(no subject)

[jfb]

Via Creative Commons (creativecommons): A list of 2002's best-selling classics (how did The Red Tent get on this list?), and when they'll enter the public domain. It almost makes me cry that The Great Gatsby won't be available for translation, adaptation, and reinterpretation for another 17 years.

Comments

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

Classic seems to be being applied to newer and newer things. I've seen some Disney movies referred to as classics before they are released, which really makes me scratch my head. On the other hand, I suppose some of the definitions just hinge on excellence rather than "has withstood the test of time" (which is what I tend to think of "classic" as meaning in this context).

Copyright extension makes me very sad. Dover has just about hit the wall of stuff they can reprint in music scores. Sigh.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I bet almost all of the non-genre books on that list are due to sales to high school and college students for an English class. The fine print says they exclude school bookstores, but I'm sure a lot of students just buy them at the mall. I mean, why else would anyone buy The Pearl? On the other hand, why is Moby Dick not on the list?

I was thinking it's too bad there won't be any Project Gutenberg eTexts of Fitzgerald's stuff for another 20 years, but then I remembered that a bunch of his stories are already online (including "May Day", one of my favorites) as well as his first novel This Side of Paradise. I guess you just can't, uh, reinterpret it. Yet.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I sort of went down the list: Movie tie-in, English class, Oprah, Oprah redux, school school school school school school school. (Actually, The Grapes of Wrath also got a boost from the California Council for the Humanities (http://www.calhum.org/programs/grapes_intro.htm).) There's an obvious drop-off after the top four, too.

Do people still read Moby Dick?

Yeah, Fitzgerald's early work predates the creeping copyright extensions. But I love Gatsby.

[rollerboogie.livejournal.com]

I read Moby Dick my junior year of high school, but it was abridged (eliminating the heavy whaling passages). And that was just four or five years ago.

Incidentally, while I was home last I caught part of the Gatsby A&E film made with Mira Sorvino. It was AWFUL. Paul Rudd played Nick Carraway and seemed to have been directed to be surly straight through. Have you ever seen it? It made the Redford film look brilliant.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

A better school than mine, no doubt.

Never seen the A&E film, and can barely remember the Redford one (but I think I liked it at the time. they wore hats!). I liked Mira Sorvino as Romy, though.

[pobig.livejournal.com]

It almost makes me cry that The Great Gatsby won't be available for translation, adaptation, and reinterpretation for another 17 years.

Make that "never". In 17 years the copyright'll just be extended again.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Well, yes--although Gatsby predates Mickey Mouse by three years, so maybe it'll slip through the cracks.

[bnewmark.livejournal.com]

what a great list! and interestingly, my book club just chose to kill a mockingbird, which i had never read. i love it - almost finished with it, and the other book i brought with me for my trip? lord of the flies. i'm all about the classics! (and i have to agree - i hated the red tent and it -should not- be on that list.)