Evoking Other Novels While Remaining Original

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A 1935 Texas dust storm like those in Kristin Hannah’s novel The Four Winds.

Today’s topic evokes a topic I’ve previously written about — novels that evoke previous novels.

This doesn’t mean the evoking book is plagiaristic. Often, the novel is quite original and excellent (like the one I’m about to discuss), even as the author deliberately or subconsciously makes references to previous literature. Heck, there are only so many plots, ideas, scenarios, character types, etc. No novel is completely unique.

As alluded to, I’m going to discuss this concept via a novel I recently read — Kristin Hannah’s propulsive, page-turning, heartbreaking The Four Winds.

Among the characters its Elsa protagonist evokes is Jane Eyre. Both are plain-looking and had difficult childhoods almost totally devoid of love, yet they are “survivors” possessing a good measure of resilience. Perhaps not a coincidence that among Elsa’s favorite novels in The Four Winds is…Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

Elsa — whose low self-esteem is eventually helped somewhat by becoming a hard-working farm woman and mother, and by growing close to the two loving parents of her problematic husband — also made me think of Valancy Stirling of L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle. Valancy, too, had to deal with horrible, judgmental parenting and other challenges such as (alleged) ill health, even as she would find the strength and independence to try to better her life.

But the novel that The Four Winds most evokes is The Grapes of Wrath. Most of Hannah’s book is set in the 1930s — the Depression-era decade in which John Steinbeck’s 1939-published classic also unfolds. Elsa (along with her two children) flee drought-stricken “Dust Bowl” Texas to seek a better life in California, only to face huge difficulties and vicious anti-poor/anti-newcomer sentiment from landowners, the police, and many other residents in “The Golden State” — challenges previously faced by Steinbeck’s Joad family, who drove to California from Oklahoma. Elsa’s personality feels like a mix of the fierce, compassionate Ma Joad and her stoic, admirable son Tom Joad.

Meanwhile, communist union organizer Jack in The Four Winds is reminiscent of lapsed preacher Jim Casy in The Grapes of Wrath…and also makes one think of lawyer Max in Richard Wright’s Native Son. Those three characters are sympathetic and non-stereotypical — not always the case with depictions of “reds” or other leftists in literature.

Finally, Elsa’s strong-willed, gutsy, dissatisfied, rebellious, ultimately loving daughter Loreda evokes too many other fictional teens to name, yet she is a very distinct character in her own right. Which helped remind me once again that Kristin Hannah is one of my favorite living novelists.

Your thoughts on this topic?

My literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about rent-gouging, speed-limit reductions, and more — is here.

112 thoughts on “Evoking Other Novels While Remaining Original”

    • Thank you! I agree that “The Four Winds” is very “The Grapes of Wrath”-ish, and deliberately so. But I think it’s different enough to have been worth writing; for instance, the emphasis on a woman protagonist. I love the novel, and almost everything Hannah writes. (I’ve read about a dozen of her books in the past year-and-a-half.)

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  2. I haven’r read ‘The Four Winds’, but I’m in complete agreement about the topic of this blog. It’s difficult to be completely original in any story, given the wealth of these which have already been written. Most ‘new’ stories draw on something from what’s already out there, even if it’s just small tropes or themes. Thus, Harry Potter is Jane Eyre (orphan raised by nasty relatives who don’t want him), and Jane Eyre’s horrid cousins are the Ugly Sisters (with an even uglier brother for good measure). The first ‘adult’ book I ever bought, aged 7 (and which I still have) was ‘Lorna Doone’. Imagine my surprise when, at university in my 40s, I studies a book entitled ‘Mauprat’ by George
    Sand which contained the same scenario of a noble family gone to the bad – robber barons to rival the Doones. As Sand’s text was written first, R D Blackmore must have got the idea from her, I’m guessing. There’s a fine line between influence and plagiarism, however, and too much of another book used risks crossing said line. The likenesses to ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ (a favourite of mine) used in the book cited above sound pretty close, although I’d have to read it to decide – and maybe I will. Another excellent topic on this blog to get the grey matter working. Many thanks.

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    • Thank you, Anonymous! Great comment! Yes, almost everything has been written before in some way, but an author can put her or his original stamp on content.

      And that’s an interesting Jane Eyre-Harry Potter connection I hadn’t thought of! I can see the similarity. Now I’m wondering what kind of wand Jane Eyre used. 🙂

      Not surprised that George Sands preceded R.D. Blackmore with the theme you referenced; she was a very original writer.

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  3. Hi Dave,
    I rarely have an instant response to your posts. Sometimes I need to ruminate a day or 2.

    The closest I could come:
    I had a very close older friend (rip – 10years ago)
    This person was an accomplished artist in many fields: Playwright (one produced by a major theatre in the 60’s), TV Director, Author (1 book published)
    Artist (many art shows and 1 painting bought by the Art Gallery of Ontario for its collection), I could go on.
    In his last years he decided to write what would be his signature novel. He still had literary connections.
    He worked on it for almost 3 years.
    I read it.
    Although Pygmalion is not totally unique… “My Fair Lady” …
    He literally wrote “Born Yesterday”.. the movie. Very pygmalion.
    Yes, names different, but the situation(s) not so much.
    I could see the movie go by in my mind as I read the book.
    Many read it.
    No one, like myself knew what to say.
    I don’t know if anyone ever told him that he rewrote “Born Yesterday”… I wish I would have had the guts.
    It never got published, and I don’t know what his publisher said.
    I never asked. Like I said….no guts.

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  4. Hi Dave!
    My friend and I had this discussion not so long ago. How to write a novel without evoking another. It can be hard, and I think most authors tend to evoke other novels at one point or another (I may be wrong). Maybe it’s because people, at some point in their life, share the same experiences, or, at least almost the same. I think it can be difficult to disguise it in a novel, to express that experience, in such a different way that it does not evoke other novels.

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    • Thank you, Lena! I agree that it’s hard for novelists to avoid evoking other novels, whether consciously or subconsciously. There are so many works out there, and, as you say, many of us share similar experiences.

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  5. Writing on a balky and treacherous old computer, and late to the discussion, I will make my contribution brief, and hope it isn’t somehow swallowed up in digital purgatory before I finish.

    Vasily Grossman, Soviet journalist and Ukrainian-born, wrote a most voluminous tome centered on the battle of Stalingrad, and on a swath of personalities, mostly fictional, bur occasionally historical, swept up in the terrible cruelties and privations and violence of the times. “Life and Fate” runs to 871 pages in the unwieldy edition I read, and has been made intentionally in the shadow and methods of characterization that Leo Tolstoy employed in his own massive and wide-ranging work, “War and Peace”.

    Unlike Tolstoy’s book, Grossman’s was thoroughly repressed, his manuscript confiscated, and did not see light of day for years after its completion, and after its author’death. The translation into English appeared in 1985. A recent illness forced rest on me, and so, after a decade of having the book in the house, I read it. Only after, did I remember the flu that laid me low 40 years ago: that ‘s when I read “War and Peace”!
    jhNY

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    • Thank you, jhNY! Glad your excellent comment came through.

      First of all, very sorry about your recent illness. Hope you’re feeling better, or starting to feel better.

      Yes, being sick can be a time for tackling very long novels — including the “Life and Fate” work that has some similarities to “War and Peace” (which you serendipitously/coincidentally/appropriately read when ill four decades earlier). Horrible that Vasily Grossman’s book was suppressed, and didn’t get published until after he died. The frustration an author feels in a case like that is beyond imagination. 😦

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  6. Hi Dave, I will be very truthful, I never enjoy books that evoke other famous novels I’ve read and loved. They just never meet my expectations. I would never try to write about the Great Depression from an American POV as who could ever measure up to John Steinbeck. Some eras are best avoided in my humble opinion. I didn’t like the attempt at a sequel to Gone with the Wind that someone wrote, I can’t remember who, and I never read Aggie Christie lookalikes (knock offs – haha!) or books about Sherlock Holmes (well, I read one series because it is very funny although rather insulting to poor Mr. Watson). I am a complete literature snob – giggle. That being said, some people love books that evoke other novels and it is a way of bringing those famous ideas and characters to a more modern audience. So, it has its place in the world, just not on my bookshelf. PS, I am considering building a Christmas tree from books. I have enough with my 3,000 strong library.

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    • Thank you, Robbie! I hear you, and well said! With so many novels to read, we all have certain parameters of what “categories” of books we want to avoid. 🙂 In my case, I don’t mind the occasional novel that evokes another novel, as long as it brings something different to the table and doesn’t seem like a blatant ripoff. (Sometimes I don’t know a book will evoke another book until I’m in the middle of reading it, though I knew in the case of “The Four Winds” that I would be in “The Grapes of Wrath” territory; the jacket copy and back-cover blurbs made that clear. 🙂 )

      A Christmas tree of books from your huge collection would be amazing!

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  7. “Four Winds ” not a favorite book of Hannah’s. I read “The Nightengale. ” Was an engaging, emotional novel. I have “Winter Garden ” on my list. I was heart broken while reading “The Nightengale. ”
    Michele, E&P way back

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    • Thank you, Michele! I agree that “The Nightingale” was riveting, but I was very partial to “The Four Winds” as well. I found both books really compelling — and heartbreaking.

      I liked “Winter Garden,” too, though it wasn’t among my very favorites by Kristin Hannah.

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  8. I am a great fan of Barbara Kingsolver’s recent “Demon Copperhead,” which deliberately uses the general plot and characters of Dickens’ “David Copperfield.” I thought it was a terrific and funny, if often harrowing, novel, and I liked it better for knowing more or less what was going to happen because of being familiar with the Dickens novel. This kind of thing is an homage to the original book, as opposed to cases I’ve encountered in my reading where one mystery writer has blatantly stolen a story from another with no acknowledgment.

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    • Thank you, Kim! Great mention! “Demon Copperhead” is very much on my to-read list. (I love everything Barbara Kingsolver writes.) Sounds like she took inspiration from “David Copperfield” to write something spectacularly good. As you say, a homage, and I’m sure quite original, too.

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  9. I think it depends largely on the writer’s perspective and even our own. When I read Cannery Row it reminded me of post dust bowl Grapes of Wrath–same author, different books. Recently, I was discussing with my daughter how absolutely gorgeous Alain Delon was. She had just seen the movie Plein Soleil and I indicated to her that it was based on Highsmith’s book, The Talented Mr. Ripley–same book, different movies. The only thing that really changes is how we imagined it to be then and how it was re-imagined later as oddly familiar as the two may seem. Kinda reminds me of the Sesame Street song, one of the these things is not like the other. Ha. Nice topic Dave. Thanks Susi

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    • Thank you, Susi! You’re right that there’s a lot of interpretation involved when it comes to deciding how much an author evokes something previously written — with how much time has passed among the factors. And, yes, authors can evoke their own works, even if they’re not writing a direct sequel. (Though “Cannery Row” did have a sequel: “Sweet Thursday.” Pretty good!)

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      • I’ll definitely have to read the sequel. Thanks for the heads up. I guess I think of a book being similar to an onion, layers upon layers of stories. I once wrote a joke about it ergo: A group of cave men were sitting around a fire when one cave man begins telling the others that old folktale called The Golden Arm. When he had finished one of his fellow cave man asks him, “Hey man. What is gold?” The story is found at this link re: Mark Twain’s version. https://www.online-literature.com/twain/3250/

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  10. It has been said uncountable times: no one that hasn’t been extensively immersed into literature can write something meaningful. It takes a keen eye to observe the the treads that weave the tissue of the reality and that skill has to be learned from the ways previous storytellers approached the socio-cultural fabric of their times.

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  12. Hi, I talked about the same thing on my blog after I read The Four Winds, which I enjoyed. I think Hannah is a very good writer. It happens that The Grapes of Wrath is one of my all-time favorite books, so it’s hard not to compare. I think I called The Four Winds a lighter version of The Grapes of Wrath. That said, today’s readers might prefer The Four Winds. It’s a compelling time period and there’s definitely room for more than one story.

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  13. This is an interesting topic, Dave. You have a great example and many are mentioned in the comments. I have a suggestion, but I have to admit, it might be a case of misremembering. I think there’s a connection between One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey and On the Road by Jack Kerouac. But, the source of my confusion might be The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe (non-fiction) which discusses Kesey’s book and gives it an On The Road flavor. There is a “this guy kind of sounds like that guy” aspect to the comparison, but perhaps not one book to another.

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  16. I haven’t yet read Hannah’s “The Four Winds,” but was completely immersed in “The Great Alone.” As I’m not as widely read as you are, I rarely see connections/similarities in a novel with characters from other novels. However, I don’t find this surprising since we humans–across space and time–share inner stories that resonate in some way with our own.

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    • Thank you, Rosaliene! “…we humans–across space and time–share inner stories that resonate in some way with our own” — love that statement of yours! So true.

      “The Four Winds” and “The Great Alone” are both extremely riveting!

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  17. Many years ago, I was introduced to Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm which was written by Kate Douglas and published in 1903. I liked the title! LOL. I read L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables a few years later. Anne Shirley has become a Canadian cultural icon over the past ninety years, cherished within Canada. Many people recognize her as Canada’s best-known fictional export. There are many similarities between Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and Anne of Green Gables. And some believe that Anne was patterned after Rebecca’s Story.

    I think that these two writers came up with the idea separately. There is a name for this type of occurrence: Convergent evolution is the scientific term for the phenomenon of people independently coming up with the same idea or innovation at the same time, even when they are not in close proximity.

    Rebecca and Anne’s narratives are memorable and touch our hearts. Themes of friendship, love and the power of imagination resonate with us all. I am grateful to Kate Douglas Wiggin and L.M. Montgomery for sharing their gift of writing with the world.

    Of course, I had to add a couple of quotes!!!

    “To be alive makes up for everything; there ought to be fears in my heart, but there aren’t; something stronger sweeps them out; something like a wind.” Kate Douglas Wiggin, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

    “Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. It’s splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world.” L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

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  18. The Four Winds is sitting on my TBR pile. I think I should probably read it! I know have experienced those kinds of echos with prior novels I’ve read, but I can’t think of examples off the top of my head. The one I thought of was Wide Sargasso Sea, which Sara mentioned.

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  19. Evoking another novel can be a compliment to another novelist though you also get the unique style, method, and taste of the other author who wrote the newer book. It’s cool when books are similar to one another, especially if people really enjoy a particular genre or story scenario. Jane Eyre is such a cool novel with its Gothic setting, but I had troubled enjoying it fully when she falls for the creepy homeowner who put away his “crazy” wife and she was not kept in very nice conditions either. D: Granted, the writing was excellent and as women were considered property back then, the author was really just working within the confines of her day. Jane Eyre was cool in that she enjoyed long walks alone and survived a lot of hardships. If she happened to go “crazy” later on though she likely would have suffered from the same fate as the previous wife. D: Oops.

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    • Thank you, Sara! Excellent, interesting comment! You definitely offered some valid criticisms of Rochester in “Jane Eyre”; he and his actions were problematic in several ways — something also addressed in Jean Rhys’ “Jane Eyre” prequel “Wide Sargasso Sea,” which, as you might know, looks at the life of the “crazy” wife years before Jane arrived on the scene. (Yes, some of Rochester’s behavior was societally influenced in that much-more-patriarchal time and place, while some was quite individual.) Still, I’m a big fan of the “Jane Eyre” novel overall. 🙂

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      • The mood of the story was cool, but I guess it’s hard for me to fully enjoy it. It’s stories like that which set alot of young women up to fall for pretty toxic guys, thinking they can soften him up. You’re right Rochester was just himself while the societal norms enabled it. Of course, there’s other great elements of the story as you mentioned.

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        • Great points. Yes, “Jane Eyre” was a mix of feminist and non-feminist, with of course more feminist elements than most novels of its 1840s time. Actually, the most feminist novel by the Bronte sisters was probably Anne Bronte’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”

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          • That’s cool how The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall was considered Anne Brontes most feminist.
            And you’re right Jane Eyre was a mix of the two. I liked her outlook on women needing to move their bodies like men do, as women of a certain ststus were often confined to the home. But it’s hard to see clearly when you love someone even if you are feminist. 😅

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