On Not Watching The Great Gatsby

I really enjoying seeing movie versions of books from the list. Well, I like seeing movies of the ones I've read. It's interesting to see how somebody else interprets the story and characters, and to see how it gets condensed down to two hours.

It works with mixed results; movies like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Revolutionary Road were able to capture the idea and theme of the movie, without missing a beat. Then there are movies like Catch-22, which wasn't a bad movie, but it was unable to duplicate the genius that was the book.

But good or bad, or not as good, I've always been keen to see the movie version. A month ago, Baz Luhrmann released the newest film version of The Great Gatsby. Not only is it one of my favorite books, but I'm also a fan of Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Jay Gatsby.

Of every Wind that blows

I’ve passed the half way mark on reading Gone with the Wind. Progress isn’t as bad as it may first sound, as I’m 500 pages into a 960 page book, after only two weeks. Compare this to Infinite Jest, where it took me a month to reach the halfway mark. The big difference, as I’ve mentioned before, is that I’m enjoying reading Gone with the Wind. I’m usually eager to pick up the book and dive into the world of Tara, the Civil War and Scarlett O’Hara.


Having not seen the movie, I was pretty vague on a lot of the story details, or so I thought. But now, after having read half the book, I find it amazing how much I really do know about the book, the story and the characters, all just picked up over the years through mentions, movie clips, etc. I suppose it’s one of the most popular books of all time and one of the most popular movies of all time.

I knew that Scarlett would be very hungry at some point, which I deduced from the oft quoted line, “as God is my witness, I shall never be hungry again!” So that was always in the back of my mind as the good times were rolling in the land of cotton. I knew Rhett Butler would drive Scarlett out of Atlanta as the town burned to the ground, because I’ve heard about how the producers burned all of MGM’s old sets and props to create the large inferno. And while I haven’t go there yet in the book, I’m pretty confident that tomorrow, will be another day.

And speaking of Rhett Butler, I’m finding it very difficult not to picture Clark Gable. I know what Gable looks like and I know what he sounds like. Whenever the book talks about Rhett, I find myself picturing Gable, and he’s usually saying, ‘frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.’ But sometimes, I picture Albert Brooks, who once did an impersonation of Gable on The Tonight Show using a lemon. It's a classic bit.  It doesn't really take anything away from the book, but it shows how much impact a movie can have on our impression of a book.  This is a movie I haven't seen, and it influences many of my perceptions.

But I digress. The war is over, things are starting to look up for the O’Hara clan, and I’ve got to get back to my reading.

#20 - "Deliverance" by James Dickey

What can I say about the twentieth book on the list?  While I had already read a couple of the first twenty books before, I haven't been as familiar with a story as I was with Deliverance.  It makes for a different reading experience, and I found myself concentrating on the difference between the movie and the book, not the things I normally, ney, should be concentrating on; writing style, character development, etc. 

What I thought made Deliverance a good book, is the story.  Even though I knew what was going to happen, I was still reading, eagerly anticipating the next page.  To me, this is what makes a book 'good.'  If there isn't much happening (think Naked Lunch or To the Lighthouse) I find it really difficult staying interested in the story.  The imagery or poetic elements of a book have failed to get my attention.  However, I am finding the more I read, the more I pick up on these things.

The other great part of Deliverance, is the characters.  When I was reading this book, I always had a good picture of what the characters looked like and how they reacted to different things.  I really felt like I knew them.  I do realize however, that this is probably a result of having seen the movie so many times.  I fear that I wasn't picturing Dickey's descriptions as much as I was picturing the actors from the film.  Either way, it made me enjoy the book a great deal.

Now the question that remains, is what was better, the movie or the book?  I've thought about this a great deal, as I rally enjoy the movie and think it was well done.  However, I'm going to go with the book for the same reason the book is always better than the movie.  Simply, books can go into greater detail than a movie can.  In the case of Deliverance, the book covers the back story so much better.  We learn more about who the characters are and what their motivations are.  We learn more about what happens after their fateful trip down the river.  The movie never really gets into how each man changed as a result of what happened.  In short, the book answers most of the questions one has after watching the movie; that's why it's better.

Plus, I now have a better understanding of my role as Hillbilly Santa in my Grade 8 Christmas play, a character with an extra ear and an extra eyeball sewn into the forehead of his skullcap.



You can read Time magazine's original review from April 20, 1970 here.

You have it from his own deliverance

So I've been reading Deliverance this week, and am very familiar with the plot from having seen the movie several times.  Knowing more or less what's going to happen makes for a fairly quck read, and I'm a little over half done already.  So far, the book has followed the movie rather closely; okay, let me rephrase that, the movie has followed the book quite closely, but from my current perspective it's the other way around.

Not only are the main plot elements identical, the characters also seem to be bang on.  When Dickey is describing the main players in the beginging of the book, it's quite easy to picture Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds and Ronny Cox.  Ned Beatty's character didn't seem to be as close a match as the others, but fits the bill rather nicely either way.  I wonder though if the descriptions seems to match because that's who I'm picturing in my mind whilst I'm reading, regardless of the words on the page, or if the actors in the movie actually do resemble the descriptions.  I guess it's a bit of a "chicken or the egg" question.

Despite all the similarities though, I was shocked to learn that one of the most famous scenes from the movie is not in the book. Warning: The rest of this paragraph will have spoilers if, for some reason, you are not already familiar with what happens.  The famous rape scene, the most pivotal scene in the entire story, is told differently in the movie from the book.  The main elements are the same, Ned Beatty still gets cornholed (Dickey's word, not mine), and Jon Voight avoids his special moment by a split second.  However, in the book, the hillbillies do not make Ned Beatty crawl around on all fours and 'squeal like a pig!'  I was surprised this wasn't in the book, as it is such a memorable part of the movie, and adds to the savagery of the scene.


By the way, this was an important seen in "A Christmas Deliverance" as well, where hillbilly Santa demanded that two canoers "squeal like a pig before they get any presants."  Again, I'm not kidding, that is what actually happend.

Though first in question, is they secondary

I’ve just returned from a quick trip to California to see a couple of hockey games, and I was able to do a bit of reading on the plane. The problem I’m going to have with this list is I’m not a very fast reader. I absorb everything I read, but it takes me a lot longer to get through a book. If I try to read something too fast, I end up missing things, and have to go back and re-read half the book.

The second problem I have with reading a book and The Spy who Came in from the Cold is proving to be no exception, is that I become curious about certain important elements in a book, be it the character or the setting or the era. While a book might be good at describing everything, it might not complete the back story. As a result, I end up doing a lot of secondary reading or research. For this novel, being set during the cold war, I've ended up doing a lot of reading about early 1960's Europe, espionage, the Berlin Wall, and so on. It really slows down my progress on a book, but I have so much trouble leaving these questions, swirling around in my head, unanswered.

I’ve almost finished this first novel however, and I have to say I’m totally surprised. This book isn’t at all what I thought it was going to be.

While I didn't really know anything about the story of this book before I started out, one scene has reminded me that I've seen a small bit of the movie. I remember flipping channels one lazy Sunday a few years ago and coming across a black and white film with Richard Burton. In the scene I saw, Burton was arguing with a grocer over some canned goods at the store. At the time, after seeing the title, I wondered what kind of spy movie had a scene in a grocery store, where the protagonist seemed to be arguing over the price of a can of corn. I love watching James Bond movies, but I don’t think I’d like them as much if they focused on the day to day things Bond did while he wasn’t spying. Imagine the disappointment one would have if “Dr. No” was about Bond’s latest visit to the chiropodist. Seeing the lead character discussing canned goods seemed just as dull. However, now having read most of this book, it not makes sense, but also wasn't dull at all. In fact, it’s quite a clever scene.