Literary Prequels, Sequels, and Spin-offs?
November 20, 2007 5:32 PM Subscribe
Loved "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead" and am currently loving "Marley's Ghost." I think I enjoy the idea of another author picking up a smaller character from a "classic" and running with it. So what other books have a similar set-up?
They're apparently called parallel novels and it is a pretty cool idea.
Wicked and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister come to mind, but I really wasn't very fond of Wicked.
posted by Metroid Baby at 5:41 PM on November 20, 2007
Wicked and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister come to mind, but I really wasn't very fond of Wicked.
posted by Metroid Baby at 5:41 PM on November 20, 2007
The Flashman books: the main bully from Tom Brown's Schooldays participates in all the major wars and events of the second half of the nineteenth century. Just brilliant.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:41 PM on November 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 5:41 PM on November 20, 2007 [1 favorite]
Grendel, lets you see things from the perspective of Beowulf's antagonist.
posted by oddman at 5:41 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by oddman at 5:41 PM on November 20, 2007
March, by Geraldine Brooks, about the father of the March girls in Little Women.
posted by Jeanne at 5:47 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by Jeanne at 5:47 PM on November 20, 2007
Jasper Fforde's "Thursday Next" series.
posted by Daily Alice at 6:08 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by Daily Alice at 6:08 PM on November 20, 2007
You could try Ahab's Wife (Moby Dick) and A Thousand Acres (King Lear). Fairy tales are good fodder for retellings too, like Briar Rose and Kissing the Witch. Check out LibraryThing for books tagged parallel novel or retelling.
posted by kittydelsol at 6:12 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by kittydelsol at 6:12 PM on November 20, 2007
The Beekeeper's Apprentice. Laurie R. King's take on a post-retirement Sherlock Holmes and his adventures with a smarter-than-he-will-ever-admit young girl. Better than it might seem. (And free to read on Google Books, apparently.)
posted by grabbingsand at 6:12 PM on November 20, 2007 [2 favorites]
posted by grabbingsand at 6:12 PM on November 20, 2007 [2 favorites]
You might like The Mists of Avalon. Or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, for that matter.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 6:36 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 6:36 PM on November 20, 2007
Mary Reilly
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:43 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by LobsterMitten at 6:43 PM on November 20, 2007
They're apparently called parallel novels and it is a pretty cool idea.
I can see this sentence fitting in very well in panel three of any given Dinosaur Comics.
posted by electric_counterpoint at 6:44 PM on November 20, 2007
I can see this sentence fitting in very well in panel three of any given Dinosaur Comics.
posted by electric_counterpoint at 6:44 PM on November 20, 2007
Since you're enjoying Marley's Ghost, you should check out Mr Timothy by Louis Bayard. It's a pretty fun sequel (of sorts) to A Christmas Carol, with Tiny Tim all grown up and solving mysteries.
It's better than I make it sound, honest. It has ghosts, too, of course.
posted by Robot Johnny at 6:54 PM on November 20, 2007
It's better than I make it sound, honest. It has ghosts, too, of course.
posted by Robot Johnny at 6:54 PM on November 20, 2007
And I second the Jasper Fforde.
posted by Robot Johnny at 6:54 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by Robot Johnny at 6:54 PM on November 20, 2007
Man, I second or third or whatever what everyone's already said, even the stuff I haven't read. I particularly want to nth Kissing the Witch and Wicked - which I loved, especially his take on the politics of Oz and the Emerald City. The Laurie King is also fantastic, and the Thursday Next books are laugh-out-loud funny.
*goes off to re-read books, and put new books on Xmas list*
posted by rtha at 7:01 PM on November 20, 2007
*goes off to re-read books, and put new books on Xmas list*
posted by rtha at 7:01 PM on November 20, 2007
It's not quite the same setup, but you might enjoy the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics, which give storytime to lots of literary and cultural secondary characters (note: the comics, not the movie! The movie's poo). The Anno Dracula books do a similar literary/cultural mashup with lots of primary and secondary characters.
posted by cadge at 7:14 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by cadge at 7:14 PM on November 20, 2007
grabbingsand: That's a preview with some pages omitted, unfortunately. Thanks for the referral, though.
posted by ZakDaddy at 7:14 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by ZakDaddy at 7:14 PM on November 20, 2007
Really? Dang. I looked relatively whole at a glance ... well, it's worth tracking down in corporeal format.
posted by grabbingsand at 7:57 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by grabbingsand at 7:57 PM on November 20, 2007
I second the Flashman novels, which are hilarious.
James Wilson's The Dark Clue features two of the protagonists from Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White.
I can't vouch personally for The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein (although it's been on one of my bookshelves for several years...), but it sounds like an interesting idea.
A much older take on this theme: Robert Browning's "Caliban Upon Setebos."
posted by thomas j wise at 8:07 PM on November 20, 2007
James Wilson's The Dark Clue features two of the protagonists from Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White.
I can't vouch personally for The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein (although it's been on one of my bookshelves for several years...), but it sounds like an interesting idea.
A much older take on this theme: Robert Browning's "Caliban Upon Setebos."
posted by thomas j wise at 8:07 PM on November 20, 2007
For all that is holy, skip "The Wind Done Gone." It suuuuucks.
Some of the expanded universe Star Wars books fit the bill. I've read Tales of the Bounty Hunters, which gives backstories for the bounty hunters seen in Empire Strikes Back. Several of them intersect with the main film story.
posted by web-goddess at 8:46 PM on November 20, 2007
Some of the expanded universe Star Wars books fit the bill. I've read Tales of the Bounty Hunters, which gives backstories for the bounty hunters seen in Empire Strikes Back. Several of them intersect with the main film story.
posted by web-goddess at 8:46 PM on November 20, 2007
if you like sci-fi there's "ender's game" and the parallel novel, "ender's shadow" both fantastic, even for people not normally in to the genre. author is Orson Scott Card
posted by argylekneesocks at 8:55 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by argylekneesocks at 8:55 PM on November 20, 2007
Snow, Glass, Apples is Neil Gaiman's take on Snow White, from the standpoint of the witch.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 10:17 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by CrunchyFrog at 10:17 PM on November 20, 2007
There've been a ton of these done for Jane Austen characters; here's a list.
posted by mediareport at 10:18 PM on November 20, 2007
posted by mediareport at 10:18 PM on November 20, 2007
They're apparently called parallel novels
A better term to describe what you're asking for is "pastiche," a word that originated in Renaissance Italy to describe paintings that borrowed heavily from other sources, but is now used in lots of different arts. A "literary pastiche" fits your question better than "parallel novel," which is just one form of pastiche.
Here's a site with lots of info about Sherlock Holmes pastiches. One of the earliest was Holmes meeting Maurice Leblanc's detective Arsène Lupin, himself the subject of lots of pastiches by other authors. One of the more recent and well-reviewed is Mitch Cullin's 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, which has Holmes at 93 just after the end of WWII. Michael Chabon's The Final Solution from the previous year also used an old Holmes.
My gut tells me there's a large subgenre of mysteries written using characters from classic fiction, but I can't place any right now that haven't been mentioned above. Maybe try a mystery readers forum? I did find an author who recently started a mystery series featuring the Three Musketeers, but can't vouch for them.
posted by mediareport at 11:07 PM on November 20, 2007
A better term to describe what you're asking for is "pastiche," a word that originated in Renaissance Italy to describe paintings that borrowed heavily from other sources, but is now used in lots of different arts. A "literary pastiche" fits your question better than "parallel novel," which is just one form of pastiche.
Here's a site with lots of info about Sherlock Holmes pastiches. One of the earliest was Holmes meeting Maurice Leblanc's detective Arsène Lupin, himself the subject of lots of pastiches by other authors. One of the more recent and well-reviewed is Mitch Cullin's 2005 novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, which has Holmes at 93 just after the end of WWII. Michael Chabon's The Final Solution from the previous year also used an old Holmes.
My gut tells me there's a large subgenre of mysteries written using characters from classic fiction, but I can't place any right now that haven't been mentioned above. Maybe try a mystery readers forum? I did find an author who recently started a mystery series featuring the Three Musketeers, but can't vouch for them.
posted by mediareport at 11:07 PM on November 20, 2007
A better term to describe what you're asking for is "pastiche,"
Or if you've found it on the internet, "fan fiction".
Phillip Jose Farmer is another author to add to the list.
posted by zamboni at 11:19 PM on November 20, 2007
Or if you've found it on the internet, "fan fiction".
Phillip Jose Farmer is another author to add to the list.
posted by zamboni at 11:19 PM on November 20, 2007
Gertrude and Claudius by John Updike is a sort of prequel to Hamlet, focusing on Hamlet's mother and uncle.
posted by timeistight at 12:08 AM on November 21, 2007
posted by timeistight at 12:08 AM on November 21, 2007
In Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque Joyce Carol Oates has a short story told from the POV of the ghosts in The Turn of the Screw.
posted by Martin E. at 12:44 AM on November 21, 2007
posted by Martin E. at 12:44 AM on November 21, 2007
I second a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Mark Twain really shines there.
Ulysses can be read as a retelling of The Odyssey as you already know. Annotations could help but choose the book over an analysis of the allusions.
posted by ersatz at 4:04 AM on November 21, 2007
Ulysses can be read as a retelling of The Odyssey as you already know. Annotations could help but choose the book over an analysis of the allusions.
posted by ersatz at 4:04 AM on November 21, 2007
Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen does this in spades. The series is jam-packed with characters from other period pieces of fiction. Volume 3, The Black Dossier, just came out and features one of the Awesomest Things Evar: Bertie Wooster fighting Lovecraftian Things that Should Not Be in standard Wodehouse mode.
Avoid the movie, of course.
And for what it's worth, one nega-vote for anything Jasper Fforde. The Eyre Affair was good, but his later stuff has devolved into some sort of literary Xanthery.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:39 AM on November 21, 2007
Avoid the movie, of course.
And for what it's worth, one nega-vote for anything Jasper Fforde. The Eyre Affair was good, but his later stuff has devolved into some sort of literary Xanthery.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:39 AM on November 21, 2007
Cosette. (I haven't read it, so this is only for information, not a recommendation.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:06 AM on November 21, 2007
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:06 AM on November 21, 2007
The Black Dossier, just came out and features one of the Awesomest Things Evar: Bertie Wooster fighting Lovecraftian Things that Should Not Be in standard Wodehouse mode.
This was done first over a decade ago in the hilarious and irritatingly out of print Scream for Jeeves.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 8:00 AM on November 21, 2007
This was done first over a decade ago in the hilarious and irritatingly out of print Scream for Jeeves.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 8:00 AM on November 21, 2007
The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy is a collection of poems told from the point of view of the wives, mothers and sisters of various fictional (and historical) characters.
posted by Jabberwocky at 8:12 AM on November 21, 2007
posted by Jabberwocky at 8:12 AM on November 21, 2007
FRIDAY by Michel Tournier is an amazing re-telling of Daniel Defoe's ROBINSON CRUSOE...with a different take on the character of Friday, his role in Crusoe's life and Crusoe's relationship to God and nature.
posted by just another other at 8:15 AM on November 21, 2007
posted by just another other at 8:15 AM on November 21, 2007
Flaubert's Parrot (written from the P.O.V. of a neurotic Flaubert scholar who is especially interested in Madame Bovary).
posted by designmartini at 10:25 AM on November 21, 2007
posted by designmartini at 10:25 AM on November 21, 2007
Mary Stewart wrote a popular series about Merlin of Arthurian legend that I really enjoyed.
The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment and The Wicked Day.
posted by BoscosMom at 11:44 AM on November 21, 2007
The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, The Last Enchantment and The Wicked Day.
posted by BoscosMom at 11:44 AM on November 21, 2007
Peter Carey's Jack Maggs doesn't use exactly the same names, but is a retelling of sorts of Great Expectations.
Relatedly, Christine Brooke-Rose's Textermination includes lots of familiar characters, although it doesn't parallel any particular story.
on preview: those Mary Stewart books are great as well. There are many, many versions of the Merlin stories, but those are particularly fun.
posted by dizziest at 12:01 PM on November 21, 2007
Relatedly, Christine Brooke-Rose's Textermination includes lots of familiar characters, although it doesn't parallel any particular story.
on preview: those Mary Stewart books are great as well. There are many, many versions of the Merlin stories, but those are particularly fun.
posted by dizziest at 12:01 PM on November 21, 2007
Also, maybe not exactly what you're looking for, but worth mentioning: Kathy Acker.
posted by dizziest at 12:04 PM on November 21, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by dizziest at 12:04 PM on November 21, 2007 [1 favorite]
Thought of two more related:
"The Kuglemass Episode" is a short story by Woody Allen, featuring a character with a device that allows him to infiltrate classic works of literature, including Madame Bovary if I recall correctly.
Heinlein's Number of the Beast features run-ins with a number of characters from various fictional worlds (including some of Heinlein's own), notably Oz. Probably his most self-indulgent book, but that's sort of like saying that the double cheeseburger combo is probably McBurger's most unhealthy meal.
posted by fidelity at 12:42 PM on November 21, 2007
"The Kuglemass Episode" is a short story by Woody Allen, featuring a character with a device that allows him to infiltrate classic works of literature, including Madame Bovary if I recall correctly.
Heinlein's Number of the Beast features run-ins with a number of characters from various fictional worlds (including some of Heinlein's own), notably Oz. Probably his most self-indulgent book, but that's sort of like saying that the double cheeseburger combo is probably McBurger's most unhealthy meal.
posted by fidelity at 12:42 PM on November 21, 2007
Flaubert's Parrot (written from the P.O.V. of a neurotic Flaubert scholar who is especially interested in Madame Bovary).
It's a great, wry treasure of a book, one of the best novels/biographies I've ever read, but doesn't quite fit the request for fictional characters being used in other fiction. The closest it comes is when Julian Barnes gives us a chapter in the voice of Flaubert's closest lady friend. But she was real, not a fictional character in Flaubert's work.
posted by mediareport at 6:27 PM on November 21, 2007
It's a great, wry treasure of a book, one of the best novels/biographies I've ever read, but doesn't quite fit the request for fictional characters being used in other fiction. The closest it comes is when Julian Barnes gives us a chapter in the voice of Flaubert's closest lady friend. But she was real, not a fictional character in Flaubert's work.
posted by mediareport at 6:27 PM on November 21, 2007
Response by poster: Wow. The hive rules!
The comic references (Moore) are great — coincidentally I've just started enjoying comics as a diversion. I didn't realize a new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen had been published. I get all my comics from the library, and Vol. 3 isn't in yet.
I'd forgotten about a number of others of these that I'd read. Wide Sargasso Sea, Grendel, Connecticut Yankee.
Heck, I'll answer my own question and toss in a kid's book that's great for adults, too: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs as told from the perspective of the wolf.
posted by thomsplace at 8:59 PM on November 21, 2007
The comic references (Moore) are great — coincidentally I've just started enjoying comics as a diversion. I didn't realize a new League of Extraordinary Gentlemen had been published. I get all my comics from the library, and Vol. 3 isn't in yet.
I'd forgotten about a number of others of these that I'd read. Wide Sargasso Sea, Grendel, Connecticut Yankee.
Heck, I'll answer my own question and toss in a kid's book that's great for adults, too: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs as told from the perspective of the wolf.
posted by thomsplace at 8:59 PM on November 21, 2007
This isn't a book, but an amazing matrix of this type is the Wold Newton Universe. Based on a premise by Philip Jose Farmer, and expanded by many, it connects a vast array of fictional and real characters. Particularly fascinating if you know some of the more obscure references, and lots of new things to explore if you don't. There is also a French Wold Newton Universe which incorporates French fictional and real figures into the matrix. Hours and hours of fun for me, but I 'm extremely geeky.
posted by ljshapiro at 11:18 AM on November 22, 2007
posted by ljshapiro at 11:18 AM on November 22, 2007
The Dracula Tapes was pretty good when I read it as a...12 year old?
posted by Brainy at 8:02 PM on November 25, 2007
posted by Brainy at 8:02 PM on November 25, 2007
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by briank at 5:34 PM on November 20, 2007