C’mon, folks. One or two of these literary mashups were a hoot; now they’re just becoming tired.
First we had Pride and Prejudice and Zombies then Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters . There were others, some of which I’m aware of, others of which I’ve remained mercifully oblivious.
Full disclosure: I have read “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” and I thought it was very funny. I watched the “Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters” trailer on YouTube and thought that was very funny.
What I don’t think is funny is for any publisher or publishers to ride roughshod through the canon of classic literature just to unearth new works to mash, smoosh, and morph. The Jane Austen titles work well for a silly trick because of Austen’s light touch, but it smarts to even think of Jo, Marmee, Beth, Meg, and Amy taken so lightly. Naturally, there are many readers out there who took to their fainting couches when the Austen novels were trifled with in this manner.
Any of us who read and write could come up with dozens of ideas for further literary mashups if we wanted to; heck, that’s already been done on Twitter several times. I keep wondering what might happen if people tried to think about more serious literary inversions, like “Wide Sargasso Sea” or “Mr. Timothy,” or considered putting together elements of different works with serious intent (that doesn’t mean serious execution, mind you; I’m not against fun altogether!).
I realize my rant against these lighthearted mashups is probably curmudgeonly. Perhaps instead I should try to think of a few myself? “War and Peace” told in the style of “Waiting for Godot?” How about “Moll Flanders and Bonnie and Clyde?” Wait, wait: “The House of the Seven Sasquatch?”
OK. Now I’m getting silly. Time to turn a page and read a modern classic, like “Geoff in Venice/Death in Varanasi” – a mashup with meaning.
