This question was MADE for me! YAY for finally having a great monthly question after months and months of participating! I’m finally reading another Classics Club novel (The Grapes of Wrath), but yay for small progress!
For August the hosts of The Classics Club have asked
What are your thoughts on adaptions of classics? Say mini-series or movies? Or maybe modern approaches? Are there any good ones? Is it better to read the book first? Or maybe just compare the book and an adaptation?
If you don’t know it yet, I LOVE adaptations. Seriously, go check out this one page: Austen(esque), but those aren’t the only ones I’ve read! If you look at my fan-fiction tag you’ll find many others. And as part of my local library book group (category on my website), we read a lot of classics and watch the films!
I do always try and read the original first! If I find out a movie (or another book) are based on an older book I usually go back to find what the book is about and read the original first. It allows you to really see what the author learned and changed to update or change the story.
I’m not as big a fan of sequels and prequels, as I am of modern re-tellings or films, but honestly I love seeing different interpretations of classic novels. The only Classic novel I haven’t seen on film that I have actively avoided watching is Wuthering Heights. I’m not sure why I’ve avoided it, but I just have. I think my favorite adaptation currently is The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (I talk about it here), they did such a great job updating EVERYTHING!
I think I’m most excited about The Austen Project and already have copies of Sense and Sensibility by Joanna Trollope and Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid and I MIGHT read the Shakespeare ones that are similar. I’m also looking forward to the third in The Madman’s Daughter trilogy by Megan Shepherd.
Oh my goodness, I have been horrible about the classics club this year. Actually, I’ve been horrible about blogging at all.
Not like you haven’t had other things going on! I mean writing novels and gallivanting around Europe (moving flats :-P) are probably more exciting.
Geoff your blogs are truly inspirational x
Thanks Steph! I was excited to see yours yesterday and can’t wait to see where you go with it.
I keep forgetting about those monthly questions.. Thanks for the reminder on this one Geoff. You and I differ on things like the Jane Austen project though, I prefer modern day authors to leave those classics well alone
And I totally get that! For some reason I just love the fresh takes on those timeless stories 🙂