reading The Reader
Reggie Jet made some really interesting comments here about the weird interactions between novels and the movies adapted from them. It’s made me re-think my usual knee-jerk insistence on trying to finish a book that’s been made into a movie I’m wanting to see.
When is it best to try to read a book first before seeing the movie? If you’ve seen the movie first, how likely is it that reading the book will enrich the whole experience? What if a truly crappy film adaptation ruins your memories of a great book?
Before I’d considered Reggie’s conundrum, I powered my way through Revolutionary Road and the Benjamin Button short story just assuming it would ultimately improve the movie-going experiences. I also picked up The Reader on a mad quest to finish off all the Oscar-nominated novels (and, let’s be honest, to bring into the theater some unspoken sense of superiority at having hacked my way through the underbrush of text). Now I’m finally conscious of the real hazards involved here.
For one thing, even though I’ve mostly avoided reading reviews of the movie, I already knew Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes played the two main roles. It was immensely distracting, then, to read the book and try to imagine what sort of old-age or youthful makeup would have to be applied in each scene to make these two actors look appropriate, or in which scenes younger or older actors might be playing their roles. I know Ralph Fiennes is a hell of an actor, but I’m also pretty sure it would take some Benjamin Button-style special effects to put his head on the body of a 15-year-old German lad.
Another obstacle is the almost clinically Germanic tone of the novel’s translation, which I can only assume is true to its original language. By some horrible coincidence I had recently been in a car with a friend who had been listening to an Eckhart Tolle book-on-CD, so I had the German guru’s Sigmund Freud-sounding tones in my head as the voice of The Reader’s narrator–as if visualizing a CGI-ed, pubescent Ralph Fiennes wasn’t distracting enough.
It’s a perplexing novel in any case, full of philosophical and moral paradoxes and powerfully evoking the ruined civilization of post-World War II Germany. Beyond the immediate concerns of the plot, the question asked by a war crimes defendant to her judge in the courtroom, “What would you have done?” resonates powerfully even after the book is finished.
One reviewer noted a later-20th century phrase commonly heard in Germany, “the lucky late-born,” referring to those too young to be held accountable for their behavior during the Nazi regime. The Reader illustrates the paralyzing difficulty of coming to terms with not only personal guilt and shame but the culpability of a whole society, and I’m extremely curious if the movie is able to express those themes as memorably as the novel does.
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Comments
I happened across your blog as I am doing research for a midterm paper about novels turned into movies. I have no read or seen any of the books/movies you mention, but when I read the beginning of this article:
“When is it best to try to read a book first before seeing the movie? If you’ve seen the movie first, how likely is it that reading the book will enrich the whole experience? What if a truly crappy film adaptation ruins your memories of a great book?”
I thought about the books I’m reading and writing about. From my experience, I think reading the book first (if it is a really good book) makes the movie less enjoyable. I read the Prince of Tides and then watched the movie for comparison, and I absolutely hated the movie and the over the top love story, but I absolutely loved the book. Also, some novels are far easier to adapt to film. I think the difficulty comes when a lot of the novel is about inner-self and you read people’s intimate thoughts. But it’s hard for a movie to express the same ideas.
On the other hand, I think watching the movie first and then reading takes away from the experience, as you may sit there thinking you already know what happens, and possibly will overlook a lot of the great detail and intricacies of the work.
I think it’s a fine line, and takes a special movie to really enjoy the book and the movie. Sorry for such a long comment. Your post was just very thought provoking and helpful for me.
Hi!
In the movie The Reader:
David Kross plays Young Michael Berg.
Mr. Fiennes plays Michael Berg’s older version.
Cheers~