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[quantumofsolace]

independent 4 September 2013 http://www.independe...ry-8798214.html
It doesn’t take Poirot’s little grey cells to figure out this is literary fakery

Digging up dead fictional heroes smacks of barrel-scraping by the estates

After giving him more than 30 murders to investigate, Agatha Christie emphatically killed off Hercule Poirot with a heart attack back in the 1940s. But never mind what Agatha wanted. The fictional Belgian detective is making a comeback, his resurrection to be in a “continuation” novel, written by the writer and poet Sophie Hannah.
Hannah’s Poirot revival has the benediction, encouragement indeed, of Agatha Christie’s family. Christie’s grandson Mathew Prichard gave a rather confusing justification for the decision in one interview, saying that it was time to reclaim his grandmother’s place on the shelves of bookstores, while she is still “very well known and very well loved”.
Unlike some people I know who plan their weekends around four-hour Poirot repeats on TV, I have always found David Suchet’s Poirot, which ran for 25 years, a bit more irritating and caricatured than I suspect even Christie imagined the “quaint dandified little man” to be.
But while a television adaptation of a Christie plot is one thing, “borrowing” the product of her extraordinary imagination for your own made-up story is another. No matter how technically good the result of Hannah’s endeavour, won’t it still be as appealing as imitation leather? What possible pleasure is there for the reader in having a faux version of your favourite novelist or crime hero?
And in artistic terms, what is the difference between what Hannah is attempting and those very talented painters in that Chinese village where they do fakes of the Mona Lisa by the dozen?
I have no doubt that Hannah is undertaking this project with a great sense of respect for an author she’s been “obsessed” by since she was 13. There is already a 100-page outline but she has given assurances that she will not take too many liberties and will retain Poirot’s moustache.
She is in good company. The estate of Ian Fleming has hired six writers, including William Boyd, for do-overs of James Bond. Sebastian Faulks was another, and he has also had a go at P G Wodehouse. Anthony Horowitz has done a Sherlock Holmes. Rehashed authors is becoming almost a genre in its own right. But it smacks of barrel-scraping by the estates and the commercial interests behind them.
Publishing and bookselling are in crisis so rather than take chances on new characters or authors, you dig up your dead fictional heroes and send them out to investigate murders or chase villains again.
Agatha Christie is possibly the most successful author of all time. Michel Houellebecq, the French novelist, has described her as a key influence on his work and one of the greats, not just of crime fiction, but of literature. But in Britain she has never quite earned the place she deserves. Although a great admirer of her “craft”, P D James has described Christie’s prose style as “pedestrian”.Perhaps, at some level it only becomes acceptable to market a pastiche if we don’t entirely respect the original.

[Dustin]

Most of the above seem to be true and legit observations. But one crucial detail is missing: there exists a market for this kind of literary resurrection; a market supposedly strong enough to justify the expenses of such ventures. So whenever there is somebody scraping the proverbial barrel, then there is somebody else willing to pay good money to read the results. And I can't help feeling this is what annoys the author of this comment the most.

So why are readers so eager to get served the rehashed leftovers of yesteryear's rotten meals? The answer is quite simple. Because to admirers of Wodehouse and Christie and, yes, Fleming too, there can never be a sufficient amount of their works. In some cases even decades of prolific writing leave a sad feeling of loss and emptiness, once the career comes to an end. It may not be a mature and levelheaded reaction on the side of readers, but such is life. As long as people feel a desire to have one more Poirot mystery, one more Bond adventure, there will be a supply for it.

The author above mentions a crisis in publishing and book-selling, yet doesn't go deeper into that crisis. Had he done so it would have discounted his own argument. Actually we witness an unparalleled, never before seen high in publishing. Ebooks and Internet provide a platform that enables the largest number of people in history to become a 'published' author. Because of close-to-zero expenditure there is today nearly no risk for a publisher to get new writers and new stories on the market. For publishers of ebooks that is. Consequently e-publishers provide an enormous number of new material every day. I dare say if one really feels the urge to become published today there are hardly any hurdles left, one just has to sit down and write.

That is of course not to say everything thrown at us is necessarily worth reading. But a lot of it is, and is actually read with gusto. Only, that particular segment of the market - despite massively growing - is still largely regarded as 'niche' and mostly ignored by the feuilleton. Instead, literary barrel-scraping is lamented.

Edited by Dustin, 05 September 2013 - 06:26 AM.