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His Dark Materials TV Adaptation

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If your favorite book series is Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, as it is mine, you’re pretty lucky. It’s been adapted into many different formats (a radio play, a stage play, a movie), its audiobook production is one of the best I’ve ever read (full cast with Pullman reading the non-dialogue parts), it’s got tons of wonderful variants and foreign language editions for the collector (I myself have several, including a French version of The Amber Spyglass which I picked up in Paris as a 16 year old), there are now three companion novellas with fun extras, and there’s a whole new trilogy that, while published as YA, seems well suited for now-adult fans who grew up with the books.

And now, of course, there is a TV adaptation.

I watched the first season last year, and just finished the second a couple of weeks ago. There will be a third and final season sometime next year. For the most part, each season parallels a book in the trilogy, with one big change: Will is introduced in season 1. It works perfectly well, since Will’s initial adventures from book 2 actually do overlap in time with some of Lyra’s adventures in book 1. We get to see more of Will’s backstory than is shown in the book, which is nice, and the actor is good. It also helps ground the story in something more familiar for the newbies.

While I enjoyed the first season, I didn’t really love it. Most critics have praised Dafne Keen’s performance, but I thought her acting was often awkward, and not in the “I’m a preteen so I’m always awkward” way. It’s a huge and challenging role for a child to carry – she’s in nearly every shot – so no knock on her ability, it just didn’t 100% work for me. Everything else was solid: armored bears, the performances of Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter, the extremely creepy facility in the North.

Season 2, though, really stepped things up. The Subtle Knife is my least favorite book of the three, but the television season was pretty impressive. Keen’s performance is markedly better, and she and Will grow more comfortable with each other as the episodes pass. Her delivery feels more natural and the way she reacts to Will – initially alarmed by his lack of daemon, then viewing him with wariness, then friendship, and finally as a person whose goals she must help achieve or die trying – feels gradual but also momentous. The witches get some good screen time, as does Mrs. Coulter, who is perhaps the most interesting character in the show, as well as the best-acted. And that scene with Lee – you know the one – is lovingly done and will certainly make you cry.

Season 2 also introduces us to Mary Malone, who is by far my favorite character as an adult. While I loved Lyra’s courage and unselfconscious attitude as a kid, Mary Malone’s life, research, and decisions resonate with me strongly as an adult woman. I’m really excited to see her interact more with Lyra in season 3.

Settings, costumes, and special effects are all pretty perfect. Perhaps my favorite special effect is actually the title sequence, which shows various artistic shots of Lyra’s world and then shots from others that eventually coalesce into a depiction of all parallel worlds, thinly placed one on top of the other, as if you could walk across them all without any effort at all. Cleverly, Lyra’s world is the last focused upon in Season 1, and Cittagazze is the last in season 2.

This is the best screen adaptation for fans yet, and the best we’re likely to see for a while. It’s not perfect, but it does the source material justice, not backing away from the trilogy’s big and more controversial themes. I’m especially curious to see how they deal with those themes in season 3 – do they portray them as the book did, or will the creators modify events and characters’ actions somewhat to avoid generating too much pushback? I’m looking forward to finding out.

Young Readers’ Editions of Novels

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Young readers’ editions (usually for teens or tweens) of adult nonfiction titles are pretty common, and run the gamut from mediocre knock-offs to standouts that improve on the originals. What haven’t been particularly common are young readers’ editions of novels – until now, perhaps? In my collection management duties, I’ve come across three recently that may signal a trend. What do you think – are these worthwhile, or are they simply failed attempts to extend the life of bestsellers that are now fading in popularity?

young readers' editions of novels

The Da Vinci Code (the Young Adult Adaptation) by Dan Brown

Y’all, I still really love this book. I never got into any of his other novels featuring Robert Langdon, but I’ve re-read this one a few times and I think it holds up. It’s a fun thriller, a superb page-turner, and I’m always befuddled by people who trash it for featuring a conspiracy plotline that is obviously untrue. It’s a novel, not a treatise on religion.

That said, is a teen adaptation really necessary? There’s no content in the original unsuitable for teens (a bit of sex, but it’s glossed over; no explicit violence; not much swearing that I can recall, if any). There are other things that could be done to make the story more appealing (vs. suitable) for teen readers, such as somehow making a teen the protagonist, but I don’t think that would necessarily add anything, and this book was so huge I think teens would want to read the original anyway. The language certainly doesn’t need to be dumbed down any – not to say that it’s dumb already, that’s just never a good way to reach teenagers generally.

The publisher marketing says this new edition “includes over twenty color photos showing important locations, landmarks, and artwork, taking readers from Paris to London and beyond,” which may help teen readers better contextualize the action of the story, particularly if they’re unfamiliar with some of the locations or artwork mentioned. But this sort of thing is helpful for adult readers too. Our five copies have circulated 16 times since they were added in November 2016.

Cradle and All by James Patterson

At first this appeared to be simply a reissue of the book for the YA market with no changes, much like Tor did with Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series a few years ago. It’s published under James Patterson’s youth imprint, Jimmy Patterson, and includes an excerpt from one of the first YA titles from that line, Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Maniscalco, which makes me think the reissue is mainly a marketing tool for the Jimmy Patterson line of YA books. The book was originally published in 1980 under the title Virgin, but renamed Cradle and All in 2000, still published for the adult market. The teen edition has a new cover, but the publisher marketing is the same as for the 2000 edition. The new cover doesn’t even state that it’s a young readers edition anywhere.

It has an ensemble cast of characters, two of whom are teenagers (not a requirement for a YA novel, but a general rule). The main investigator and the first person POV character, however, is an adult. A couple of the Goodreads reviews indicate this edition has a few changes from the adult edition, such as this one which states “It was a much quicker read than the ‘adult’ version” and this one which states “tweeting and social media play a part in this story now.” But since the publisher blurb is identical to the adult edition, it’s hard to really tell what changes have been made – just updates to make it more contemporary, or more significant changes to make it more appealing to teens? Our 11 copies have circulated 23 times so far since they were added in November 2016.

Orphan Train Girl by Christina Baker Kline

Out May 2, this is a young readers’ edition of Kline’s bestselling Orphan Train. This is the first of the young readers’ editions of adult novels I’ve seen that actually changes the title, rather than just appending “young readers’ edition” or something similar to it. Thankfully, the publisher marketing explicitly addresses the ways in which this edition differs from the adult edition: “Adapted and condensed for a young audience, Orphan Train Girl includes an author’s note and archival photos from the orphan train era.” So it’s basically shorter and has a couple extras. The cover uses the same basic design as the adult edition, which makes sense, since it features a young girl.

I actually think this may be well-suited to a young readers’ edition since a teenage (or perhaps pre-teen) girl is one of the two main characters in the original, and the relationship between her and the 91-year-old woman she meets while forced to do community service is the central plotline (and the novel explores the older woman’s childhood as well). So shifting the focus to the young girl’s thoughts and feelings may indeed breathe new life into this novel for younger readers. HarperCollins is publishing this version for the middle grade market, ages 8-12.

 

 

 

Where the Wild Things Are – Adaptation Discussions Continued

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I was reading through my favorite blogs this past week, and I noticed a particularly interesting entry on Pitchfork about the upcoming movie version of Where the Wild Things Are. Of course, seeing the Pitchfork is music-centric, the entry was talking about the music in a “Behind the Scenes” montage. Being a book nerd, though, I was even more interested in the actual content of the video, especially because it features Maurice Sendak, the author of the book.

Sendak reveals his criteria for adapting his book. Evidently he was involved with Spike Jonze’s production from the very beginning, but the movie was definitely the director’s very different vision.

The video addresses all sorts of interesting issues – how do you make a full length feature from a small children’s book? What kind of inspiration can people draw from a work of art? What makes a book a classic in the first place? And I love how Maurice Sendak gives a shout-out to the librarians who became “pushers” of his critically maligned work.

Finally, I just had to quote Maurice Sendak’s final statement about the movie. This is a perfect way to adapt another work – allowing it to take on a different identity without losing the soul of the original work.

There will be controversy about this. But the film has an entire emotional, spiritual, visual life which is as valid as the book. He [Spike Jonze]’s done it like me whether he’s known it or not, in a more brilliant, modern, fantastical way, which takes nothing from my book, but enhances, enriches my book.

I thought Stacked readers might find this video relevant, especially after our last post inspired some discussion about the nature of adaptations. We’ll see if this movie lives up to the high praise of Sendak – I look forward to it.

The Play’s the Thing…

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The three books above all have something in common, aside from being some of the strongest books published in the last year. All three have seen an adaptation or will be seeing an adaptation in the near future.

If you have been living under a rock, you likely already know that The Hunger Games will be made into a movie. Although the book garnered huge success, there’s been quite a bit of buzz abut whether a movie could ever stack up. From comparisons to other dystopian films like Japan’s Battle Royale to discussions of how it forever impacts how readers envision this very descriptive setting and story.

Perhaps the most interesting and compelling discussion I’ve run across about the adaptation has come from here. If you don’t click, it boils down to this: how could a film ever capture Katniss’s internal struggles, which lie at the very heart of why this is such a strong book and strong character.

While thinking about that book, I ran across news that Gayle Foreman’s fantastic book If I Stay may also be made into a movie. Although many are excited, I’m very worried about it for the same reasons I’m a bit worried about the film adaption of The Hunger Games. So much of the story is cerebral and almost all of it takes place within Mia’s mind. Sure, much of the action happens outside it, but that’s because it’s happening inside of her via flashback. I’m just unsure how this can be captured well on film and, to be entirely frank, I don’t want it to be done that way. I had a powerful reaction to the book, and a film of the same storyline I doubt would have the same impact. The punch, for me, cannot be done the same way.

But let me propose another solution: the stage adaptation.

As you may or may not have heard, The Griffin Theater group in Chicago put on Cory Doctorow’s techno-thriller Little Brother for a short run. Like If I Stay and The Hunger Games, Little Brother is told through first person and much of the action takes place in the minds of the characters. While it is not to the extent of the other titles, Doctorow’s book has a lot of description and explanation that is hard to translate outside the written word.

I had the opportunity to go see it this weekend, and I was blown away. The minimal staging and the strong actors were able to translate a book that I’d never imagine in another medium to the stage. The live action of it allowed Marcus — the main character for those of you who haven’t read it yet — to narrate his thoughts and to take time to perform asides that built the back stories or explanations perfectly. The true test, though, was that I brought along 3 friends who had not read the book beforehand nor had any idea of the plot or story: they enjoyed it and understood it, AND they were compelled to pick up the book afterward.

Although I haven’t yet seen If I Stay or The Hunger Games, I wonder how much better they could translate in another medium. Both are strong stories, but because so much “happens” internally, it’ll be a challenge to capture the sentiments on the big screen. Were either adapted to stage, I wonder how much stronger it could be. Can you imagine a full-out battle on the big stage and the asides of Katniss? Epic. If I Stay, though, might face the same challenge on the big stage just because of the story itself. But you know what could be good? Reader’s theatre.

That also goes the other way. I just can’t foresee Little Brother packing quite the punch on the big screen. It’s a powerful story but how can it be if flattened or if over dependent on inter-character dialog, versus internal thoughts of Marcus?

Part of me thinks about this from a pessimistic viewpoint, of course — do these best sellers become movies because the film industry simply bets they’ll have a large audience? Obviously. Do best sellers become that way because they’re good stories? More often than not. It makes sense, then, but I also think there’s a quick leap to one medium over another, when with a little more time and audience input, the punches could be wider and deeper. Sure, we can always have a later remake, but we can never have the opportunity to have a first chance again. I think in Doctorow’s case, Little Brother was able to have a fantastic, memorable, enjoyable, and unique debut outside its print form.

What do you think of book adaptions? Do you have a favorite? Do you have one you dislike most? What expressions do you find make better fits? I’m a proponent of the fact that everyone takes their literacy in different ways, and I’m always thinking about or asking about how one can best delivery the message, the story, or the entertainment. We aren’t all born readers, but we can all be born learners in one form or another.