![]() ![]() Her current preoccupations include an addiction to a “Bachelor”-like reality show called “Eligible,” which does double duty as the novel’s title. Bennet retains the original’s misplaced snobbery and self-pity, she is in this version also a lover of trash television. How can the author take a classic script - basically, a silly woman plots to marry off her five unwed daughters, couples fall in and out of love, and situations are dissected by a narrator of uncommon wit and perspicacity - and make it her own? As in the police lineup scene in “The Usual Suspects,” in which the characters recite the same phrase in wildly different ways, the fun lies in the variations on the theme. ![]() Now comes Curtis Sittenfeld’s “Eligible,” which moves the story to that roiling hotbed of societal intrigue, the Cincinnati suburbs. It’s been a Bollywood extravaganza (“Bride & Prejudice”), an undead-themed novelty novel (“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”), a frothy homage (“Bridget Jones’s Diary”) and, best of all, a BBC mini-series that established the universal truth that a billowy poet’s blouse is one hot garment on a man, if the blouse is wet and the man is Colin Firth. “Pride and Prejudice,” in particular, has enjoyed a full and occasionally wacko afterlife. Jane Austen hasn’t written a new book in 200 years, but that hasn’t stopped anyone from trying to resurrect, recast and reimagine her old ones. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |