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Friday, January 6, 2012

Movies vs Books – Part 3

Movies vs Books – Part 3

This post started out as a Book Review, but instead, turned into a philosophical rant… yet again.

In case you haven’t noticed this about me by now, and if you have, you’ve either found it endearing or annoying, I often take a situation, flip it inside out, back to front and look at it from a million angles until I drive myself batty with an internal battle between inner voices. Think Fight Club, for intellectuals, the arena being the mind.

The subject of conflict these days? Movies vs Novels. Here’s the story, I read the book The Help. It was an amazing read. I know there was a lot of controversy about the book, jabs thrown at the author that I won’t even dignify with discussing here, but I really loved the story.

When I was done reading the book, I watched the movie. I enjoyed it. It missed some few key points when I looked back on it, points that I cheered for in the novel, but I still enjoyed the movie.

Here’s the clincher, at the same time I was reading The Help, I was also reading The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. The Ya-Yas is one of my favorite movies, so I figured reading the book would be fun. It was not. I did not like the book.

Is what we are exposed to first, whether it be the film or the novel, the key to our perception and subsequently, the end result of our enjoyment? Please let me know what you think.



6 comments:

  1. Hmm... I read the Ya-Yas a long, long time ago, and it was mostly because I'm a La-native. It's set in south-La., so I recognized many of the spots. It was a different type of book, though, from the Help. I do remember liking it/hating the movie, but I don't know. Maybe it was the time I read it? I also think I read "Little Altars Everywhere" first for some reason... But it's very different stuff. Darker, etc. :o)

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  2. I have now made it a rule not to read the book after I've seen the movie. They are two separate entities. Watching the movie first will give me pre-conceived notions about the book that it won't be able to fulfill. I read the book Election after seeing the movie, and didn't like it because it was SO different from the movie. I found it frustrating, instead of judging the book on its own merit. The Help I found was very faithful to the book, though.

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  3. LTM I have "Little Altars Everywhere" but haven't read it yet, after the Ya-Ya's I don't think I would.
    I guess our own experiences make up what we take from our entertainment :)

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  4. Phil, thank you for your response. It's nice to know I'm not the only one who has made this observation.
    I didn't read Election, but I did enjoy the movie. I'll make sure NOT to read the book now :)

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