Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Nose Jobs

Right now I am reading Tamara Drewe,

http://www.powells.com/biblio/0547154127?&PID=29017

by Posy Simmonds,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posy_Simmonds

an adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_from_the_Madding_Crowd

by Thomas Hardy

http://www.yale.edu/hardysoc/Welcome/welcomet.htm

In the adaptation, the Bathsheba Everdene character, Tamara Drewe, has had a nose job as part of her backstory. It started me to wondering what character from a well-known work of fiction might, in a modern-day retelling, get or have had a nose job, a boob job or some other cosmetic enhancement.

I'm not thinking of a character whose story arc would be radically changed by surgery, like Cyrano de Bergerac or the Phantom of the Opera, but rather a person whose history, as written, might include surgery if it had been available at the time.

I'm sure there are characters who fit that description perfectly, but I can't think of one at present. The closest I can manage is a sort of opposite: a version of Silas Marner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silas_Marner

in which instead of a miser, the central character is a vain pretty-boy actor whose life is changed dramatically by having his nose broken.

So, does anyone have a nomination?

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