BOOK ADAPTATIONS: TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING

I have a lot to be grateful for when it comes to movie adaptations. There is a direct line between seven-year-old me watching Ang Lee’s Sense and Sensibility and my enrolling in a Jane Austen class in college. Despite having a friend recommend me The Hunger Games, I would not have picked up Suzanne Collins’s trilogy had I not stumbled across internet discussions about the backlash to Amandla Stenberg’s casting as Rue. Unlike most of my bookish brethren, I do not take the position that the book is always better (though, I would concede that to be the case the lion’s share of the time.) When it comes to adaptations, the one rule that I abide by is that, if I’m planning on watching the film/TV series, I need to read the book first. If I have no intention of ever picking up the book (looking at you Game of Thrones) then I have no problem mainlining the story through my eyeballs. But if I know I’ll want to read the book, I need the book to be my first interaction with the story. This rule has served me well over the years.

Not all of the books I’ve read in anticipation of their coming adaptation have become a beloved favorite, but even then, I’ve found the enterprise ultimately beneficial. One of my favorite memories is, after my friends decided they wanted to see The Help, I pulled an all-nighter to finish Kathryn Stockett’s novel. I went in to the movie the next evening ready and eager to compare what changes the filmmaker’s made and how those changes impacted the way I thought of the story. I’m not a huge fan of The Help. I wasn’t a huge fan of Water for Elephants or Charlie St. Cloud or Who Fears Death?. But I don’t regret that their adaptations pressured me to read those books. My arbitrary rule forced me to expose myself to authors and genres I wouldn’t have otherwise engaged with. Those books may not have changed my literary palette, but they certainly broadened it.

Despite the quantifiable benefits I’ve experienced by having my TBR influenced by upcoming adaptations, I’m now finding myself resenting the onslaught of adaptations. I’ve already got Little Women under my belt so Gerwig’s take may call for a re-read, but I’m fine without it. I’m ahead of the curve with Netflix’s new Shadow and Bone series, having already worked my way through Bardugo’s Grishaverse before the adaptation was even announced. And sometimes the deadline is a welcome push. I was already working my way through Gaiman’s oeuvre and had been meaning to try Pratchett, so the Good Omen’s adaptation so reading that book allowed me to kill three birds with one stone. I’d seen buzz for Where’d You Go, Bernadette? from library book clubs to an episode of Jane the Virgin, and Linklater is a favorite director of mine, so it fit into my reading schedule no problem. But then we have The Goldfinch which is coming out in a matter of days, and while I’ve been meaning to get to Tartt for years now, I just haven’t had the brain space or time to commit to the 700-plus page Pulitzer Prize winner. I’m eagerly anticipating Hulu’s Little Fires Everywhere, but I can’t even touch that novel until I first read Everything I Never Told You for reasons I cannot explain to you or myself, but are true nonetheless.

And I know I really should have read Just Mercy already, but I haven’t yet, but Michael Jordan and Brie Larson now have added a ticking clock for when I need to get that book done. For a very different reason, I should also have Dune under my belt, but I was planning on passing the book and adaptation all together, GoT style, until they started announcing the cast, turning the 800 page genre classic into required reading. I was also planning on bypassing Phillip Pulman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, but with a cast like Dafne Keen, Alice Morgan, James MacAvoy, and Lin Manuel Miranda, the show demands to be watched. At least Pulman’s books are young adult and will be quick enough to binge, but the same cannot be said for the Witcher series nor the Wheel of Time series. Do you know how long the Wheel of Time cycle is? It is thousands of pages of dense, high fantasy. I’m not going to have time to read anything else, which, clearly, I cannot do because look at all the adaptations I have to prepare for, not to mention, you know, mood reading and book tags and the semblance of a life I’m trying to build for myself outside of my media consumption.

And look, I know this is all self-imposed pressure and that the world will continue to turn even if I don’t watch the adaptations or do watch the adaptations and get to reading the books whenever the mood strikes. The problem is no one’s but my own, and the power to fix it is squarely in my hands. And yet I can’t help but feel resentful. As someone who loves adaptations, I can’t help but wish that movies and tv could cool it with the adaptations or at least not cast them, so well so I wouldn’t feel compelled to read all the things.

#books #tv #movies