But the chutzpah of lising Austen as a co-author on a professionally published story? NO.

Maybe he uses actual passages from the original as a framework?

I'm not sure I'm appalled, really. Think of Wide Sargasso Sea or H, which was the story of where Heathcliff went for all those years while he was away. I can't help it -- I'm usually fascinated by a new perspective on some of these classics.

Yeah, we're naturally predisposed to want to know what's been left unsaid with respect to these characters and in some cases, it's been done rather well. And of course, there's a long literary tradition of reimagining stories-- (West Side Story, Clueless, etc.).

But here's the thing about the majority of this current lot of Austen knock-offs. By and large, their primary selling point is the Austen connection. (Or Bronte, because there was one of those in this week's Pub Lunch as well.) Without that connection, it's just another gay romance or a romance about a cranky, remote man who needs good lovin' to mellow him out, or a story about a couple who've started out in a blaze of romantic glory and several years later are looking to rekindle the flame or a story about a spinster author of romance who has an illicit affair for two glorious weeks, or zombies or whatever.

So what makes it so special then? Is the story good enough and original enough to stand alone without that construct? That, I don't know.

So what makes it so special then? Is the story good enough and original enough to stand alone without that construct? That, I don't know.

I guess I'm just looking at it like anything else that's used a hook as a selling point. The Friday Night Knitting Club is, most likely (and here I admit I haven't read it), another book about female friendships and conflicts, but the hook is the knitting angle. This book uses Austen's name instead. Could be good, could be a pile of crap, but as always, if a publisher thinks it's going to sell, then ...

If you're going to mess with the classics, do it in a way like Jasper Fforde did in The Eyre Affair, by using the story as a minor plot point to the main storyline.

If you're going to mess with the classics, do it in a way like Jasper Fforde did in The Eyre Affair, by using the story as a minor plot point to the main storyline.

Really? You're not supposed to exploit the massive marketing advantage of slapping Jane Austen's name on any old crap and exploiting her fan base for a quick buck?

::goes back to check his Capitalism playbook::

If you're going to mess with the classics, do it in a way like Jasper Fforde did in The Eyre Affair, by using the story as a minor plot point to the main storyline.

But then you wouldn't have Wide Sargasso Sea.

I'm not saying every book that uses some kind of classic lit hook is going to be *good*. I'm not saying it's not a cheap way to guarantee a sale, either. But I also don't believe that every book that does is automatically *bad*.

I do agree that it's a little discouraging to see people selling books based on someone else's work (and great work, at that). But publishing absolutely *is* a business, and they need to sell books as much as individual authors do. Probably moreso.

And honestly, I'd rather see someone playing in Jane Austen's sandbox than see another book by or about Larry the Cable Guy, or The Big Book of Bathroom Humor.

I've noticed a number of books that follow up on Pride and Prejudice, or play off it. Most seem to be either what happens when Darcy and Elizabeth marry, one was about their daughter, one was about Lydia Bennett, and so on. I understand the appeal of playing off a known - and loved - book, but a lot of these don't appeal to me ... and there just seem to be a lot of them.

one was about Lydia Bennett

Really? Man, you could not pay me to read an entire novel about Lydia. She's a great, delicious trainwreck of a secondary character in Elizabeth's and Jane's stories, and P&P would be a markedly lesser novel without her sheer thoughtless awfulness, but I literally cannot imagine an entire novel about her being anything but agony. She hasn't even got the cleverness and animal cunning to make a great antiheroine like Lizzie Eustace or Becky Sharp.

JZ - yup. I remember it actually getting pretty good reviews ... but if you really disliked her, then I'd say avoid it.

Good goddamn, I had no idea there were so many P&P sequels/riffs.