Day #3 of the 30 Day Book Challenge..
Oct. 29th, 2020 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatDay # 3 of the 30 Day Book Challenge
The prompt is A Book that Became a Movie
There's so many.
I'm going with something obscure.
I was considering John Le Carr, but I've yet to make it through a Le Carr novel, I've no clue why that is. He's one of my father's favorite writers. I just find his writing exhausting for some reason. But in a different way than I do the Brontes. The Bronte novel I've made it through is Jane Eyre, and it's ironically the only one no one mentioned on the previous post. By the way if you listed a Bronte novel in the previous post, you can't do it again here. My meme, my rules, you know.
Why do I find the Brontes exhausting? They end brutally. Apparently the writers in the Victorian Age were all chronically depressed. I blame all that coal dust. The characters are kind of whiny, repressed and painful. And somewhere around the middle of the books, I want to clobber everyone over the head with a plastic bat or throw feather pillows at them - stop wallowing and do something. (Apparently I have no problems wallowing myself, but reading about others doing it - annoys me?)
But my biggest issue? Is the Bronte have no sense of humor and write ...exhausting characters. I was an English Lit major and managed to avoid reading Dickens (outside of short fiction), the Brontes (I read Jane Eyre on my own, and Wuthering Heights on my own - mostly skimmed I found it exhausting).
Why do I feel the need to talk about this? Because whenever a book meme comes up - people mention the Brontes. (They did in the last post. In fact that's all they talked about. ) For some reason people love them. (The appeal is lost on me.) I'm thinking the East Coast schools taught them to death. They did by the way. Most English Lit majors - studied the Brontes, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens, Nathanial Hawthorn, Poe, etc. I, on the other hand, didn't. I went out of my way to avoid these overrated writers who I found exhausting. I've read them - I just don't like them. Instead I studied science fiction literary writers, fantasy, stream of consciousness, poets, and quite a bit in the 1920s-1980s. Also, quite a few in the Elizabethan period and the period prior to the Victorians. Let's face it - me and the Victorians are unmixy things. I can't help but wonder if I was a depressed Victorian in a past life and figured enough of that in this one? Because I really do not like Victorian fiction at all. I'm trying to think of a writer I liked - maybe Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I find Poe exhausting to read too. The Victorians were awfully fond of adverbs, and descriptives, very flowery in their language. And often wrote what could have been said in a sentence or two, in fifty pages. Like I said, exhausting.
But, most of the people on my flist seem to adore them. Eh. Mileage it varies, you know. I'll never understand why they love the Victorian period and the Victorian writers or the writing style of that period. I find it exhausting to read. I've tried. They've tried to explain it to me...but I just don't get it. The alienation of taste in a nutshell.
Divergent tastes can be exhilirating and alienating. You want to find people who share your own. After all it can be quite distressing - when you want to discuss apples, and everyone else is into how to cook brussel sprouts, and you can't abide brussel sprouts. (I can't. I've tried. My brother likes them. I find the texture irritating. There's been studies that show tastes are inherited traits, for example an inherited trait is disliking cilantro.)
The alienation is due the fact that I want to connect with people. And we live in polarizing times. Where it seems folks fight about everything. It's all exhausting. It would be nice to agree on at least something for a change.
It's all very frustrating, and why I wonder why I keep doing memes. But I'm tired and I want to play with something outside of current events. And I'm curious to see what other's pick and for that matter what I will.
Kudos if you got to the end of that long ramble.
Anyhow...
All that said and done, I'm going to pick ...one I can remember. I was going to pick Oscar and Lucinda, but I can't remember it. I don't know why I remember some things and not others. It's very odd. And the things I can remember aren't exactly better written...or filmed. So odd, and sad.
I read the book after I saw the movie for this one, and loved both. Actually, I highly recommend the book - "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flag" - it's better than the movie. Much better.
The prompt is A Book that Became a Movie
There's so many.
I'm going with something obscure.
I was considering John Le Carr, but I've yet to make it through a Le Carr novel, I've no clue why that is. He's one of my father's favorite writers. I just find his writing exhausting for some reason. But in a different way than I do the Brontes. The Bronte novel I've made it through is Jane Eyre, and it's ironically the only one no one mentioned on the previous post. By the way if you listed a Bronte novel in the previous post, you can't do it again here. My meme, my rules, you know.
Why do I find the Brontes exhausting? They end brutally. Apparently the writers in the Victorian Age were all chronically depressed. I blame all that coal dust. The characters are kind of whiny, repressed and painful. And somewhere around the middle of the books, I want to clobber everyone over the head with a plastic bat or throw feather pillows at them - stop wallowing and do something. (Apparently I have no problems wallowing myself, but reading about others doing it - annoys me?)
But my biggest issue? Is the Bronte have no sense of humor and write ...exhausting characters. I was an English Lit major and managed to avoid reading Dickens (outside of short fiction), the Brontes (I read Jane Eyre on my own, and Wuthering Heights on my own - mostly skimmed I found it exhausting).
Why do I feel the need to talk about this? Because whenever a book meme comes up - people mention the Brontes. (They did in the last post. In fact that's all they talked about. ) For some reason people love them. (The appeal is lost on me.) I'm thinking the East Coast schools taught them to death. They did by the way. Most English Lit majors - studied the Brontes, Henry James, Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens, Nathanial Hawthorn, Poe, etc. I, on the other hand, didn't. I went out of my way to avoid these overrated writers who I found exhausting. I've read them - I just don't like them. Instead I studied science fiction literary writers, fantasy, stream of consciousness, poets, and quite a bit in the 1920s-1980s. Also, quite a few in the Elizabethan period and the period prior to the Victorians. Let's face it - me and the Victorians are unmixy things. I can't help but wonder if I was a depressed Victorian in a past life and figured enough of that in this one? Because I really do not like Victorian fiction at all. I'm trying to think of a writer I liked - maybe Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. I find Poe exhausting to read too. The Victorians were awfully fond of adverbs, and descriptives, very flowery in their language. And often wrote what could have been said in a sentence or two, in fifty pages. Like I said, exhausting.
But, most of the people on my flist seem to adore them. Eh. Mileage it varies, you know. I'll never understand why they love the Victorian period and the Victorian writers or the writing style of that period. I find it exhausting to read. I've tried. They've tried to explain it to me...but I just don't get it. The alienation of taste in a nutshell.
Divergent tastes can be exhilirating and alienating. You want to find people who share your own. After all it can be quite distressing - when you want to discuss apples, and everyone else is into how to cook brussel sprouts, and you can't abide brussel sprouts. (I can't. I've tried. My brother likes them. I find the texture irritating. There's been studies that show tastes are inherited traits, for example an inherited trait is disliking cilantro.)
The alienation is due the fact that I want to connect with people. And we live in polarizing times. Where it seems folks fight about everything. It's all exhausting. It would be nice to agree on at least something for a change.
It's all very frustrating, and why I wonder why I keep doing memes. But I'm tired and I want to play with something outside of current events. And I'm curious to see what other's pick and for that matter what I will.
Kudos if you got to the end of that long ramble.
Anyhow...
All that said and done, I'm going to pick ...one I can remember. I was going to pick Oscar and Lucinda, but I can't remember it. I don't know why I remember some things and not others. It's very odd. And the things I can remember aren't exactly better written...or filmed. So odd, and sad.
I read the book after I saw the movie for this one, and loved both. Actually, I highly recommend the book - "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flag" - it's better than the movie. Much better.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-30 12:38 pm (UTC)At least this kind of disagreement is nothing like politics. There's no accounting for taste, nobody's getting harmed, it's interesting to learn what other people think and, while connection is welcome, variety is too, as you note. I am especially interested to notice clusters in preferences, e.g., if we differ in what we like, can I see enough pattern in what you like to still guess a bit about other things? These differences are as much an interesting window into other people as they are into the things that resonate with them (or not), so I figure that it's still some kind of connection.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-30 02:22 pm (UTC)Two for the price of one. Ugh. I gave up. And I also had issues with Anna Karena, never made it through it.
I first read Wuthering Heights as a play in High School. Then I tried to read the book, most likely reading the adapted play first didn't help. And I saw the Laurence Olivier film version and the Ralph Fiennes version.
It's a tragedy - which may be why a lot of men like it? I've noticed they don't like Jane Eyre, which ends less tragically and is more Dickensonian in how it is crafted. Jane Eyre is kind of the female version of Great Expectations or David Copperfield.