It's late Monday night, and only now do I have the few moments to repost the lines from last week's post. Thanks to Davin, we have two selections from Alice Munro, a writer whose writing is tender yet uncompromisingly truthful. Her observations about relationships and motivations, especially, have often made me put down the book and just live in what I've just read. These two are from her latest short story collection, Too Much Happiness:
Her graying hair was cut short and she had a mole riding on one cheekbone.
Doree was pretty sure that these people weren't as bad as Lloyd thought, but it was no use contradicting him. Perhaps men just had to have enemies, the way they had to have their jokes. And sometimes Lloyd did make the enemies into jokes, just as if he was laughing at himself. She was even allowed to laugh with him, as long as she wasn't the one who started the laughing.
Nandini, in preparation for the movie release of The Lightning Thief, has been re-reading the series with her children. She offered this line, from The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan:
The Friday before winter break, my mom packed me an overnight bag and a few deadly weapons and took me to a new boarding school.
Don't you pack a few deadly weapons for your child going off to boarding school? :)
Incidentally, I haven't watched the movie yet, but my daughter, a huge Percy Jackson fan who timed her re-reading of the entire series to coincide with the movie, saw it with her friend at his birthday party. She liked the movie but was indignant at the number and magnitude of differences in the movie. Now I don't know if I can watch it, I'd be yelling the screen: "Where is Th___? How can the story make sense without her? And what about Cl___? What? Not a single Seaweed Brain? Arrggggh! That's not what they played at the arcade! What do you mean blue and not gray eyes? I need to speak to your manager, I mean screen writer or executive producer or whoever it is who made these decisions!"
10 comments:
I just finished The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo. It's all beautifully written, simple yet with words like "equivocating."
Here's a quote.
Peter could see the magician all too clearly. His beard was long and wild, his fingernails ragged and torn, his cloak covered in a patina of mold. His eyes burned bright, but they were the eyes of a cornered animal: desperate and pleading and angry all at the same time.
I saw the movie this weekend--I thought the same thing. I wonder if they're even planning on a sequel, considering how many clues they left out for the other books...
Oh, I was finally planning to do this. I was reading The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao over the weekend and I marked lines for Grab a Line Monday, but then I left the book up in the Berkshires! So now I have to wait till I get it back :(
Bish: thanks for the quote. I love it when writers use "big" words without apologies. Love the "oatina of mold."
Beth: I wondered about that too. If the kids are closer to 17 than they are to twelve, they can't possibly be faithful to the books...
Corey: drats about having to wait for the quote! But anytime you get it back, just pop by. Did you like the book?
Yat-Yee,
My kiddos had the same reaction. And Percy didn't look twelve at all so I'm wondering about the sequels too. What about the prophecy, if he's already sixteen? What about Kro___? And the humor and attitude of Percy's voice was definitely missing. Oh well ...
Here are some lines from Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld.
Deryn felt brilliant, rising through the air at the center of everyone's attention, like an acrobat aloft on a swing. She wanted to make a speech: "Hey, all you sods, I can fly and you can't! A natural airman, in case you haven't noticed. And in conclusion, I'd like to add that I'm a girl and you can all get stuffed!"
I like this girl :-)
Nandini: it's good to hear similar reactions from other Percy fans. I wonder how much of an outcry there will be...I personally don't have the energy to protest this, but I wonder if they knew how many fans they have disappointed and possibly alienated.
Oh , and thanks for your Scott Westerfeld quote.
These were my feelings:
Rick Riordan does an AMAZING job of dressing these characters up for a modern world, and making them accessible for the present day-- and that movie just stripped it all back out and threw all the archaic stuff back in. That was my biggest disappointment-- not the liberties they took with which characters to keep and which to leave out, or even the plot (which was a sad adaptation itself). But man, I wanted to see P in bermuda shorts and dressed like a fisherman on his Deadliest Catch edition captain's chair, complete with some spin.
Amalia: thanks for putting your finger on where you think the movie has disappointed. I think I will have to watch it at some point to see how I feel. Right now, I'm still a bit too indignant, I think. ")
Yeah, and P didn't show up in his beach dude get=up, c'mon!
It bugs me no end that they feel the kids in the movies have to be older than they are in the books. Please! That's a huge part of the story line.
As Nandini mentioned, if they are so old now, what happens to the prophecy?
And yes, why do they have to be older? What market research company told them that? And HP was not morphed into an older kid and those movies raked in how much?
Popular series to be made into movies: changes are inevitable but they really should be a lot more faithful to the book. Otherwise, it's just taking advantage of the popularity.
Post a Comment