books again

wisteria53 · October 2009

Earlier this week I finished what I feel is a unusual and wonderful novel by a former Stroud Green resident, although she moved to the other side of Finsbury Park (but still N4!) and lived there while writing it. The book deserves wider readership and I highly recommend it. Much of the London section is set in/around the Finsbury Park area. You can find other reviews (including from the Times Literary Supplement) online via Google. __"Soothing Music for Stray Cats" by Jayne Joso__

poxy · October 2009

I recently read Dangerous Parking by (the late former resident of Crouch Hill) Stuart Browne. A hugely funny/sad book. If I'd not lost it I would offer to arrange swapsies with you for your book above.

The reviews of the film verison of DP were so bad that I'm not going anywhere near the film lest it spoil my memories of the book.

wisteria53 · October 2009

I try to avoid films of books I really like. I can only think of a very few films or dramatisations that managed to please.

bennyfromtheblok · October 2009

I dread to think what Johnny Depp and his pals have planned when they get round to filming Shantaram.
Still, nothing beats the horror show that was Ron Howards stab at The Da Vinci Code - unfathomable that they gave him a second go.

Philistine'sMonster · October 2009

There's a story called Crouch End by Stephen King (which explains that weird "pan" statue on Parkland walk).

The Da Vinci Code is the best filum ever. The book is the best book ever (if you read it upside down it's got a better plot).

Honest.

sophie · October 2009

shantaram is another of the most rubbish books i've read. every day i see at least one poor sod battling their way through it. it obviously hadn't been edited down at all, just because he wrote it three times in prison doesn't mean it should all be in there. most books i read are about india and i was looking forward to shantaram cos it was 'real', but unfortunately it was just tosh written by an arrogant twat. perhaps my biggest mistake was looking up a picture of him halfway through, after he kept going on about how handsome he was, only to find a horrific elderly legolas in a leather waistcoat.

andy · October 2009

I quite enjoyed Shantaram as top quality tosh but I didn't believe a word of it was true. It was just silly. Here is my precis: I was an ace prisoner.. then I was a drug smuggler...then I built a hospital...then I was a ninja...then I invented magic...then I climed the Hindu Kush...then I wrestled with the bestest wrestler. I didn't see a picture of the guy til after I'd finished it and I'm glad, because it would have completely coloured my reading of the book.

Philistine'sMonster · October 2009

That's cos it's fiction, innit.

So is Papillon. Shame. Banco is shite.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is fact.

sophie · October 2009

ok i agree it was good quality tosh. i had to skip over a lot of his awful philosophising but the story itself was ok. it was mainly him i had a problem with. the way he said that everyone he met loved him so much. how about this though from wikipedia!: "Gregory Roberts has said that Shantaram is the second book in a planned quartet; however, it is the only novel currently available. The next book, a sequel to Shantaram named The Mountain Shadow to be published on 4 February 2010" good lord, that's a bit much.

bennyfromtheblok · October 2009

My point wasn't really about the books themselves, though for the record I enjoyed Shantaram and The Da Vinci Code as entertaining stories. It is more about how films tend to leave out key details and parts of a plot that bring the story together.
Another example is The Beach where in the book the lead is obsessed with the Vietnam war, the killing etc and it's one of the main reasons he loses the plot. There is no real mention of this in the film leaving you wondering what the hell is going on with him.

andy · October 2009

In The BEach they replaced the whole vietnam thing with his video games obsession, which didn't work at all. Papillon is ace. As are James Clavell books. Utterly stupid seventies nonsense.

David · October 2009

Talking of books into films, I'm fascinated how on earth Spike Jonze latest will pan out. Little [featurette](http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi1562247705/) here with Maurice Sendak. Out for xmas I believe, I just can't work out if I'm going to love it or hate it. Definitely going to be a marmite moment.

Philistine'sMonster · October 2009

David Morel books, too -- or at least, I remember enjoying some of his early ones. Him wot rote Rambo.

JungleFaceJake · October 2009

Yay a book/book to film thread... other peoples opinions are funny..

For what its worth I thought Fear and Loathing was a pretty good film effort given the original text.
and I love 'Everything is Illuminated' both book and film, even though they leave loads out in the film...

Enduring love was a shit adaptation to film... oh yeah and the beach is rubbish (on film)

I love Alice in Wonderland and Jungle Book, they are both different from the books... you know with the songs and all that stuff.

Oh and FightClub, Trainspotting, American psycho, Epire of the Sun are all Fooking wicked both on the page and on Screen...

But very much above all 'The Da Vinci Code' is bad... just very bad, in any form... or as Stephen Fry said 'Arse Gravy of the worse kind'

I Like Books and Films... I think they can live in harmony.. we just need to kill Dan Brown...

dion · October 2009

@ Philistine - I had always thought Papillon was fact... You have burst my bubble.

graeme · October 2009

Not looking forward to Pitt/Jolie's go at 'Atlas Shrugged', but if anyone can pull off an exploration of a dystopian United States where inovators refuse to be exploited by society, it's surely that pair. Right?

I too am saddened to hear Papillon is fiction.

Philistine'sMonster · October 2009

I know! My bubble burst too.

If it's any consolation, it's most probably based on the experiences of the many people Henri encountered during his internment(s). Including his own. So it's kinda fact still.

More interestingly, the English version was translated by mister "Master and Commander" himself (whose books I've never been able to get on with).

I loved Shantaram (despite the philosphising and diarrhoea) but I read it in India (where it seems every other bloody traveller was reading it too) and it's amazing how he turns pretty uninspiring places like Cafe Leopold into some kind of emerald city paradise. But it's just an overpriced tourist cafe. With some mirrors in it.

David · October 2009

I get the sense _Atlas Shrugged_ with Jolie in it will morph into some kind of _Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow 2_.

andy · October 2009

Don't get me started on Sky Captain.

Philistine'sMonster · October 2009

Is it crap? It looks stylistically amazing.

Tom Twyker of "Run Lola Run" and "The (best shootout in the Guggenheim ever) International" is <del> bastardising </del> -- I mean, directing "Cloud Atlas".

Dunno if it has Jloie in it. But it's got "Atlas" in the title.

Alison13 · October 2009

They're making Cloud Atlas into a film? That's not gonna work.

JungleFaceJake · October 2009

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/

Looks rubbish

Cloud Atlas could star the other David Mitchell as Robert Frobisher... or something...

tosscat · October 2009

[yawn](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480239/) Sky Captain is awful, almost as bad as the Avengers, but much, much worse than the Rocketeer.

Philistine'sMonster · October 2009

Shame. Probably because it's got Jude Law in it, who I can't watch without wanting to smash him over the head with an oar.

Which is why Talented Mr Ripley is my favourite film.

Although the Jude Law oar smashing scene comes a bit late.

Shame, that. Would have been better with:

FADE IN:

 EXT. A BOAT -- DAY. 

ANGLE ON -- the stupid weak-chinned stupid fucking HEAD of stupid fucking JUDE fucking LAW, smiling stupidly like the great actor he isn't.

Now an OAR SWINGS into frame, and a split-second before it connects, we got to

ECU -- SLOW MOTION

as Jude's head EXPLODES, blooming like a crimson rose*, filling the screen with the fragments of his stupid brains and teeth and lips.

TITLES: "The Talented Mr. Ripley"

And then we SEE the rest of the film, without Jude Law in it. At all.

END

*cliche courtesy of Gregory David Roberts.

David · October 2009

[Andy's hate for the Sky Captain](http://www.stroudgreen.org/discussion/217/a-scanner-darkly/) Seems we have plotholes for film films, and "mis-highlighting" for book films with plotholes that weren't there in the original novel?

dorothy · October 2009

Rather have Jude than Keira, mumbling and pouting through Atonement.

I had a defence of Jude Law, but it's too pretentious to write. I did enjoy the murder by oar thing at the time, as well, I must admit.

Ian · October 2009

@David that jump back in threads reminded me that getting a flag by your name isn't just a special, singular case of trial for commercial use, but it is also retrospective.

David · October 2009

@Ian, simply applied to the user, in this case Lucy, not the thread or its date. So it pops up on everything she's ever typed. @dorothy, there is no defence of Jude Law. But if you have one I'd love to hear it, pretentious as it may be, as currently I feel quite safe in my assumption that he's possibly the most complete cock these shores have ever produced. Seriously, if you put Ben Fogel and Keith Allen in a blender you'd get him.

Philistine'sMonster · October 2009

I'd pay very good money to see that happen.

Ian · October 2009

@david. Er, yes, I know.

David · October 2009

@Ian, sorry. Didn't really get whether you were asking or wotnot.

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