East of Eden: In Fannish Terms

[bimo]

Currently reading John Steinbeck's East of Eden, I can't help myself but mentally refer to the novel's Cathy/Kate plotline as "The Stephen King remix", simply because Kate, as a character, feels so much like a King character, doing King-typical things -- however written from a different perspective, by a different writer with completely different intentions, focus and strengths.

Of course I know how wrong this is, for about a hundred literary reasons. But still, the popular fannish concept of the "remixed" story seems the one best suited to describe my impression.

Comments

[selenak]

Hm, yes, I see what you mean about Cathy/Kate being a very Stephen King character, written by another author.

I actually read the novel first and hence must have been the only viewer dissappointed by the James Dean version. I kept thinking "but where's Lee?", "Where are the linguistic/philosophical discussions of timschal" and "Adam isn't like that!" and "Why did they cut out the entire Cathy, Charles and Adam backstory and just leaave the stuff with the kids", and "but THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN THAT WAY AT ALL". And so forth.