Friday open thread: retellings

[dolorosa_12]

Welcome to the end of another working week! I'm kind of shattered, and am looking forward to a weekend with no social obligations, and lots of cooking.

This week's open thread prompt is in response to a rather disappointing book, which happened to be a retelling of a work of classic literature (I'll say more about it later when I do my Sunday post wrapping up the week's reading). I gave it a 3-star rating, and on reflection feel that that's being overly generous. There are a couple of reasons why it failed as a retelling, and many more why it failed as a work of fiction in general, but in any case, it got me thinking about retellings, and what makes them work or not.

Therefore, the prompt is: tell me about a retelling that succeeded for you — and why — or tell me about a retelling that failed for you, and why.

I'm specifically interested in retellings rather than adaptations. There can be a shift in medium (the book I'm talking about is a retelling of a stage play), but it needs to do more than just make a broadly identical new version of an older work. If it helps: Clueless is a retelling of Emma, whereas Mamma Mia! the film is an adaptation of the Mamma Mia! musical.

Comments

[likeadeuce]

I think I might mot like retellings, which is funny because I often enjoy riffs on them in fanfic and I liked the idea of the genre when I first became aware of it and thought I wanted to write in it, but I can't think of one that I absolutely loved (or many that I even finished).

[dolorosa_12]

That's interesting! I really enjoy them, and seek them out (particularly fairytale and folktale retellings — I find book retellings of 'classic' 19th- or 20th-century literature very hit and miss and tend to avoid them unless I already like the author) — but for this reason I tend to have very strong reactions if I feel the author has misunderstood the essence of the source material.