn't exactly not! Lake swimming is very different from sea swimming - no waves, and some weird squidgey plant life underfoot, so it's better just to stay afloat. It was bliss.

The day after we arrived we attempted to climb "Kanchenjunga," or the Old Man of Coniston as it is called in muggle terminology, one of the highest hills in the UK. In Arthur Ransome's Swallowdale, six children between the ages of eight and about fourteen climb this mountain without even using the path, and then the youngest walk back to their camp across the moors afterwards (getting lost in the fog, but that's another story.) Sadly, we had to conclude that this story must have had its basis in fantasy, and had to turn back long before reaching the summit, having run out of drinking water. Still, it was a jolly good climb, with some beautiful scenery!

After last week's not-grumble about the summer being too much, in traditional British fashion the weather decided to turn on us while we were under canvas, and on Tuesday night we got very little sleep as the rain beat down incessantly onto our tent. I was afraid I would wake up to find myself lying in a puddle, and at its heaviest we did get some spray dripping onto us through the tent. We spent most of the next morning sulking in our soggy tent, but when the sun came out again we discovered things were not as bleak as they had seemed, and were able to bale out the puddles with a paper cup, dry the tent with the cloth and leave our sleeping bags to air in the sun. We walked along the lake shore to Wray Castle, a monstrosity built by a Victorian couple with more money than taste, wanting to give the impression of having inherited a medieval palace instead of being "new money." This was quite newly open to the public, and was an odd experience, not being furnished with original or period furniture but instead giving an impression of the work that goes into conserving other historic buildings. The rooms were almost bare, but I did love the library, with pictures of blank books painted on the walls for visitors to write their favourite titles onto them. Anne of Green Gables and The Lord of the Rings had helpfully been filled in already, so I made Neverwhere my contribution.


We came home on Thursday, and Friday marked the end of Cowes Week, the huge annual Isle of Wight sailing regatta, which finished with a Red Arrows display and fireworks. (Here, if you talk about "fireworks night" chances are you're referring to this first week in August rather than November 5th. Half the Island seems to migrate to Cowes. I'm surprised it doesn't capsize!) Again, the rain pelted down and we got soaked, but made up our minds to enjoy the evening nonetheless.

I've got one more day of holiday tomorrow, during which I intend to do very little (although I think my parents are planning to take me and my sister, who is visiting, out for lunch) and then, alas, back to work on Tuesday. It feels impossible that my holiday is already near its end!