Greetings and Questions

Hi! It is so nice to meet like-minded readers, cataloguers, and collectors. Last evening, after much on-line importing/exporting and fiddling, I have my own spreadsheet to keep track of my progress. I have read so few of the books! I have actually seen more of the movies. I read about 100 books a year. Books of my choosing. If I read 50 books on the list per year……in 20 years….they will have deleted and added new reads making this original list…..for naught? I think not.

My questions (not to be the first or last) are how many go on to read the books that have been made into great movies (my subjective opinion). Is it difficult? Worth the read? Did you read a “movie” book and gain insight or a new perspective? Were you disappointed?

A few that come to mind are:

The Shining, with Jack, of course. The Graduate, One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest, Jack again. The Godfather, To Kill a Mockingbird, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Color Purple, Rebecca, then there are the classics: War of the Worlds, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Cathy, my, Cathy! Heathcliff, Oh again, Heathcliff!

BTW, the August read, a bit scary. Kubrick must have been tripping, badly, while filming the movie. I will give it a go!

mmedeiros aka Mary Ann

Of the ones you listed the only one where I have both seen the movie and read the book is The Shining, and even though the general plot is the same, the focus is notably different: King concentrates mostly on Danny (and he has always been at his best when writing about children) while Kubrick tells the story of Jack (and he has Nicholson for the part) and dropped a good deal of other stuff (IIRC the movie never even quite covered what "the shining" was).

Of the other book-movie combinations, even when the movie is good it still has to pick and choose what to cover and what not. At its best it brings new insight on those aspects it covers (Kubrick's interpretation of Jack is definitely a good reason for the readers of the book to see the movie) but it still has to leave stuff out, sometimes whole subplots and characters, and at least it almost never manages to properly flesh out a full cast of several people.
And of course the medium is different. The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum is such a slim volume that the story and the characters were pretty much covered in the movie but despite it being good, it of course could not get the writing style of Böll.

Oh, and welcome to the group! And never mind how many books you have read so far, some of us started with a strong start of dozens of books while others started much lower...
And I pretty much read books of my choosing too, and 1001 books list is just giving me occasional pushes to give a go at something I have been thinking of reading but never quite got around to, or trying something I haven't considered before. And there have been some great books I have read which I probably wouldn't have, had they not been on the 1001 list.

I've seen all the movies you've mentioned (or versions- there are several versions of those classics), and read all those books. The only movies on your list there that even COME CLOSE to being as good as the books are The Godfather and The Shining. Both were, in my opinion, better than the books.

Essentially, the books are far more detailed. They offer insight into the minds of the characters that do not translate to film. There is more backstory. You get to experience your own interpretation of the text, as opposed to relying on that of a film maker. The only difficulty with reading a book AFTER seeing the movie is that you'll probably have a mental image of that actor/actress as you read, but that isn't annoying enough for me to avoid the book. You mention so many amazing books, it would be a shame to not read them just because you saw an (inferior) movie adaptation.

I'd agree with maryjanemanolos about that list of films and I would add the following where I feel the film is better than the book:

The Color Purple
The English Patient
The Reader - although this is a close one...
Schindler's Ark
2001: A Space Odyssey

and some that were equally as good as their books:

Catch-22
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Gone with the Wind
The Great Gatsby
Ben-Hur

Welcome to the group, Mary Ann.

Interesting discussion. I haven't seen many of these movies, and of the ones I have seen, I often haven't read the book! Clearly I need to work on this.

That said, I liked both book and movie of The English Patient. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is both one of my favorite books and my favorite film; the film does not fully capture the twistedness of the book (particularly what we know of Sandy's later life, and her judgements of Miss Brodie) but it does a remarkably good job of actually expanding upon the spirit of a small but perfect piece of literature. The casting is utterly inspired.

Welcome! I like talking about the 1001 books in film too. There is a thread about it here somewhere . . . it would be great to see if you agree or disagree with what has already been said. I'll see if I can find it and add a link.

I don't see where anyone has mentioned Remains of the Day. The book and the movie are both painfully wonderful.

One of the interesting things about the list for me is that there are some movies I've seen that I didn't realize WERE books... and some of the books have been made into movies and I never would have watched them if I hadn't read the book. I just watched Oscar and Lucinda over the weekend- I know I never would have chosen to spend a couple hours with it if I hadn't finished the book. Ralph Fiennes and Cate Blanchett did a wonderful job and the movie highlighted themes I hadn't picked up on. I have movies on my DVR, waiting for me to finish the books- The Name of the Rose and Atonement are two.

I'm always an advocate of "read the book first!", but that's usually just so I don't have a preconceived notion of what the characters look like.

<7 Found the other thread:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/103571

Here is the link to our ongoing conversation about 1001 books in film: http://www.librarything.com/topic/103571

If we continue the discussion there, everything will be together under one "film' heading and easy to find in the future.