This week: the J.D. Salinger tizzy resurfaces (um, in a funny way), Sarah Palin’s tips for writing a book, and a Twilight parody, all after the jump. Read more »

With 60 Years Later: Coming Through the Rye, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and even Star Trek, the notion of transformative work has been a particularly hot topic these past few months. Transformative work not only plays havoc with intellectual property law, but also with the audience as storytellers take our familiar, beloved characters and then subvert them entirely. Holden Caulfield is 76 years old and on the run from a nursing home, Elizabeth Bennett defends her family from hoards of zombies, and James Tiberius Kirk finds himself without a father and a long way to go before he can become captain of the USS Enterprise. The result is all the more shocking and enlightening given the juxtaposition of the transformed work with our knowledge of the original work.

It’s a compelling artistic endeavor. And transformative work is nothing new. Fans of Homer’s The Odyssey and The Iliad wrote their own books based on his works. Cervantes’ Don Quixote saw more than a few unauthorized published sequels. John Gardner’s Grendel, a re-telling of Beowulf from the monster’s point of view, was published to great acclaim (which, being one of my favorite books, I definitely recommend you giving it a read). Gregory Maguire’s best-selling Wicked, an alternate take on The Wizard of Oz, is now one of Broadway’s biggest hits. You get the idea.

But what about fan-made transformative works? While there are countless pieces of fan fiction and fan art out there, in which fans take their favorite characters and merely continue their stories, genuine transformative works are far less common. But as few and far-between as they may be, their stories really resonate.

After the jump, a short list of lesser-known, but by no means lesser-quality, fan-made transformative storytelling that challenge the old adage “there are no new stories.”

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Because a lot can happen in one week and we think it’s worthy to tell you about it, we’re starting a new feature called Midweek Pick-Me-Up. Every Wednesday we sum up the week’s lit & culture news and then help to push you through the rest of the week with a pick-me-up, which is a folksy way of saying we show you a funny video, story, or webcomic.

The demise of Reading Rainbow, more discussion about digital readers (as if you haven’t had enough already), and some freaky Twilight-inspired cover art for a classic novel, and more after the jump.

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A friend of mine recently bought a copy of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight … in French.  Though she studied the language in college and speaks semi-fluently, she’s definitely not a proficient reader of French and reads much more quickly and easily in English.  Nevertheless, she’s forcing herself to plow through the French version of the incredibly successful teen vampire novel just so she can feel less guilty about reading it.  She thinks that most people who see her reading Twilight will think that she has terrible taste in literature, so by reading it in French, she can defend herself as merely practicing another language.

To what extremes are we willing to go to hide the fact that many of us still love books that publishers classify as Young Adult (YA) reading?  Has the popularity of books like Harry Potter and Twilight totally changed the scene for adult readers?

While the adults in the publishing industry create rigid genre boundaries, in the minds of readers, these are actually quite flexible.  I’m just as likely to enjoy something on the “Young Adult Fiction” shelf as I am in the “Classics” section. And as the industry continues to suffer during the recession, it’s the sale of young adult content that continues to grow.  So maybe we shouldn’t be so embarrassed?

What do you think?  Are there any great hidden gems in the YA section that adult readers should know about?

Artist's representation.

This past weekend in New York, where Twilight megahunk Robert Pattinson is currently shooting a film, the actor was approached by a throng of teenage girls. Even though he had a total of five (five!) professionally-trained security guards on hand to protect him, the hysterical fans nonetheless chased him into the street, where he was hit by a car.

Pattinson is fine. But apparently this sort of thing happens to him a lot. And as unfortunate as that is for him, it’s absolutely fascinating to me. There are so many things I don’t understand here. Why does Pattinson have a weird habit of running away from his fans? And—more curiously—how can these girls be so enthralled with a fictional character that they will go so far as to chase him down the street? I understand the concept of feeling connected to fictional characters, and hey, if you don’t feel connected to a character then clearly the storyteller has done something wrong. But to go to such extremes as chasing an actor into a busy street? I don’t get it, though I would like to. And I’m not sure if this is an example of fandom gone awry or—as crazy as this sounds—if this is what true fandom really is. Read more »