Should you read the book or see the movie? Part 4

Now for my semi-annual book/movie comparisons:

A Passage to India (1924) by E. M. Forster vs. A Passage to India (1984 film version):  Maybe because I saw the film first, but I think I actually prefer the film over the book. I liked the book but the film is just beautiful and doesn't really remove much from the book, plus watching the film takes far less time than reading the book. Verdict: See the movie.

The Golden Compass (1995) by Philip Pulman vs. The Golden Compass (2007 film) : The movie is okay but completely cuts out an important part at the end of the book. Verdict : Read the book.

Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte vs. Wuthering Heights (1939 film) and (2011 film) : This wasn't my favorite book but neither of these film versions quite gets it right. The 1939 film is considered a classic but changes a lot from the book and races through only a portion of the novel. The 2011 version is just horrible. It may be one of the most artsy-fartsy movies I've ever seen. There are countless shots of flowers and animals that go in and out of focus and if you aren't familiar with the story it won't make much sense. Verdict : Read the book.

Great Expectations (1861) by Charles Dickens vs. Great Expectations (1998 film) : The 1998 version tries to update the story by setting it in modern New York and for some reason changing Pip's name to Finn. It is kind of interesting but not close to being as good as the book. Verdict : Read the book.

The Silence of the Lambs (1988) by Thomas Harris vs The Silence of the Lambs (1991 film) : Well the movie is a classic (mostly due to the performances for Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster) and the book itself is a fun and fast read with more depth than the book. Verdict : Read the book and see the movie.

And Then There Were None (1939) by Agatha Christie vs. And Then There Were None (1945 film version) : The book was really good and the film was fairly faithful until the last scene which completely alters the mystery and not for the better. Verdict: Read the book.

The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson vs. The Haunting (1963 film version): I enjoyed the novel and the film tries its best to remain faithful to the plot and tone of the novel. Both have their qualities. Verdict: Read the book and see the movie.

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

A sequel to The Shining is something that I would have to read. So when Stephen King announced that he was writing one I was excited to hear that. Doctor Sleep follows up on the life of Danny Torrance, the little boy from The Shining. He's all grown up now... we find him as an alcoholic who is still trying to cope with his gift of shining. And then there's a little girl, Abra,  with an even more powerful gift that needs Danny's help when she finds out that a roving gang of "vampires" that feed on children with the shining are trying to track her down.

Not surprisingly, Doctor Sleep isn't as good as The Shining. Actually it isn't even that scary and there are only a handful of moments when Abra is in any real danger. And while the bad guys are creepy and evil they don't compare to the ghosts from the Overlook Hotel from the original.

I enjoyed reading it but ultimately it is fairly forgettable. C+

Mystery Book # 10 And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

Even though Lucinda has an entire shelf of Agatha Christie novels, somehow I had never read one before. So I figured the best place to start was with one of her most famous novels... And Then There Were None.

The premise is pretty simple. Ten total strangers are invited to stay over at a mansion on an island and none of them are quite sure why they are there. Then one of the guests is murdered. And then another guest. And so on. Until ***SPOILER*** they all wind up dead. And yes the killer is one of the ten guests. It isn't until the very end when we're presented a posthumous letter by the killer that all the pieces fit into place and it all makes perfect sense.

I greatly enjoyed the story. It was fast paced and very intriguing (especially once it becomes clear one of the guests is the murderer). The plan is clever and makes the reveal quite rewarding. I'll give it an A.

Horror Book # 30 The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

A couple of months ago I picked up The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson at the L.A. Times Festival of books and I finally got around to reading it (by comparison Lucinda bought three books at the festival and read them all within a week of purchase).

The story is simple... a scientist wants to study a haunted house in a scientific manner and invites along a few people that have had paranormal experiences in the past. And of course the house is haunted and a bunch of scary stuff happens. Most of the focus of the story is on one of the other participants, Eleanor, and how the haunting plays to her fears and at the same times becomes very important to her.

The book was a fun read and now I'll have to watch the movie version. My only real complaint is (like in every haunted house story) that I don't understand why everyone stayed in the house for so long. It is totally haunted and random scary things kept happening... I would have left after what happened the first night, but the characters are determined to stay and see what other things the house will do to them.... I'll give it an A.

Book # 75 Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

Last year I enjoyed Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury even though it was a pretty difficult book to get through. That should have prepared me for Absalom, Absalom! but it didn't. I think this one is actually a bit tougher to really understand.

The story is mostly about Thomas Sutpen and how he built a plantation in the South (of course with slave labor) during the 1800's and how it all eventually fell apart. Since Sutpen is such an unlikeable character I never felt bad for him, but the story of his children is pretty tragic. The story is told through narrations from multiple characters, some of whom are just speculating on what happened to the Sutpen family... so it is debatable on what "actually" happens to the characters.

The story was interesting and the writing in some parts is beautiful, but overall Faulkner's style got to be a bit much for me and kept distracting me from what was going on. I had to refer to the outline of events at the back of the book several times to make total sense of the story. I'll be giving  Absalom, Absalom! a B.

Horror Book # 9 - The Dunwich Horror and Others by H. P. Lovecraft

After reading The Dunwich Horror and Others, the first thing I have to say is that I should have been reading H.P. Lovecraft a long time ago. I'd always seen mentions of Lovecraft as being influential to horror/sci-fi writers and I should have checked him out earlier. I had bought a giant edition of all of his works shortly before we started this reading project and I only read a couple of his Poe inspired earlier works that didn't seem anything special and figured that someday I'd get around to reading some more... So since there are a couple of Lovecraft short story collections on the Horror list, I decided to read the stories that make up on of the more popular collections to really get a sense of what Lovecraft was about. And I was totally absorbed for a few days while I read these stories.

The first few stories were good (In the Vault, Pickman's Model) but then as I got to some of his longer more famous stories I was totally blown away. These include : The Rats in the Walls - about a man restoring the haunted home of his ancestors - was totally scary. The Colour Out of Space - about a meteorite that slowly poisons a farmer's land - was terrific and even scarier. The Whisperer in Darkness - about weird alien beings that terrorize a man in his farm.- had a terrific ending. The Thing on the Doorstep - in which a man's wife uses magic to slowly switch bodies with him for evil purposes- had a great twist ending.  The Shadow Over Innsmouth - where a man visits a town taken over by a cult that worships alien beings - was very suspenseful. And then there are probably his two most famous stories  - The Dunwich Horror and The Call of Cthulu - both of which are famous for good reason.

The Dunwich Horror fits quite a bit of story into just 50 pages or so and is kind of hard to sum up;  but it has magic, weird alien beings and  a scary half man half monster. The Call of Cthulu is about someone piecing together a couple of different stories to discover the existence of the monster Cthulu.

I greatly enjoyed all of these stories. I liked how Lovecraft could fit a novel's worth of story into just 20-60 quick moving pages. There is also some interconnection between the stories which ties everything together into the same "universe" and allows a greater picture of Lovecraft's world to emerge slowly bit by bit. Highly recommended for people wanting some scary weird stories. A+

Book # 112 Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

While in New York we visited the gift shop at the New York Public Library and I used that occasion as an excuse to buy a new book. I picked out Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis because it was on the extended 101-200 portion of the list. I had no idea what it was about.

Lucky Jim is about a young medieval history professor at an English college that is nearing the end of his first year on the job. He's worried that he's going to be fired at the end of the year because he is always making bad impressions with everyone important on campus. It doesn't help that he is a bit of a lazy drunkard that likes to play childish jokes on people. The novel follows him around while he has to try and make a final good impression on an important professor... and during this time he meets the professor's son (whom he hates) and the son's girlfriend (whom he finds perfect in every way). There is also another professor that he sort of liked, but she is recovering from a failed suicide attempt. He is also asked to give a presentation that could have a large impact on whether or not he gets fired.

The novel is very funny and even though Jim has many faults and does some mean stuff, I was always rooting for him. The situations he gets himself in are very comical and all of the characters are well written and unique. I found the scene when he must take the bus to the train station to meet a girl before her train leaves laugh out loud funny. Here's a sample :

"Just then the bus rounded a corner and slowed abruptly, then stopped. Making a lot of noise a farm tractor was laboriously pulling, at right angles across the road, something that looked like the springs of a giant's bed... Dixon thought that he really would have to run downstairs and knife the drivers of both vehicles; what next? what next? What actually would be next: a masked hold-up, a smash, floods, a burst tyre, an electric storm with falling trees and meteorites, a diversion, a low-level attack by Communist aircraft, sheep, the driver stung by hornets? He'd choose the last of these if consulted."

I'll give it an A.