Kathy George on retellings and giving female characters the voice they were denied
If you’re a voracious reader like me, you can name at least one minor character from a classic book that you want to see starring in their own narrative. My personal favourite is Holden Caulfield’s little sister Phoebe from Catcher in the Rye. Phoebe is mature beyond her years. She understands Holden better than he does himself, and knows that he needs her, not the other way around. Not so surprisingly, these very characteristics are what drew me to Nancy from Oliver Twist, a character who has been denied a voice for far too long.
Readers love the idea of a beloved book told from another angle. We’re also fascinated by sequels to movies, and spinoffs from our favourite TV shows. We want to experience the story all over again, but we want a perspective that shows us something we only glimpsed the first time, that deepens and broadens our insight into the entire narrative. Today, more than ever, we want to learn about the historical female characters that were written through the male gaze and kept in the shadows. These stories inspire and empower women readers because they recognise themselves in these characters. They see the heights they can aspire to—if they are brave. They no longer feel alone.
My journey with retellings started when I wrote Estella. Great Expectations is one of my favourite books, but Estella had always gnawed at me. We know so little about her. Why is she so mean and nasty? I had to fix that. It was my publishing editor, however, who suggested following that up with a retelling of Oliver Twist and, once I reread it, I was hooked. Nancy is a poignant character and even though we don’t see her much, she haunts the pages of Oliver Twist.
Nancy is unique. She has moral complexity. She’s been brought up to be wicked yet at a crucial moment she chooses right over wrong and saves the life of a boy. So, here’s this girl with a pivotal role in a classic book and yet she has the barest minimum of airtime. You can understand why I needed to bring her out into the light.
I tried to do my homework. I read Fingersmith (Sarah Waters) and The Crimson Petal and the White (Michael Faber), and I pored over old maps and photographs of Victorian London. I wanted the reader to love Nancy as much as I did, so I made her quirky. I gave her moments of happiness to compensate for her sad and awful life, and I allowed her some control. Nancy has an endless capacity for love. She’s whip smart, kind and compassionate, and knows when to rise to the occasion. She’s funny, sometimes, too. But she never forgets what she’s up against, which is why the reader understands when she reaches for hope. Hope being symbolised by the titular orange, and oranges being a fruit that Nancy loves yet very rarely gets to eat.
What surprised me when I wrote The Scent of Oranges was how fiercely attached I became to her. Even now, when I’m deep into drafting another literary girl’s story, Nancy feels like family, like a sister. Telling her story has made me more empathetic and a better person. Revisiting historical female literary characters and giving them a voice, has that effect. We learn not to take so much for granted, for one. For another, viewing history through the female gaze allows us to get to know and understand women from the past. We never doubted their intelligence but what we underestimated perhaps was their spirit, and their capacity for forgiveness and love. And it is these qualities that have the power to influence us today.
I’m an Australian. Born in South Africa but calling Australia home for over forty years. My great-grandparents, however, were from the UK and most probably were around at the same time as Charles Dickens. The Scent of Oranges, therefore, is a return to my roots in some ways, acknowledging ancestors I never knew, and speaking to my Victorian great-grandmothers. I have no idea of the kind of lives they led, but I do know they were not financially well off. Thanks to Nancy, I now have an inkling of what life was like for them, and how brave and capable they almost certainly would have been.
The Scent of Oranges is out in paperback now.
