The House at Pooh Corner
Someone is writing a sequel to The House at Pooh Corner. AA Milne is not writing it, if he were, it would probably be more lucrative for him to write a book called “How I Lived to be 127″.
Why, oh why, oh why, oh why do people think it is a good idea to write new additions to books and series that are loved, read and re-read by millions? It’s not just Winnie the Pooh: Peter Pan, Anne of Green Gables, Gone with the Wind and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy have all suffered the ignomy of some lesser author deciding that they are the ones to take up the mantle and create new books that (I suppose) they fondly imagine will take pride of place next to titles in the original canon, but I can’t think of a time that has been the case. Maybe…maybe, it is OK when the true author had died before completing a series (Robert Jordan, I’m looking at you!)But really – is this ever a good idea?!?
10 September 2009 at 8:35 am
Well Disney has already extended the universe of the three acre wood so its not really new.
One can only hope they ditch those horrid old EH Shepard pictures and use the official Disney ones.
10 September 2009 at 9:35 am
I think the answer to your question is two-fold: Profit is the one part of it. The second is that lots of people who like particular books or series still want to know ‘what happened next?’, or ‘what happened to [insert character name here]‘. Star Trek and Star Wars have extended their lives, but for many the original series are still the best…
10 September 2009 at 10:52 am
I couldn’t agree with you more Paul – everyone knows that the Disney version is the only proper way to do these things – I pretty sure kids actually imagine in Disney (REGISTERED TRADEMARK)
10 September 2009 at 8:04 pm
I can’t wait for the prequel to Where the Wild Things Are… Would it be Where the Wild Things Weren’t? No, that would be a sequel. It would have to be Where the Wild Things Might Be? Oh, the tension.
11 September 2009 at 10:00 am
What about ‘Where are the Wild Things?’
11 September 2009 at 10:19 am
A sequel would have possibilities “Max is back…and this time it’s personal!”
11 September 2009 at 3:48 pm
When the Where the Wild Things Are movie hits no doubt there will be new books with photographs instead of the Sendak illustrations. And if its a hit there will have to be follow up – along with merchandise and movie tie-in books.
Of course Sendak always considered this to be the first book in a trilogy – even though each book is wildly different in style and theme, with different characters!
11 September 2009 at 4:47 pm
Dave Eggers has actually written a novelisation of the story of the original book and the script of the movie, called The Wild Things. It seems a little like plagarism to me!
11 September 2009 at 4:57 pm
Have you read it? Ewww. More like desecration than plagarism. There is a sample chapter online at The New Yorker if you want your dreams haunted.
12 September 2009 at 3:01 pm
Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea is the only prequel I’ve been able to love.
14 September 2009 at 11:29 am
Is that the Jane Eyre one? From time to time I’ve toyed with the notion of reading it but always chickened out because of my fondness for that stoic orphan.
Maybe I will give it a try.
14 September 2009 at 11:53 am
It’s totally worth a read. Bertha had far more to cope with than a horribly unflattering name and a grumpy but hot husband. I loathe sequels as much as I hate bands ‘re-forming’. Except for Emma Tennant and her variations on Jane Austen’s stories. She’s just such a gem of a writer that it works.
14 September 2009 at 1:22 pm
I’ve always been highly dubious about Emma Tennant, without bothering to read her of course, after she spilled the Ted Hughes beans.But after reading that she is on husband number four so I say “Respect lady”!
14 September 2009 at 3:52 pm
I think Wide Sargasso Sea is evidence of the fact that this can be a respectable genre… as for the others, well, Sturgeon’s law applies.