If it’s a choice between watching a movie or reading a book, most of my friends would choose the movie, no question. In fact, they literally scoff at the idea of reading for pleasure. I’m the opposite. As a past time or to round off a busy day, I find it relaxing and I love the feeling of losing myself in the story, of not knowing what time it is and not thinking about what else I have to do. Some things can be said in a book that in real life just seems cringey or soppy to a ridiculous degree, in a book it is ok! As I said though, in a technology obsessed day and age, I seem to be in a minority.
More often than people realise, movies are developed and based upon books. Obviously there are the more famous book series that lead to film series; Harry Potter is one example, the Da Vinci Code/Angels and Demons another. I find it really interesting seeing the movie, but only after I have read the book. In my opinion, the quality of the book depends on the writer’s ability to make the reader imagine, by describing the characters and the story. The reader then has their own opinions and own perceptions of each character and the whole situation. By seeing the film afterwards you can then compare your preconceived thoughts to that of the screen writer/costume designer/director/actors and all the other people whose own perceptions of the book had a hand in creating the movie. The problem with seeing the movie before reading the book is you know have someone else’s perception of how the characters should look, how they should talk, how the story should progress, as opposed to your own. In the past few years it has felt like Hollywood has been making movies from my bookshelf; ‘My sister’s Keeper’ , ‘The Time travellers Wife’ and ‘The lovely Bones’, I read before the movies were released, it had been years since reading the former so in order to familiarise myself with my thoughts on the story again, I re-read it. A waste of time some may say, I completely couldn’t disagree more!
While we’re on the subject of frustrating things tv does regarding books, advertising for books. What I mean isn’t the WHSmith advert saying what books are on sale etc etc, it is the adverts that have characters and a deep voice reading snippets of the blurb. Again, I hear you ask what on earth my problem is? As stated, reading is all about the imagination, I don’t want to be reading a book and instead of my voice, I hear a booming deep middle aged American man voice. I also don’t want any inkling of what the setting is supposed to look like or the characters, I want to picture it myself, based on what the writer tells me. James Paterson and Andrew Gross are major culprits of this!
Ok, so I think my thoughts on this are quite clear, I like to read and I like to see the movie, I know that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, sometimes I just wish they’d understand where I am coming from as well!
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