Last week I closed up Book vs Film: a season of reviews comparing eight novels to their big-screen adaptations. The books won, but as the cliché goes, it’s about the journey, not the destination.
The working title for this season of The Book Corner was “good book, shit film”. As group-sourced projects often go, not everyone stuck to the theme and it became “a book I liked and the film adaptation”.
I also discovered that some of my fellow writers don’t even believe in relative concepts like “good” or “bad”. It’s a mind-blowing philosophy that I’m still trying to understand. Fortunately for the notion of book reviews, I’m comfortable expressing when I like and dislike other people’s artistic choices.
The final review also marked my 51st post on alexanderlane.co.uk, and I kept up my promise of reviewing each book as it was read.
What is The Book Corner?
The Book Corner began as a regular break from critiquing with my former writing group. I’m taking a break from the critiques but it’s always great to catch up on a book group week!
We work out a theme and everyone chooses a book that we’ll read and discuss. Previous themes have included literary genre award winners and books that shaped our writing journeys.
The eight books in season five reflected our usual skew towards SF and fantasy:
- Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion.
- The Dark Tower vol 1 — The Gunslinger by Stephen King.
- The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (now updated for the Disney+ TV show).
- A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin (vs Tales from Earthsea by Goro Miyazaki).
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
- The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.
- The Colour Out Of Space by HP Lovecraft.
- Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynn Jones.
Books vs film: which is best?
I know, it’s a pointless question. Adapting a book into a film is an enormous undertaking and these are eight random examples.
Every reader reacts to different aspects of a book, whether it’s characters, setting, story or theme, so they’ll have different expectations of an adaptation. The same is true of scriptwriters, directors and producers who take on the task.
Anyone who’s seen the story behind Die Hard will know that just about the only thing that remains of the source material is the skyscraper setting. Many people love Lynch’s cheesy 1980s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s epic Dune, but most fans of the novel are a lot happier with Villeneuve’s more faithful contemporary vision. Some novels feel like they’re written with one eye on selling the film rights (I’m looking at you, Andy Weir’s The Martian).
I was lucky to come to this season with no built-in love or hate for any of the books or films. On my way through, I discovered strong and sometimes unexpected feelings about some of them. The goal of these reviews isn’t just to express an opinion, but to learn what I want to deliver as a writer and how to achieve that. It’s impossible to achieve that by reading or watching and simply shrugging off the experience without both emotional and intellectual engagement.
The good, the bad and the shrugly
I’m very glad to have read A Wizard of Earthsea and The Colour Out Of Space (again), The Lovely Bones and Howl’s Moving Castle. The films of Warm Bodies and The Lovely Bones aren’t bad and they carry the books’ stories well, but they both lacked impact.
It’s been years since I disliked a book as much as Never Let Me Go, but it’s redefined my thoughts on the relationship between worldbuilding and character. I’ll always remember it, in the way I can remember once eating a piece of slightly-off food that later made me ill. You’d have to force me at gunpoint to read Klara And The Sun.
I’m nonplussed by the shallow beauty of the two Studio Ghibli works but open to the idea that Miyazaki Snr’s original works might be better than his adaptations. Spirited Away, Grave Of The Fireflies, Kiki’s Delivery Service and Princess Mononoke are currently just a Netflix binge away.
Overall, I’d say these books are better than the films that they became, although The Dark Tower and Tales of Earthsea are so different that they barely count as adaptations. Disney’s version of The Lightning Thief absolutely exceeds the original, but turning books into a TV series is a very different game.
What are your book vs film loves and hates?
I’d love to hear about your most-loved and most-hated big screen adaptations. What do you think makes the transition succeed or fail? Are there any novels which are truly impossible to take from the page to the big screen?