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If novels could read
If Huck Finn and Becky Sharp stepped off the shelves to do a bit of their own shopping, what would they buy?
I want to join in with the game they're playing over on Publishers Weekly of guessing which books fictional characters might buy if they were browsing today's bookshops. After all, it's Friday afternoon, and it's a miserable day in south London.
Would Huck Finn go for The Dangerous Book for Boys? is one suggestion. Clearly not: full as it is of catapults, conkers and derring-do, he'd write it – if he could be bothered to write, which he probably couldn't. I'd say Huck would be sneaking Stephen Kings out of bookshops under his jumper, or getting into the Hardy Boys, or enjoying the rollicking adventures of Hal and Roger Hunt. Would he like the Choose Your Own Adventure series (a guilty pleasure of my own in days past)? I reckon he would.
I'd personally love to give Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus to the likes of Ms Bennet – and I bet Becky Sharp would have had a copy to hand, she knew what was what when it came to men. Perhaps the Kama Sutra might help out poor, repressed Jane Eyre, and she'd realise there's more to life than Mr Rochester. And if Juliet had been following The Rules (wait at least three dates before you sleep with him) would it all have gone so wrong?
Scarlett O'Hara, I think, would have adored chick-lit, so let's load her up with Marian Keyes and Jilly Cooper. (She'd also be a closet fan of the misery memoir – reading about dreadful childhoods would no doubt have made her feel better about her own problems).
I can see Atticus Finch relaxing with John Grisham. And I bet Sherlock Holmes would have got on well with a good Agatha Christie - although maybe he'd have preferred to steer clear of cosy mysteries in his time off, testing his vast intellect with something a little more erudite – The Savage Detectives, perhaps?
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User Comments
frustratedartist
13 March 2009 4:22PM
Don Quijote in his home-made suit of armour browsing through the sword and sorcery epics along with the spotty trekkies with thick glasses and leather clad metalheads.
Hamlet :"Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway: How to Turn Your Fear and Indecision into Confidence and Action", by Susan Jeffers" Also- a book on the I Ching.
Richard III:
"The Osteoporosis Cure: Reverse the Crippling Effects with New Treatments," by Harris McIlwain and Debra Fulghum Bruce
"Serious Cycling", by Chris Carmichael and Edmund R. Burke
Thnks to Amazon.com for the book titles. I hope that's not cheating.
iandsmith
13 March 2009 4:51PM
After several decades watching all the TV and cinema they missed they might consider a novel.
StuartEvers
13 March 2009 4:59PM
Hannibal Lecter - Eating People is Wrong, Malcolm Bradbury
Humbert Humbert - any of Larkin's school-based novels
Holden Coulfield - Is it Me or is Everything Shite?
JasonJ
13 March 2009 8:13PM
Huck Finn wouldn't read anything. If I remember rightly (it has been some years since I read Twain) the Widder Douglas tried to learn him his letters to little effect. I doubt he'd watch TV much either, being generally more of a doer. Perhaps that's part of the appeal for us bookish types.
I think Pip would read Dan Brown, but he'd hide it inside a copy of whatever he'd seen Estella reading. This would probably be something by A.S Byatt, but would actually be hiding a copy of Bridget Jone's Diary.
DimitryS
14 March 2009 6:30PM
I could see Ahab reading The Old Man and the Sea with some satisfaction. Also Richard III might enjoy The Silence of the Lambs.
middleyouth
14 March 2009 7:00PM
Men are from Mars? Nah, Lizzy would read The Female Eunuch and then dump Darcy.
I reckon Dr Watson would enjoy just about anything by PG Wodehouse.
TheChagallPosition
14 March 2009 7:41PM
Seth Pecksniff is buying a copy of James Wood's "How Fiction Works."
Hegelian
13 March 2009 3:18PM
Why do they all have to go for such drivel? I would hope that 'poor, repressed' might go for something by Woolf, or have some fun with Sterne.