Works for most ofVictorian literature, UK or otherwise, I think. Try imagining Dostoevsky, for example. Even Dumas works, oddly. The Regional Party Secretary of Wǔtái Shān, for example.
I think Hardy is not as good a choice of subject for this game as Dickens. Dickens wrote about urbanisation and industrialisation, but Hardy wrote about agricultural labourers in rural England, working under a system of land tenure inherited from feudal times. I don't think this can be translated easily to contemporary China: the old system of land ownership was destroyed by the communists in the 1950s. So there can be no contemporary Chinese equivalent of, say, Bathsheba Everdene in Far from the Madding Crowd, or Mrs. Charmond in The Woodlanders, or Lady Constantine in Two on a Tower. An official in the Bureau of Land Administration is quite different from an heiress to a country estate.
Of course there are rich heiresses in contemporary China, but they inherit urban businesses rather than rural estates. But moving Hardy's stories to the cities would completely change them—they'd be missing the sense of rural isolation in an era before mass rail travel that is a feature of novels like The Woodlanders and Return of the Native.
Ah, pinyin diacritics. I'd guess that China would probably abandon the standard Putonghua effort when it comes obvious that it it would never crack fortresses Shanghai (which is the economic centre, after all) and Guangdong/Canton.
Done because we are too menny
How punny.
How would the Norman connection in Tess of the d'Urbervilles fit into the Chinese context?
Find a major work by any creator deemed "timeless" whose plot would not work when transferred to contemporary... anywhere.
Have we all suddenly forgotten the staging of every single one of Shakespeare's plays in every last contemporary setting available?
I think JamesP's challenge says far more about anglophone academia's tacit acceptance of China's status as the Most Other Of Others than it does about current Chinese economic conditions.
Works for most ofVictorian literature, UK or otherwise, I think. Try imagining Dostoevsky, for example. Even Dumas works, oddly. The Regional Party Secretary of Wǔtái Shān, for example.
ReplyDeleteHmmm... how would you transport Two on a Tower to China?
ReplyDeleteDone because we are too menny. Damn that one child policy!
ReplyDeleteI think Hardy is not as good a choice of subject for this game as Dickens. Dickens wrote about urbanisation and industrialisation, but Hardy wrote about agricultural labourers in rural England, working under a system of land tenure inherited from feudal times. I don't think this can be translated easily to contemporary China: the old system of land ownership was destroyed by the communists in the 1950s. So there can be no contemporary Chinese equivalent of, say, Bathsheba Everdene in Far from the Madding Crowd, or Mrs. Charmond in The Woodlanders, or Lady Constantine in Two on a Tower. An official in the Bureau of Land Administration is quite different from an heiress to a country estate.
ReplyDeleteOf course there are rich heiresses in contemporary China, but they inherit urban businesses rather than rural estates. But moving Hardy's stories to the cities would completely change them—they'd be missing the sense of rural isolation in an era before mass rail travel that is a feature of novels like The Woodlanders and Return of the Native.
Under The Sodding Greenwood Tree?
ReplyDeleteThe Regional Party Secretary of Wǔtái Shān
ReplyDeleteAh, pinyin diacritics. I'd guess that China would probably abandon the standard Putonghua effort when it comes obvious that it it would never crack fortresses Shanghai (which is the economic centre, after all) and Guangdong/Canton.
Done because we are too menny
How punny.
How would the Norman connection in Tess of the d'Urbervilles fit into the Chinese context?
I have an expanded challenge:
ReplyDeleteFind a major work by any creator deemed "timeless" whose plot would not work when transferred to contemporary... anywhere.
Have we all suddenly forgotten the staging of every single one of Shakespeare's plays in every last contemporary setting available?
I think JamesP's challenge says far more about anglophone academia's tacit acceptance of China's status as the Most Other Of Others than it does about current Chinese economic conditions.
Find a major work by any creator deemed "timeless" whose plot would not work when transferred to contemporary... anywhere.
ReplyDeleteEumenides? Although there are probably contempoary tribal societies you could locate it in, it's would be fairly obscure modern dress.
chris y
How does one deem a creator "timeless", except by claiming that their work has resonances in contemporary culture?
ReplyDelete