My library holds list got out of control again. I really must stop requesting anything and everything that sounds even mildly interesting. On my weekly library run this evening I will be picking up:
DAUGHTER OF YORK, by Anne Easter Smith
THE FIRST DAY OF THE BLITZ, SEPTEMBER 7, 1940, by Peter Stansky
GENGHIS: BIRTH OF AN EMPIRE, by Conn Iggulden
THE KING'S COAT, by Dewey Lambdin
NUNS: A HISTORY OF CONVENT LIFE 1450-1700, by Silvia Evangelisti
SUPERCAPITALISM, by Robert Reich
VAGABOND, by Bernard Cornwell
THE YEAR OF LIVING BIBLICALLY, by A.J. Jacobs
And that's assuming that AFTER THE ICE: A GLOBAL HUMAN HISTORY 20,000-5000 B.C., which is listed as in transit, doesn't show up today. There's no way I'll have time to read them all within three weeks, especially since I still have four books from last week I haven't started yet. So I really hope some of them turn out boring. And I could probably renew the Cornwell and the Lambdin if I had to, since neither are new releases. But my eyes are always so much bigger than my stomach when it comes to books.
This reminds me of an NYU class called "Cinema and Literature" that I took my first year of grad school..."How do you adapt that?!? You can't. I don't believe in the concept of "cinema and literature"!
Oh! grrrrrr!!!
I had a class in film school...I can't remember which one...where the teacher told us that there are no great film adaptations of great books. There are only great films adapted from mediocre books and mediocre films adapted from great books.
Discuss!
I think some of the Jane Austen books and movies would disprove that right out.
So is To Kill a Mockingbird a mediocre book or a mediocre film?
Discuss!
Hmm... how 'bout, prof is an overgeneralizing tool who's way too easily impressed by his own rhetorical tricks?
a.k.a. "the plural of chiasmus is not data"
I think some of the Jane Austen books and movies would disprove that right out.
Were there any good film adaptations of Austen books before 1990?
Even so:
So is To Kill a Mockingbird a mediocre book or a mediocre film?
Kind of proves professor was a generalizing ass.
I read a whole book on the topic, several years ago, and the classic example disproving that thesis is
The French Lieutenant's Woman,
which is a film arty enough that it can't even be shot down on snooty anti-populist grounds. (The book also brought up whether
Apocalypse Now
is really an adaptation of
Heart of Darkness,
and if it is, whether it's a successful one, and in the process what "successful adaptation" means.)
Ooh, let me know if the nuns book is good, Susan--that sounds interesting.
And Breakfast at Tiffany's - mediocre book, mediocre movie, or mediocre both? (Personally, I think it is a very good book and a very good movie. "Great" may be a word reserved for things that are less fun. At least that's how I've always seen it interpreted.)
If nothing else, Breakfast at Tiffany's is prevented from being great by the horrible racial caricature. But I do love the rest of the movie.
