As the Edinburgh book festival opens, Val McDermid explains why it made the perfect location for her update of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey
What better destination for our heroine than Edinburgh? … the Edinburgh international book festival. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian
I am a lifelong supporter of a lower division Scottish football club. My love affair with Raith Rovers means I am only ever comfortable when I take on something that is a hiding to nothing. So when I was asked to join five other writers in the Austen Project, feeling daunted at the prospect merely added lustre to the invitation. Rework Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey in a contemporary setting? How many pitfalls lurked behind that suggestion? How many accusations of hubris, possibilities of pratfalls, opportunities for crass incompetence?
Austen, like Shakespeare, has become fair game for reinterpretation. From Bridget Jones's Diary to Jane Austen's Guide to Dating, she's been plundered and cherrypicked to death. Why would anyone in their right mind want to join that particular club? I thought for about 30 seconds, then I said, "Yes."
Part of the reason was that I heard the old voices echoing down the years, saying, "People like us don't do things like that." Those eight words have been a constant spur to action for me: people like us don't get in to Oxford; people like us don't become writers; people like us don't do a whole raft of things I've tucked under my belt over the years. The nagging voice asking who I thought I was – a mere crime writer – even contemplating taking on the divine Jane was all the encouragement I needed.
More
Austen, like Shakespeare, has become fair game for reinterpretation. From Bridget Jones's Diary to Jane Austen's Guide to Dating, she's been plundered and cherrypicked to death. Why would anyone in their right mind want to join that particular club? I thought for about 30 seconds, then I said, "Yes."Part of the reason was that I heard the old voices echoing down the years, saying, "People like us don't do things like that." Those eight words have been a constant spur to action for me: people like us don't get in to Oxford; people like us don't become writers; people like us don't do a whole raft of things I've tucked under my belt over the years. The nagging voice asking who I thought I was – a mere crime writer – even contemplating taking on the divine Jane was all the encouragement I needed.
More
No comments:
Post a Comment