I happened across this Pride and Prejudice sequel a number of weeks ago: Charlotte Collins: A Continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. I was not even aware there are numerous authors writing prequels and sequels to Jane Austen’s novels. While I am intrigued, I confess I find myself somewhat conflicted.
When Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone With the Wind” came out, I did read it and then wished I hadn’t. I didn’t think it was as good as the original Gone With The Wind and I frankly didn’t like the story. So my personal bias is that it is awfully difficult to match the style of the original author and have it come off well.
Even more than that, I’ve long felt that it is wrong for someone to write another author’s characters. If I were to write a novel, those would be MY characters. I created them and gave them a life story. I would not want someone else coming along and writing more about them after I was dead. What if what they wrote was completely contradictory to what I had intended them to be?
I suppose to take this thought to its logical conclusion, I should also not like film adaptations of books. After all, it gives a voice and a look to each character that is perhaps not accurate to the vision of the author. However, that doesn’t seem to bother me. So maybe I’m being inconsistent, but there it is.
I also understand that many of the prequels and sequels tend to be fairly racy and that doesn’t interest me at all. I don’t think this is the case with the Charlotte Collins one, but in doing some looking around Amazon it does seem to be fairly common. So I guess caveat emptor would apply when looking at these kinds of books.
So has anyone read Charlotte Collins? Does anyone read the prequels and sequels? What are your thoughts?
Homeschooling Is Personalized Education By Design
Mostly I skip the prequels and sequels entirely, and just stick with the original author. The characters stay more real to me that way, under a single author’s vision. I did read many of the Star Trek books (by many different authors); Paramount imposed some constraints on the these, so they don’t stray very far from the original vision. But taken all together, the Trek books start to look like the beginning of a new mythology, with superhuman characters that defeat one challenge after another. I suppose an author might consider that a sign of success.
I’m of the “don’t mess with a good thing” school of thought. As much as I would like a sequel/prequel, I want it to be from the original author, not another author trying to add to the series.
FYI I have a new look at the blog Sallie, come take a peek! 🙂