Sexing the Classics

Jo Page, who visited the Institute in March, ponders the forthcoming Fifty Shades of Grey versions of literary classics in Metroland column "Reckonings" this week:

"You’d think with all the sex there is in the world of literature—Poe with his necrophilia, Hawthorne with his adultery, Mailer and Miller and Updike and Roth with all manner of erotic expressiveness—that we wouldn’t need to go looking for more titillation. But maybe we do...."

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More Than a Match for Jane Eyre

Writing in The Daily Beast, Jane Ciabattari names Margot Livesey's new book a "Must Read."

Livesey visits Tuesday, March 20.

"Reinventing a beloved classic is a risky business, but it will come as no surprise to Margot Livesey’s admirers—a small but fervent group likely to be greatly enlarged by her wonderful new novel—that this abundantly gifted writer is more than a match for Jane Eyre. It’s not necessary to have read Charlotte Brontë’s protofeminist masterpiece to enjoy The Flight of Gemma Hardy, which works splendidly on its own terms, but the resonances and dissonances between these two compelling works enrich our appreciation of both." More.

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