Adaptation is always a contentious endeavor. Where ought fidelity give way to interpretive license? Director Emerald Fennell has certainly offered plenty of food for thought with her take on Wuthering Heights, whose titular scare quotes aren't enough to placate audiences who contend that the film doesn't do Emily Brontë's novel justice. And yet, I thrill any time I see so many people fervently debate a work of 19th-century literature.
By contrast, Moby-Dick, published just a handful of years after Brontë's and a work I'm particularly fond of, tends to inspire glazed expressions for most people after the first three words. Not Alexis Hall, though, who remixes Melville's masterpiece into the far-future space opera Hell's Heart. Moreover, Rachel Hochhauser's Lady Tremaine upends the whole "evil stepmother" trope at the core of the Cinderella story. Love it or hate it, abridgements, adaptations, fan fictions, and retellings all contribute to the robust ecosystem of literary longevity.