Books I'm Reading 6) Stardust by Neil Gaiman
http://www.amazon.com/Stardust-Neil-Gaiman/dp/0061689246/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1237804242&sr=8-3
Yeah, yeah. it's cliche to say that the book was better than the movie. But it's usually true. The Hunt For Red October, Sphere, Jaws...Well okay maybe not Jaws, that movie was badass but still, with regards to Neil Gaiman's work, it's true. I remember seeing but not reading the initial DC print in the mid-90's and it looked interesting but not interesting enough to buy over whatever I didn't have in my John Grisham or Tom Clancy collection.
So to be fair this was also an audiobook. I love audiobooks more than movies. They let you create your own picture in your imagination and I'm tied to whatever crap some director is putting on a screen (that you Michal Bay you fucking tool) and in this case you get to hear the Author read his own work. You hear things as the author heard them in his own head when he was writing it. And that's a wonderful thing.
There are some pretty significant differences between the novel and the movie. Al Pacino's character doesn't exist in the book, there's no fight with the witches at the end and the book takes on a different mood. It's not a fairy tale as much as it is a tale about the beauty inherent in the journey and the wonder of exploration. It takes place over the course of many years and not a week or so as in the movie and this allows the story to take on a much different flow. You wander with injured characters (Yvaine for example broke her leg when she fell and walks with a limp for the entire story) through decades of exploration and travels.
But the big idea of the book isn't in the differences between the book and the movie, it's in the key similarity of forcing you to wonder what would happen if you took that step to cross the wall? Most of us live in a box. Hell, I do, but that which lies beyond the wall and that which the community says you need to be protected from, may hold your destiny. Also it's got a stroke of reality since there's a few spicy bits and in the end of the novel Tristan dies and Yvaine is immortal so she lives on, where in the movie they both fly off in the typical fairy tale ending.
Again another selection of escapism. In reality I've got a few different books I'm reading at the moment. I just happen to finish these escapist books faster. Trying to digest a book like "Return on Customer" which is probably my next to finish, takes time and I want to take notes so I can write up a nice 20 page report entitled "Stop fucking doing it wrong!" that I can leave on my boss' desk for him to give to the President of the company.
But I digress....again. There are for whom a little escapism is necessary and who find that growing up isn't always what you need to do. Should you find yourself in a situation where you think your life can use a little more of the faery tales and the fantastic, this is a great book to read...or to listen to Neil Gaiman read as the case may be.
Yeah, yeah. it's cliche to say that the book was better than the movie. But it's usually true. The Hunt For Red October, Sphere, Jaws...Well okay maybe not Jaws, that movie was badass but still, with regards to Neil Gaiman's work, it's true. I remember seeing but not reading the initial DC print in the mid-90's and it looked interesting but not interesting enough to buy over whatever I didn't have in my John Grisham or Tom Clancy collection.
So to be fair this was also an audiobook. I love audiobooks more than movies. They let you create your own picture in your imagination and I'm tied to whatever crap some director is putting on a screen (that you Michal Bay you fucking tool) and in this case you get to hear the Author read his own work. You hear things as the author heard them in his own head when he was writing it. And that's a wonderful thing.
There are some pretty significant differences between the novel and the movie. Al Pacino's character doesn't exist in the book, there's no fight with the witches at the end and the book takes on a different mood. It's not a fairy tale as much as it is a tale about the beauty inherent in the journey and the wonder of exploration. It takes place over the course of many years and not a week or so as in the movie and this allows the story to take on a much different flow. You wander with injured characters (Yvaine for example broke her leg when she fell and walks with a limp for the entire story) through decades of exploration and travels.
But the big idea of the book isn't in the differences between the book and the movie, it's in the key similarity of forcing you to wonder what would happen if you took that step to cross the wall? Most of us live in a box. Hell, I do, but that which lies beyond the wall and that which the community says you need to be protected from, may hold your destiny. Also it's got a stroke of reality since there's a few spicy bits and in the end of the novel Tristan dies and Yvaine is immortal so she lives on, where in the movie they both fly off in the typical fairy tale ending.
Again another selection of escapism. In reality I've got a few different books I'm reading at the moment. I just happen to finish these escapist books faster. Trying to digest a book like "Return on Customer" which is probably my next to finish, takes time and I want to take notes so I can write up a nice 20 page report entitled "Stop fucking doing it wrong!" that I can leave on my boss' desk for him to give to the President of the company.
But I digress....again. There are for whom a little escapism is necessary and who find that growing up isn't always what you need to do. Should you find yourself in a situation where you think your life can use a little more of the faery tales and the fantastic, this is a great book to read...or to listen to Neil Gaiman read as the case may be.
posted by rpalmeira at 3:31 AM
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