…of the blogging variety, that is.
If you don’t follow me on Twitter or keep up with BookRiot, you may have thought my long-dormant blog meant I wasn’t writing anything at all. Several weeks ago I began a series on the site, “Read This Then That,” pairing contemporary novels with classics. The match-ups so far:
- What Happened to Sophie Wilder by Christopher Beha and The End of the Affair by Graham Greene. These two have been frequently compared, and when I re-read the Greene, Beha’s novel seemed even better than it already had in comparison.
- Treasure Island!!! by Sara Levine and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. How a children’s book can lead to massive quarter-life crisis—and what that says about children’s classics and those who cling to them.
- Billy Lynn’s Long Haltime Walk by Ben Fountain and Israel Potter by Herman Melville. I suppose I should be impressed with myself that I didn’t head for Melville until the third edition in the series, but of course I had to go for one of his strangest and least-known works. I still think the comparison is an apt and original one.
- Boleto by Alyson Hagy and All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. Two stories of a boy and his horse—and as superficial as that sounds, they really do have a lot in common.
- Old Filth (and The Man with the Wooden Hat) by Jane Gardam and Plain Tales from the Hills by Rudyard Kipling. My current Raj orphan obsession was fertile material for this series, with the phenomenon lasting as it did over a period of generations, and now being reexamined in a postcolonial light. Still, the fit of Gardam’s Filth books with early Kipling is almost uncanny.
- Glaciers by Alexis Smith and Mary by Vladimir Nabokov. At first I thought this was one of the more tendentious comparisons, relying as it does on the delicate thread of theme—and delicate themes at that, memory, dreams, and nostalgia. But sharper focus on the plot—a cloudy, unimportant thing in both novels—reveals other similarities as well, in the stories of intellectual loners living in transitional locations, quietly drifting among their “peers.”
I promise this work hasn’t been keeping me away from bibliographing, and it won’t in future. And do let me know if there’s any contemporary work you particularly think I should read!
So far these have been an impressive high-wire act. Each one has surprised me. I guess the Treasure Island one was not so surprising.
Having read Glaciers now, I am convinced that differences in quality or significance between the books should be no obstacle. You are just pointing out these interesting links. That was a good match.
Amateur Reader (Tom) recently posted..The Wuthering Expectations Best Books of 2012, in a certain narrow sense
I’m really glad the match-up worked for you. I was nervous! But I agree with everything you write here. And it’s a very fun game for me to play! Some, like Treasure Island, will be less surprising, and I will do them because sometimes I will decide they are Important. But I like mad puzzles far too much to play this game entirely straight.
What’d you think of Glaciers otherwise?
Pretty good. Occasional bizarre over-writing – the ocean’s “fractal plaintiveness”?
The story about nostalgia and childhood and how it all effects the woman’s adult life was meaningful, and the story-telling theme was interesting. Her romantic troubles were generic. The library staff’s reaction to the call-up of a soldier on reserve status was a “Portlandia” moment.
Amateur Reader (Tom) recently posted..The Wuthering Expectations Best Books of 2012, in a certain narrow sense
Haha. Agreed on ALL points.