Tamara Drewe

A friend at the library suggested Posy Simmond's graphic novel, Tamara Drewe, because she'd read Gemma Bovary by the same author. Hmmm, obviously this was going to be the retelling of another classic, but what was it? The discreetly copulating sheep in the background of the cover wasn't giving me any clues, but then, Ah! There it is, inside front cover: a classified ad for a writers' retreat, far from the Madding Crowd.

In college, friends Gavin and Jeff mocked me for using the phrase far from the madding crowd as synonimous with getting away from irritating people. I don't know if they're right or wrong about that, but I've always been a little shy of using the phrase again, unless I'm talking about the novel (which I never do). Also, I'm a little shy of Thomas Hardy in general. Actually, shy is the wrong word. I have never recovered from reading Jude the Obscure and still feel sick to my stomach when I think of that novel, so there was NO WAY, I'd be reading Far from the Madding Crowd to better my "enjoyment" of Tamara Drewe. (I did use Wikipedia, though, so I got the plot points which are confused and varied and mostly morally deadly. Hardy's pretty big on come-uppance).

No worries, Tamara Drewe is a fun romp through the characters of a small English village--modern day--in which a returning vixen enchants and meddles with the locals which include a group of writers in that advertised classified ad. Normally, the abundant text that accompanies the graphics would turn me off--I want either a novel or a graphic novel, not some amalgam of the two--but the text gave great insight into the characters. There's the dowdy ever-returning writer, fussily working away at a literary text; The playboy writer; the seemingly self-sacrificing wife of said playboy running the retreat. There's the unnaturally handsome gardener; the bored local girls; the rock-star boyfriend with ex issues, and Tamara herself. Things turn out a lot better for everyone (barring a death or two), than they do in Thomas Hardy's original and I really enjoyed reading this.

Every time I read a graphic novel, I always wonder how the same story could possibly be told any other way. This book was no exception. I am a little disappointed at my online preview of Gemma Bovary because the pictures are so similar that I thought for a minute that the same characters appeared in both. I'll probably still read it, though, and I've already read Flaubert's Emma Bovary so I can make a more informed comparison.