What does "modernizing" mean?

When the judges of the Duncan Lawrie International Dagger wrote that Martin Suter's novel A Deal With the Devil "pays literary homage which modernises Glauser’s plot and setting, while extending it into an original conception of [its] own," I sat up and took notice. Glauser was one of the greatest of crime writers, and if his name is on it, I'll buy it.

I wondered, though, how Suter had modernized the book, and I wondered further about the variety of ways an author can modernize or update a favorite book or story. My copy of A Deal With the Devil arrived this week, and the rear-cover blurb describes a woman, Sonia Frey, tormented by synaesthesia: She feels smells, and she sees sounds.

Glauser notably empathized with downtrodden characters in his novels. Perhaps Suter's deeper exploration of Sonia Frey's consciousness is an extension of Glauser's empathy. Perhaps the CWA judges had this in mind when they spoke of Suter's having modernized his illustrious countryman's plot and setting.

If you've read Glauser and Suter, what do you think? If you haven't, tell me some of the more interesting ways authors can update older stories.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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