If you’d asked me what I’d expect to be working on five years ago, I definitely wouldn’t have said ‘I’ll be retelling Tess of the d’Urbervilles for children.’ I might have shuddered at the very idea of compressing a book I loved so much into 6,500 words. I’d have thought of Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, and worse, Bowdler!
But I’m in good company. Michael Rosen retold Romeo and Juliet, and recently Philip Pullman published his version of Grimm’s Fairy Tales. I knew the publishers of the Real Reads series from another connection, and sitting in their garden one day I gulped and said ‘I’d like to do one of those’ - and then wondered what I’d let myself in for.
When I looked at the books I began to see the point, and the skilful way these little books lead readers from the shallows into deeper, perhaps more satisfying waters. Gill Tavner, who tackled Dickens, Jane Austen and more greats for Real Reads, puts it this way:
‘I have long thought that there must be a way of making the qualities of ‘classics’ accessible to most readers, but I was unconvinced that abridging was the answer. As a mother of two young children, I have endured the pain of reading abridged fairy tales and Disney films. These often machine-gun the reader with a list of events. Rarely do they offer the reader an opportunity to develop interest in or appreciation of varied vocabulary, style or themes. Do abridged versions need to be like this? Surely there is a way to make an abridged version an enjoyable and enriching rather than simply informative reading experience? Surely this is an important distinction if we aim to nurture keen, confident readers?’
The format for Real Reads includes a list of the main characters, questions to follow up the story, a list of follow-up books, films and websites, the historical context of the book and some thoughts about what readers might find if they braved the whole thing. There are also some lovely illustrations. The books were originally intended for children aged about 8-11, but they sell well to readers of English as a Second Language, and to adults who want a way into difficult books - I’ve just ordered a copy of the Ramayana, for example, as I just can’t get into reading the whole thing.
I was lucky - I got to choose my writer and which books I’d like to do. Tess of the d’Urbervilles was the first, and perhaps the easiest. I had to retell the story in a way which makes it come alive, and with something of Hardy’s style. My usual writing voice is about as far away from Hardy’s as you could get, so it was quite a challenge.
But I learned a lot from the process. First, I learned to step a long way back from the story, not to immerse myself in it. What were the key themes, the journeys of the characters? What was essential? What made it live? Those are important questions to ask of any book.
Then I realised that I couldn’t go through chapter by chapter summing them up as I went. That would end up as a list of events, not a story. I had to put the book aside and tell Tess’s story from her humble beginnings to her tragic arrest for murder. And I had to think of Hardy’s feelings about Tess. He used a sub-title for the book - ‘A Pure Woman’. He clearly didn’t think Tess is to blame for what happens to her, but blamed a society with double standards. Angel Clare, who becomes Tess’s husband, has had an affair, but he leaves Tess when she admits to the same.
There were some tricky issues too - like the scene where Alec d’Urberville rapes Tess in the forest. How could I write that essential scene for a children’s book? Hardy isn’t explicit, but he’s clear enough. I watched all the films and TV series for some help - but the directors fudged the issue, or came down on one side or the other. Here’s how I did it:
'Alec got lost in the wood. Tess was exhausted, and he helped her to lie down on the ground and covered her with his coat, while he went off to find his bearings.
When he came back, she was asleep. Alec could just make out her face in the dark. He knelt beside her, his cheek next to hers. He could still see a tear on her face.
As her people would say, it was to be. This was the last they would see of the Tess who left home to try her fortune.
A chasm was to divide her from that former self.'
The last sentence is direct from Hardy’s book. The scene’s very close to his own.
The Mayor of Casterbridge was the most difficult of the Hardy novels to retell - it’s so rich in plot, so much happens, that I felt I had to butcher some of the story to get it into the word count. But I learned so much about editing, about looking at a book from a long way back, and from very close up, from the work I did on Hardy’s books. I still love the originals. But I’m quite proud of what I’ve done with them.
Now, I suppose I should take this opportunity to meet some characters who would be able to solve one of life's eternal mysteries - like where all the odd socks go, or why cars/computers/washing machines never make that funny noise when someone useful is listening.
But I'm not going to do that, except possibly in the case of my last choice. No, in a spirit of human kindness, I'm first going to meet three characters who need a bit of friendly advice. Then I'm going to have fun. So here they are, in all their glory.
Romeo Romeo is so impulsive. He does the first thing that comes into his head, every time - and just look at the results! What you must do, Romeo, I shall say kindly, is just to take a little time to think. Verify the facts. Put yourself in the other person's place. Talk to people. Just make sure people are really dead before you go making histrionic speeches and taking poison that you really shouldn't have had in the first place.
Then I'm sure you'll find that life will go much more smoothly. There'll certainly be a lot less drama.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles Oh, Tess, Tess. You have so much going for you. You're very beautiful, er... you really are very, very beautiful... well, that's enough to be going on with. Now, the initial problem with Alec. Well, fair enough, probably not a lot you could have done about that. But Angel - really, did you have to let that sanctimonious twerp walk all over you? And, you see, if you stand up to him, then you won't be so desperate that you'll have to let Alec back in again. There must be some nice reliable shepherd or forester knocking about in the wilds of Wessex. Or maybe you could start up a small business. Whatever - just stay away from men whose names begin with 'A'.
Dorothea Brooke Actually, what I'd really like to do is talk to Tess and Dorothea (from Middlemarch) at the same time. I'm sure they'd be very good for each other. Of course, Dorothea is scarily clever, but where men are concerned, she's just as silly as Tess. I mean, marrying Casaubon - listen to me, Dorothea (may I call you Dot?), just DON'T DO IT! For goodness' sake, isn't it obvious? You have far more in common with Lydgate. Together, you can do lots of lovely good, and then he won't ruin poor old Rosamond's life either. Leave her to Will - they'll be good for each other.
Fangorn I don't want to give Fangorn relationship advice - I'm afraid there's not much I can do for him, except hope he finds his Entwife one day. No - I just want to see what he looks like. I loved the Lord of the Rings films, but I didn't quite feel convinced by the Ents, and I think they're lovely, so I'd like to see what they really look like. And if Aragorn or Legolas happens to be passing, so much the better.
Grannie Weatherwax I think Grannie Weatherwax may actually be dead, but I don't think this should be much of a problem in the Discworld. If it is, any other character will do. Lord Vetinari, perhaps? Might as well go to the top. Because I have to admit, interesting as any of the characters would be, what I'm really after is a free pass to the Discworld. So much to see, so much to do! When I come back, I'll write an article: 24 hours in Ankh-Morpokh or some such. I'm sure that would be far more interesting than yet another celeb interview.
So there we have it - and now I'm off to spend three days in the wilds of Oxfordshire with a bunch of Scattered Authors (who, obviously, won't be scattered at that point). Lovely!
Nicola Lacey is Professor of Criminal Law and Legal Theory at the London School of Economics, and the author of Women, Crime and Character: From Moll Flanders to Tess of the D’Urbervilles. In the below article, which originally appeared on The Guardian’s Comment is Free blog, she looks at different images of female criminality.
Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles sprang in part from Hardy’s reaction to the case of Martha Brown, hanged in 1856 for the murder of her abusive husband. Novels have often served to fix our image of legal processes: think of Dickens’s condemnation of the chancery court in Bleak House, or Fielding’s satire on 18th-century criminal justice in novels like Tom Jones. In Tess, Hardy gave us an enduring image of the stereotype of female criminality that pervaded the Victorian era and indeed cast its shadow over 20th-century popular culture and criminology.
The image of the female offender has often approached the ultimate stereo-type of conventional femininity: passive; driven by emotion rather than reason; moved by impulses located in the body rather than the mind. Like most female criminals in novels of the Victorian period, Tess’s position as a woman underlines her social powerlessness.
But does this image of passive, victimised female criminality, tinged with a shade of madness, stretch as far back into law and literature as it stretches forward? Turn to Tess’s literary cousin, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders (1722), who enlivened our TV screens in 1996. Bold, beautiful and brilliantly resourceful, Moll was ideally qualified to be the heroine of one of the first English novels. She did, however, exhibit one unheroic characteristic. For most of the novel she is involved in distinctly unromantic property offences, including shoplifting, swindling and even stealing from children. Born in Newgate jail of a mother who has escaped execution by “pleading her belly”, Moll uses her beauty and ingenuity to escape poverty through crime. Adding colour to this pattern of thieving and deception, Moll enjoys an active and varied love life, with plentiful instances of fornication and adultery.
Ostensibly, Moll Flanders is a tale of sin and repentance. She is eventually caught, convicted and transported to Virginia with one of her five husbands, a convicted highwayman. Awaiting her punishment in Newgate, she renounces her criminal habits. But, her punishment completed, she is rewarded with riches gained by legitimate use of her talents. It is hard for the modern reader entirely to believe in her reformation. For a morality tale, the moments of her regret and punishment are extraordinarily brief. If Defoe’s message was that redemption is always available to the penitent, he also conveys very forcefully that wit, courage and enterprise are valuable attributes for a woman.
Moll could not be a greater contrast to the stereotype of female criminality embodied in Tess. For Moll is autonomous, brimming with ambitions and strategies for pursuing them. Unlike Tess, she shapes her own destiny. A strong, active and dominant woman, Moll’s world is peopled by women similar to herself. The men in this world are often weak, indecisive and passive.
Defoe, we must conclude, found it natural to have a sexually active, socially marginal female thief as his protagonist. And the success of Moll implies early readers received her as being entirely plausible; exceptionally, during that period, women constituted half the defendants before London’s main criminal court. Moll’s supersession by very different models of female criminality, like Tess, serves as a metaphor for fundamental changes in society. Moll’s descendants were caught up in a cluster of social developments that contributed to the unthinkability of such a character in Tess’s era. As we watched Tess’s fate unfold on TV this autumn, it is perhaps worth asking ourselves whether, in 2008, Moll Flanders is thinkable again - and, if so, whether this is a good thing or a bad.
You can see the original Guardian blog here.
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Hi - enjoyed your post - are you Sue Clarke's friend Maxine? I'm Celia who lives down the road from her - we seem to have both turned to children's writing at the same time, roughly, so I've heard about you from her (if you're the right one!)
Greetings!
Celia
Hi Celia
Yes, of course, such coincidences!
Give her a wave and a hug from me.
Maxine.