I’m reading a dirty book and, no, it’s not Fifty Shades of…Anything. It’s worse. I picked it up last week at the dollar store. During check-out I hid it in the middle of a pile of cleaning supplies, but the cashier wasn’t fooled: she gave me side eye. Owning it makes me blush. I would never, ever be seen in public with it under my arm or nose. We’re friends, though, right? Right? Okay, good. I’m a bit shy about this sensitive subject, so I am going to divulge my secret in a photograph. Deep breath. Here it is:
My Not-so-Secret Shame: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters*. I know, I know. This is why I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on my Nook.
I’ve always been disgusted by the practice of contemporary writers messing with dead authors’ works. No, I do not want your crappy, half-baked sequel. Hell, I don’t want an excellent sequel, either. Not even on the off-the-charts chance that you are a better writer. Create your own word-art, please. Unless, of course, you insert zombies or monsters into the text, thereby creating this silly mash-up. Then I’m in, hard. Just don’t ask me to own up to it in real life. That would be absurd.
*Jane Austen’s bio on the back cover reads: “Jane Austen is coauthor of the New York Times best seller Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which has been translated into 17 languages and optioned to become a major motion picture.”
A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea. 
Here I was hoping for heartening lubricity, and I’m left licking my lips for sacrilegious fish and chips.
LikeLike
Ha! This is my idea of a dirty book! There’s nothing wrong with erotica or porn. That’s acceptable for what it is. But this, this…..makes me feel slightly unclean.
LikeLike
Glad to hear it, although I’m happy to put a duck’s head on sacred cow.
If you like pulp covers, there’s a good SA pulp magazine, and on their FB page they publish a rare vintage pulp cover every day. There was one from Mexico yesterday. Great stuff. http://www.facebook.com/junglejimmag?ref=stream
Thereown covers are good too.
LikeLike
I’ve no problem with this type of book (although it still makes me feel a bit dirty, but a good dirty); it’s when sequels are written decades or centuries after an author’s death that I have a serious problem. I don’t care if they are authorized by the estate or not, I think it is a really foul and contemptible practice. If anyone ever adds one freaking word to one of my stories after I am dead, I will haunt their ass.
Thanks for the link. I just ‘liked’ the page (as well as, you know, actually liked it) and am about to head on back to check out more of the covers.
LikeLike
You’re a little bit scary…
I’ll make sure yours is the one book I don’t revise as a comedy.
I like Jungle Jim, too, and they’re publishing something of mine soon; which has nothing to do with me liking them. Well, not much.
LikeLike
I’ll be a lot scary if someone messes with my work (outside of the editing process, of course).
Hey, thanks for assuming I will die before you…
Congrats. You’ll have to share that information when the time is right.
I’m making my way through their Pulp of the Day photos and I love #13.
LikeLike
With my drinking, smoking and bad son of the world habits, I’m bound to outlive everyone. The devil don’t want me down there, he knows I’ll steal all his good booze. And I’ll only accept an invitation to heaven if the angels wear black leather.
And thanks. they’re publishing an extract of a novel I wrote ten years ago. Fairly literary, existential stuff, using the vampire as a symbol, a suggestion that there’s less to fear from a mythical monster than there is from man. It’s wordy but good, at least I think so. I’m hoping the extract will spark a bit of interest. They’ve got good writers in the mag, some award-winning, one shortlisted for this year’s Guardian book award. Or maybe last year’s. I haven’t had much success over the years as a writer, so it’s quite a nice thing for me. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this to you before. But now I’m drinking, to stave off cold, unfriendly death. But if I do die, if the devil gives me my dues, they can do what they like to my work, all I want is a neon EXIT sign on my grave.
LikeLike
Ha, your first paragraph cracked me up. You’ll live to be 150 then.
The extract sounds fascinating. I hope to read it when the time comes. It doesn’t matter if it was written ten years ago or last week, it is a positive step. Go ahead, be proud or happy or whatever it is black-leather loving, hard-drinking immortals are allowed to feel. Publishing isn’t easy.
LikeLike
I used to be the night manager for a hotel, and I used to walk to work along the promenade. At least once a week, for months, there was a Jehovah’s Witness trying to fob his Watchtower magazine. Every time he saw me, he’d ask if I wanted one. Sometimes I told him I was a non-believer, once I told him to please not ask me again. But he never recognized me. When he asked again, I laughed at him, told him that he never recognized me and that I was not interested. He feigned surprise and asked, “Don’t you want to go to heaven?”
I said, “Only if the angels wear black leather and there’s at least one who knows a good drug dealer.”
He never asked again.
Publishing success for me is always fleeting, “I degrade anything good I do, so I can be done with it and move on;
to something filled with possibility that it’ll be good enough that I can’t degrade it.”
If you wanna have a read, I’ll have to send it to you. They’re a print company, but I think they do a Kindle version.
LikeLike
Oh, those crazy JWs. I married into a JW family, actually. My husband and 2 of his 6 sisters left the church years ago, but his mom, her entire side of the family, and the rest of his sisters and their families are all very devout. I’m not going to say anything else here except that it has been very surreal for me. Your riposte, by the way, was brilliant.
Publishing success for most writers is fleeting. Always striving to write something better-something “good enough”-is what drives most writers, isn’t it? I know that is all I really care about. Not what I have written, but what I have it in me to write.
I assumed that it was a print magazine. I don’t have a Kindle, unfortunately, but I do have a Nook. I’m very curious at this point, so if a hard copy is the only option I’m okay with that if you are. I’m happy to pay or trade for a copy. My next big ‘zine issue won’t be out for several months, though. Your call. I’m totally okay with paying actual money.
LikeLike
Mainly I just try to write that in which I believe, and that means knowing what I believe. Which I have to figure out. On the most artless level, I could feasibly write many more things than I do, but I need to have the passion for the idea. Passion is purpose. I need the idea for which it’s worth going into the dark cave and then writing my way out. Writing a novel, for me, is a form of going insane, disconnecting with almost everything but thought and thought’s ends.I try to take from thought and life, even if other writers are part of thought and life. I used to have all the verbiage, but I moved away from being clever-clever to try and write something honest. It’s a philosophical approach, the refining of my identity to believe that what I write has greater value. Using words to explore myself and then using the exploration to write better words. Sartre says, “Philosophy is a systematic purifying reflection at the ed of which is the beginning of existential psychoanalysis”. What I’m saying is, I’m not always sure what constitutes “good enough”. This also includes the received ideas of the value of others’ work, to the self and in long-shot. I’d rather spend years writing or thinking about the right book and write only two or three than write ten I didn’t believe in. I’ve written five books, four of which are novels. But I look back at them and feel it’s hard to believe in them, except the one, and that still requires tinkering. Being published is nice, but it’s a whole other side. I need to forget about what others might think of something in order to believe in what I’m saying. Fortunately I have a menacing little critic on my shoulder to guide me, even if I do make him drowsy with whisky. So, I agree with you, it’s about what I will write.
As for the piece, I’m happy to email you the part they chose. I’m sure you don’t wanna put your email address on here, but you can contact me through MM. There’s an address on the submissions/contact page.
LikeLike
I’ll definitely take you up on the email. Once my curiosity has been sparked, it doesn’t go away without a fight.
I’m pondering a worthy response to the rest of your comment. I think it is best approached with a glass of Scotch to hand.
LikeLike
A glass of whisky, I find, is the appropriate response to almost anything. (To steal and revise a quote from a Batman film, in which the whisky kills the character.)
LikeLike
It is indeed!
LikeLike
I’m drinking to that and taking comfort because I do know, “It’s a long way to the top if you wanna rock and roll”.
LikeLike
Have one for me; you’ll need it.
LikeLike
I think this might be the thing that could allow me to stomach Jane Austen. Nothing better than monsters and zombies to spice up a story!
LikeLike
Zombies and monsters can make almost anything interesting. Jane Austen? Yes! Leon Uris? Not possible.
LikeLike
Oh my gawd I love the cover art! I would buy it just for that. Reminds me, sort of, of old sci-fi paperbacks. They are my absolute favorite cover art! I will have to post one on the blog now. 😀
LikeLike
Yeah, the cover is ridiculously sweet. (The books are a hoot, too, but only if you’ve already read the real versions.) I love old pulp fiction cover art, from any genre; especially when they feature tawdry looking redheads. 🙂 They are amazing. I’d love to see some sci-fi covers on your blog!
LikeLike
I rolled! I used to hide my Louis L’amor Western’s like: Shane and Flint ; under copies of Bill Bryson’s books; or The ElegantUniverse by Brian Green! So, is Heathcliff a monster or just a drip? Lol
LikeLike
First, I seriously adore Bill Bryson. He is sublime. My idea of a light read is usually anything but, although I occasionally read a classic mystery by Peters or Stout. I like to joke that this book (as well as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) is porn because it is a corruption of a beloved classic. That is why I feel a bit guilty, but I don’t care. I’m just about to start this one so I don’t yet know who is a monster and who isn’t!
LikeLike