This is very well-written Frame has admirably caught the style and culture of the era. She takes her ball home, and shuts up the brewery, moving on to the track toward eccentricity that Dickens shows us. But this goes pear-shaped, partly through the workers' suspicion of a female manager, and partly her refusal to compromise in pay negotations. She actually gets well on the way to recovering from this shock, taking over management of the brewery. This brings her expectations of an inheritance and a good marriage, but she's not worldly-wise, and falls for the unscrupulous Compeyson - who she has installed as manager of the brewery after her father's death, but who jilts her on their wedding day. Havisham expands the reference to a derelict brewery next to Statis House into a story of new money, Catherine Havisham is the favoured daughter of a brewer who pays for her upbringing in an aristocratic household. Frame paints her upbringing sympathetically, making her a victim of 'great expectations' that parallels the theme of the Dickens novel. It's not wildly revisionist - the basic roles are unaltered - but it fills in the backstory of how Miss Havisham became the embittered eccentric that Pip encountered.
I always like revisionist takes on classic literature, and among various books I'm reading at present, I just read Ronald Frame's Havisham, which is a prequel and parallel text to Dickens' Great Expectations.
0 kommentar(er)
