Saturday, April 12, 2008

Crashing Bores

Movie/Book Review:  Crashing bores.

Lord of the Rings  Any edition, any sequel.

Harry Potter  Any edition, any sequel

Watership Down.  Rabbits can't talk.

The Clan of the Cave Bear or any Jane Auel prehistoric novel.  One Neanderthal says to another, "Pardon me, I haven't been introduced to your wife." No kidding, it's in one of the books.

The Sound of Music.  The real escape of the Trapp family must have been thrilling, but the musical version...they escape by singing their way out?  Come on.

One Hundred Years of Solitude.  An Oprah Book Club selection which features one character who can rise up and float in the air...but the book is NOT a fantasy. 

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

yep I agree

Anonymous said...

Stopping in to say -Howdy!!
connie

Anonymous said...

Well, I liked Watership Down AND Sound of Music...sigh, I must be boring!  Oh wait, that's not true...then, it must be  "To each his own!"  The others I never saw or read.  Kate

Anonymous said...

(((((((((((((((((((HUGSTOYOU))))))))))))))))))Have a nice weekend.

Anonymous said...

I like the Harry Potter books, but dang, they take forever to read!! I've read the first 3 in the series, but haven't had time to read the rest.....

I've heard the Trapp family wasn't as wonderful in real life as in the movie.

Jackie

Anonymous said...

Ah, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck,

You've crossed the line. You've dissed some of the great influences of our (or any) time.

Watership Down?  PUL-LEEEZE!!!

This is a book that's never been out of print for 35 years; it's one of the best-selling kids' books of all time.

The Economist (no less) greeted the book with, "If there is no place for “Watership Down” in children’s bookshops, then children’s literature is dead." (December, 1972)

This British novel won the Carnegie Medal in 1972 and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and, in 2003 was voted by the Brits as one of the 50 best books of all time.

Naturally, it has been converted to film and television -- and I offer no defense for those media -- but the print version is a classic.

Maybe you have a problem with anthropomorphism...

-----

And as for the Lord of the Rings trilogy (plus The Hobbit, of course) -- this is nothing short of an epic. Also a British product, this series of four books was written mostly during the very dark days of World War II and certainly reflects an end-of-the-world and time-requiring-great-courage point of view. Not inappropriate, in that context, wouldn't you agree.

I discovered the trilogy in the late '60s during a time in my life filled with idealism and great hope. The writing resonated and inspired me to take on apparently unbeatable foes and engage in a great struggle to make the world safe for humans (an Hobbits, for that matter).

Some may argue, as you do, that the original, written version is deeply flawed (some have even labeled it "racist" though the characters seem to me to come not from different races, but different species), but I took it as pure fantasy -- a horror-driven fairy tale, so to speak.

Again, I'm not defending the movie version -- though it is unarguably impressive in several regards and brought out aspects of the story I had failed to note in my reading.

And I do consider

Anonymous said...

Dave says" Maybe you have a problem with anthropomorphism...

Well,yes.  Otherwise the Oz books would be consdiered literature and Peter Rabbit would have won an Oscar. The Earth was NOT created by a huge black bird riding on the back of a tortoise, either.

Science Fiction and Fantasy take "the willing suspension of disbelief", and I CAN do that if the characters act like real people caught in fantastic circumstances. I used to love "Smile, You're On Candid Camera" because real people were faced with fantastic situations.  They were real people reaactioning to unnatual situations.

But Rabbits can't talk, and pigs is pigs.

Anonymous said...

Ooh, I have to disagree with most of this. (It's been about 30 years since I read 100 Years of Solitude, and I've never read Auel so I have no opinion on those.) But on LotR and Harry Potter, it may not be to your taste, but for people who love fantasy, these are extremely important and engrossing books. And the films aren't bad, either.