Stranger than fiction
I saw the first ep of the TV adaptation of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell last night. I loved the novel, so was looking forward to it.
It was visually great. As the old saying has it, the pictures in novels are often better than on screen, but this did really well. The acting and direction was pleasantly faithful to the novel as well. And the plot seems faithfully rendered so far, and it was a good one.
But somehow it wasn't as good. It seemed terribly, terribly dark, in an unrelieved way that the book didn't. And I don't think it's because I know how things are going to go. When I re-read the book it was even better second time round.
I think I've worked out what made the difference: it's not doing anything clever with the form.
The novel was a delight to read, with arch comments and self-parodic footnotes and irony, like a postmodern Jane Austen. Regular readers will know, possibly to some despair, that I tend to over-use parenthentical comments.* Partly that's because I'm not smart enough to write clearly,** but it's also partly because I love them so. And Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell the novel is a hot contender for my top use of footnotes ever.********
On the other hand, the TV adaptation is straight-up nicely-done BBC costume drama with a few (very well done) special effects. It's very good, but it's not interesting in itself.
It's not as if you can't make TV more interesting as TV than that. The last TV I saw before that was a re-run of the episode of Sherlock where you get about half a dozen sequences showing how Sherlock didn't not die at the end of Series 2.
It's still good enough to warrant watching the lot, though.
* Of which I count footnotes as but one particular form.
** Or, sometimes,*** too lazy to try.
*** If I'm honest.****
**** This is a tired old joke but in my***** book, it never gets old.
***** Copiously footnoted.
****** This joke, on the other hand, always makes me feel slightly dirty.*******
******* Not that I let that stop me.
******** The other contender for the top spot is the footnoterphone in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels.
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/294092.html, where there are
comment(s) not shown here.
It was visually great. As the old saying has it, the pictures in novels are often better than on screen, but this did really well. The acting and direction was pleasantly faithful to the novel as well. And the plot seems faithfully rendered so far, and it was a good one.
But somehow it wasn't as good. It seemed terribly, terribly dark, in an unrelieved way that the book didn't. And I don't think it's because I know how things are going to go. When I re-read the book it was even better second time round.
I think I've worked out what made the difference: it's not doing anything clever with the form.
The novel was a delight to read, with arch comments and self-parodic footnotes and irony, like a postmodern Jane Austen. Regular readers will know, possibly to some despair, that I tend to over-use parenthentical comments.* Partly that's because I'm not smart enough to write clearly,** but it's also partly because I love them so. And Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell the novel is a hot contender for my top use of footnotes ever.********
On the other hand, the TV adaptation is straight-up nicely-done BBC costume drama with a few (very well done) special effects. It's very good, but it's not interesting in itself.
It's not as if you can't make TV more interesting as TV than that. The last TV I saw before that was a re-run of the episode of Sherlock where you get about half a dozen sequences showing how Sherlock didn't not die at the end of Series 2.
It's still good enough to warrant watching the lot, though.
* Of which I count footnotes as but one particular form.
** Or, sometimes,*** too lazy to try.
*** If I'm honest.****
**** This is a tired old joke but in my***** book, it never gets old.
***** Copiously footnoted.
****** This joke, on the other hand, always makes me feel slightly dirty.*******
******* Not that I let that stop me.
******** The other contender for the top spot is the footnoterphone in Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels.
This entry crossposted to http://doug.dreamwidth.org/294092.html, where there are
comment(s) not shown here.