Proposed Literary Remakes
The recent announcement that The Hogarth Shakespeare program has invited notable writers like Margaret Atwood to revise and update some of the Bard’s greatest hits signifies that the literary world is finally getting wise to what television and movies have known for years—you’ll never find an audience pushing anything new, you need to give people properties they’re familiar with, only dusted off just enough to feel fresh. We here at Failbetter pride ourselves on our willingness to hop on the bandwagon, and as such have prepared this list of proposed updates to some literary classics.
Ulysses
First of all, I feel like we can shave some pages off this sucker, right? I’m all for long books, I’ve read The Stand, but this thing is long as hell for a book about two guys walking around. And why are they walking around? What’s their motivation? I get the connection to the Odyssey, okay, but that’s so played out, isn’t it? What if instead Stephen and Leopold were sworn enemies, and they were in fact hunting one another through the streets of Belfast? I know the original takes place in Dublin, but moving it to Belfast lets us introduce an IRA angle, like maybe they were both involved in the struggle and one betrayed the other, and now it’s payback time. I’d keep the part where Bloom masturbates to that woman on the beach. If at that point we already know he’s a merciless killer, that’s going to make the reader really wonder what this guy is capable of.
The Great Gastby
Hm, let’s think…a super rich, super intense, super handsome guy obsessed with a beautiful woman who is easily dominated by strong personalities…what enormously successful recent bestselling trilogy does that remind me of…here’s an idea, let’s load in
a bunch of berserk S&M. As is, Gatsby is looking for Daisy to acquiesce with his take on reality and their shared history, so getting her gussied up with a bridle and all manner of clamps, we can call that a metaphor, right?
Catch-22
Swap the Mediterranean for Kabul, strip out all the humor. At the end, instead of escaping, Yossarian shoots himself in the head. That should be about all it takes to net this one a National Book award, at least.
Portnoy’s Complaint
Cash in on the mania for dystopia by setting this in the far future, and changing Mary Jane ‘The Monkey’ Reed to some sort of sexual gratification robot. That’ll add some pathos to all the scenes where Portnoy is mean to her, because then it’ll be like, does she even have a soul? And also it’ll make some comment on consumerism, maybe, because he bought this sex robot but he kind of hates it. Add the words ‘A Parable’ under the title on the cover. People love that kind of thing.
The Catcher in the Rye
Young Holden Caufield never felt like he fit in…and on his eighteenth birthday, he finds out why when a letter from his mother reveals that Holden is in fact a werewolf. Not just any werewolf, though, for Holden is the fabled Lycan Prince, destined to guide his people to superiority over all life on Earth. Will Holden embrace his destiny, or will he discover that were-folk are just as phony as regular people?
War and Peace
Another big boy we can easily trim. Early on, there’s a scene where Pierre goes to a party and these rich guys are messing with a live bear chained to the wall…I say we run with that. Pierre rescues the bear, killing one of these rich guys in the process, and the two of them go on the run to escape punishment. Also, lets set this one in the future, too, so the bear can…maybe not speak conversationally, but it can talk just enough to make its opinions known. Have the bear occasionally comment on how great nature is to rope in the ‘Green’ crowd. I’m super tempted to say we should ditch the war angle and add in some kind of crazy plague, but the title is so iconic, it would be a real shame to lose it.
To Kill a Mockingbird
It’s tempting to set this in the future have the kids hunting one another for sport, but maybe this one we can leave alone. Some things are sacred.
