"Homage" or "Derivative"?

I read two Advanced Reading Copy’s (ARC’s) recently that I enjoyed, but that raised the same questions in my mind, as different as they seemed.

The first is Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick (recently released).  This young adult contemporary book follows a day in the life of a depressed and traumatized teenage boy.  But not just any day – this book follows the day he packs a gun in his backpack, intending to shoot first his former best friend, then himself, before the day is over.  But before he commits these final acts, Leonard Peacock must say goodbye to the four people in his life he still feels connected to, and give them his farewell gifts.  Unfortunately, in the process, Leonard becomes disappointed and disenchanted with more than one of them, and the farewells don’t give him the closure he desires.  Leonard Peacock was a fascinating read, and a really impressive character portrait of a seriously damaged teen.  As the details of what happened between Leonard and his former friend emerge, the details of Leonard’s personality emerge as well.  He is not always a likable character (in fact, I found myself wanting to smack him across the face many times) but I think that was part of what made Leonard Peacock such a compelling read.  Certainly as the book picked up speed towards the climax, I found I could hardly put it down – love him or hate him, I was desperate to find out what would happen on Leonard’s final day.

The second book I have in mind is Blackmoore, by Julianne Donaldson (September 9, 2013).  Blackmoore is a young adult regency romance, heavily influenced by Georgette Heyer (as Donaldson told me herself.)  I admit, I went in with pretty subdued expectations.  I rarely read romances, and I wasn’t sure how the regency romance setting would translate to young adult.  But I remember my mother listening to many Georgette Heyer novels in the car when I was young, and I was intrigued.  Blackmoore definitely exceeded my expectations.  The main character, Kate, was interesting and flawed.  Her relationships with her best friend, Sylvia, and love interest, Henry, were complex and realistic.  And the intrigues and drama that unfolded at the Blackmoore estate, thanks especially to the manipulations of Kate’s and Henry’s mothers, were engaging and fun, despite verging dangerously close to melodrama and predictability.  And despite my absolute certainty about how the story would end, I found myself excited for the journey.

Obviously these books have little in common on the surface.  But what struck me is how closely Leonard Peacock and Blackmoore each resemble some of my favorite books of all time, Catcher in the Rye and Jane Austen’s novels, respectively.  To the point where I am certain, in both cases, that the books were heavily influenced by these classics, and understandably so.  

Of course, it is nearly impossible to write a book about a disaffected high school age boy without immediate comparisons to Catcher in the Rye, and I suspect every regency romance ever written has been compared to Jane Austen.  But in both these cases, the similarities struck me forcibly.

Leonard’s short journey, narrated in the main character’s idiosyncratic voice, reeks of Holden Caulfield.  Leonard even uses the word “corny.”  Leonard’s struggle to connect with other people, his relationship with an important and supportive teacher who is hiding something but cares deeply about him, his pursuit of a girl who is wrong for him, his kindness and empathy that he hides behind his angry and superior exterior, even his pretentious and un-self-aware dismissal of his peers as more shallow and less intelligent than him, bring Holden forcibly to mind.  It is no leap to imagine a modern day Holden skipping school and following miserable businessmen and businesswomen on their commutes as Leonard does, or imagining an isolated future of boats and scuba diving (Leonard’s imaginary idyllic future) instead of the remote ranching Holden considers.  To me, the connections between Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock and Catcher in the Rye, between Leonard and Holden, were so strong that I assume Quick intended to emulate and pay homage to Salinger’s masterpiece.

In the case of Blackmoore, I hardly even need to assume the emulation and homage.  With a main character nicknamed Kitty, her sister Maria, family friends named “Delafield” (not far off from Sense & Sensibility’s location of “Delaford,”) a love interest named Henry, and supporting characters including a Mr. Brandon and an aunt Charlotte, the names themselves in Blackmoore make it hard to avoid thinking of Austen.  Add in a scandal at Brighton involving a sister, a sister who refuses to control her emotions, and a heroine who resolutely declares her intentions never to marry (before, of course, falling in love), and it seems obvious to me as a reader and Austen-lover that Donaldson, also, loves Austen and was inspired by her.

But reading these books so close to each other made me wonder, where is the line between an homage, or a book strongly influenced by another work, and a book that is straight-up derivative?  I’m not sure there are any hard and fast rules here, but both books made me ask this question. 

I think my enjoyment of Leonard Peacock and Blackmoore was definitely influenced by how much they reminded me of two of my favorites, and the influence by and large was negative, especially at first.  Reading Leonard Peacock, for instance, I spent the first chunk of the book getting distracted from the story by how much it resembled Catcher in the Rye, and comparing it to the classic.  And there’s not much I could possibly compare to Salinger’s opus and that would come out on top.  I have always adored Catcher in the Rye.  Eventually the story took over, and I did find myself invested in Leonard and his story independently of how much I was reminded of Holden and his story.  But I never stopped making the comparisons.  And while Leonard had his own character and his own story, the stylistic and thematic similarities to Catcher in the Rye did not fade, and overall, damaged my enjoyment of the work.  I’m still not sure I would call Leonard Peacock derivative, but I would certainly say the homage/influence aspect missed the mark.

I experienced Blackmoore a little differently.  Initially, all my complaints inspired by the similarities to Austen were based on my own, Austen-inspired view of the time and society that the story was set in.  Every time Kate did or thought something that didn’t jive with my sense of what was correct in Austen’s world, I would sniff to myself that clearly Donaldson hadn’t done her research.  Now, I am in no way an expert on the regency period and early 1800s England, and it’s been years since I read a regency romance, so I’m quite sure that I was probably incorrect about my assumptions of incorrectness, and Donaldson undoubtedly did plenty of research.  But because the book reminded me so much of Austen, I couldn’t help comparing it to the exact world portrayed in her novels.  But after a few times reminding myself of all the reasons Blackmoore was a different creature from Austen’s novels – Blackmoore is a romance, is explicitly aimed at young adults, is narrated in the first person, etc. – I was able to let go of a lot of the comparisons.  I was sucked into an enjoyable story, and trying to spot the frequent Austen references (or what I interpreted as Austen references) became just a fun game for me as I read.  Blackmoore, then, I would place squarely into the “homage” category, and I think it was a well-done homage at that.

So what would make a book completely derivative?  I think the key with Leonard Peacock and Blackmoore is that they are both good books, independent of their influences.  They were enjoyable reads, thought-provoking (in very different ways!) and books I could and would have enjoyed and understood without ever having read Salinger or Austen.  And perhaps that’s all it takes to keep a book in the “influenced by” and “homage to” (even if one homage was, in my opinion, off the mark) territory rather than the “derivative” territory – quality.  Certainly I think that made the difference in these two books.