Saturday, September 01, 2007

You Stick with Your Reading, I'll Stick with Mine

Here's a quote from, would you believe it, the publicity for Atonement:
'A book is an illusion, a series of symbols on a page that create an narrative in your mind. There are as many different versions of the book as there are readers of it. I've made an adaptation of the book that happened in my head as I read it.' - Jo Wright, Director.
Well, yes, precisely my objection to screen adaptations of novels, as I've said before, and written about in more detail on my other blog, and the very reason I won't be rushing to see this one.

2 comments:

Tania Hershman said...

My goodness, what a bizarre way to publicise the film. I think the salient phrase here is "a narrative" - one narrative, not thousands. I dread to see what he's done to this book, which I really enjoyed. Yes, the reader pictures the characters in his or her mind, but each reader having their own "version"? That's a bit strong, and rather troublesome!

Tania

The Poet Laura-eate said...

Perhaps Jo Wright was stuck for anything good to say about the actual film and had to confabulate accordingly.

Or perhaps I should reserve judgement until I watch Atonement myself this Saturday!

Laura K