Exactly what is a parallel novel?

I mentioned on the About Me page that The Truth About Jacob Marley is a “parallel novel.” I thought I knew what the term meant, but the Wikipedia article on the subject discusses several other meanings it might cover. The main point, though, is that the new work is written by a different author than the original, which is usually a well-known novel, often a classic. It can be set in the same period, might use some of the same characters, or might add characters. It can be a prequel or a sequel, or take place in a totally different time period. A minor character in the original story might become the main character in the new one. There are many ways to do it.

One thing the article mentions is that the term is a “pastiche,” meaning it is not a parody, but rather something that celebrates the original work’s atmosphere and ethos. But as we will see, this is not always the case.

The first parallel work I ever encountered wasn’t a novel, but a play, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The play is parallel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In Hamlet the two title characters don’t have many lines and are mere pawns. At the end of the play they, like almost everyone else, are dead. I loved that Stoppard would show the tail-end of a scene from Hamlet and then leave these two misfit characters on stage, bewildered and ignorant of what is going on. They’re not bright. Their lines are in present-day speech and generally talk about trivial things. In this play, then, the setting is not really important, and nothing about the original play is changed. Rosencrantz is absurdist in tone. You might compare it to Waiting for Godot.

The Wind Done Gone, a novel by Alice Randall, is different. It uses some characters from Gone with the Wind and adds new ones. Most of the names are changed or avoided or abbreviated; the reader recognizes them, however. Notably it follows the story of a slave girl who is the half-sister of Scarlett O’Hara. Here is a biting satire that does not celebrate the mythical era of the Old South, but instead gives us a jolt of realism concerning the period and strips any romantic notions we might have had about it.

Wicked by Gregory Maguire is a novel that also does not celebrate much about its progenitor, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Rather, it completely changes the landscape and the characters to a high degree. It takes a classic children’s book series and changes many, many things, adding sexual situations and other adult memes. It’s not intended for children, of course. The writer seemed determined to create his own complex fantasy world; not sure why he picked Oz as a starting point. I personally did not care for the result. To each his own. Perhaps I am too fond of the source material.

Mary Reilly by Valerie Martin is a well-written novel based on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s the same basic story seen through the eyes of a chambermaid in the house of Dr. Jekyll, with whom she is in love. This is perhaps the purest parallel novel I’ve read.

The pattern I see is that these re-imaginings are all based on well-known classics, such as the ones mentioned above and others, like Pride and Prejudice, Beowulf, Little Women, and Jane Eyre. The list goes on.

As for my own “paralleling” of A Christmas Carol, I think the result is more on the celebratory side of things. I put most of my narrative within the time framework of the original. But I also explained a few things that occurred before and after Dickens’ narrative, so I lengthened the full story. And of course we know from page one that Marley was not a ghost on the night Ebenezer Scrooge had a change of heart. That fact influences much of what follows. I really enjoyed learning about this period of history, so yes, I was celebrating it.

I portray Scrooge more realistically than does Dickens. Don’t worry, Scrooge is still a man in need of reform, but in my story he’s not quite as fiendish as Dickens portrays him. And he’s more interesting in other ways—for instance, he is a voracious reader and has an affinity for things American.

Two other characters, Jacob Marley and Fred, Scrooge’s nephew, are fleshed out into more rounded characters.

Fred is the narrator of the book and the conscience of the story. In Dickens, Fred has a famous speech he delivers to his uncle about Christmas (“. . . I believe it has done me good and will do me good; and I say “God bless it!”), but other than that he has little else to do until Scrooge at last comes to his house as a changed man. In my version Fred spends a lot of time trying to get to know and understand his uncle, who is his only living relative. And he is partly the reason Scrooge at last mends his ways.

As for Marley, he was perhaps beyond redemption. And yet he is interesting, as shady characters often are. As Fred states late in the book, Marley was the spark that caused most of the major events, turning points, and reversals of the narrative. In fact, you could say that Marley is the pivotal character.

I won’t comment on ghosts or the lack thereof.