Should you read the book – or watch the movie?

April 20, 2012

This is not a gratuitous excuse to post a picture of Michael Fassbender. Honest. However, I will admit I was looking at the DVD of Jane Eyre online, hoping it would come down in price. I want this DVD, I saw it at the cinema and it’s great but I’m also mean.

There’s a review of it on one big site from a student who says that the DVD made her read the book for her university course, otherwise she wouldn’t have bothered as she presumes most students don’t.

Am I alone in being a bit …shocked? It’s hardly a crime but…

Back in the day when I did A levels – even when I did GCSE English, we actually read the set books. Jane Eyre was one of them, along with less exciting stuff like Nine Modern Poets, Father and Son and – yuk – Lord of the Flies and of course, at least two Shakespeare plays. But we did read all of them and studied them.

I love watching TV and film adaptations of books – even if I hate the finished result, I like to see the differences and try and understand why and how the screen version is different.

Call me an old fogey, but how can you study a text at university level without reading it?

By the way, much as 12 Men of Christmas is a fun movie, may I respectfully request that you also read the book 🙂

Comments

1. On April 20th, 2012 at 12:11 pm
   ChrisCross53 Says:
   

   I liked this post Phillipa – but how could anyone expect to study a book by only seeing the film? Mind you, I may not be the best person to comment: I tend to avoid films of books I enoy, because characters, settings etc are never as I imagine they should be, and they rarely catch the tone or voice of book – I want my image of things to be left intact.

2. On April 20th, 2012 at 12:24 pm
   Phillipa Says:
   

   Chris – I’ve often read a book after watching the film and groaned at some adapatations. I read N&S after seeing the BBC series and I prefer the series but not to read abook at all when you’re doing it at uni is almost beyond belief…

3. On April 21st, 2012 at 5:57 am
   Jenna Dawlish Says:
   

   We were made to study Of Mice and Men for GCSE and I hated it. We did read the book, but as a 15 year old girl, it didn’t press any of my buttons. We also saw a film which helped me figure out the story because when we did read it, not much went due to boredom. Oh if only we had been able to read Jane Eyre. So many fabulous books we could have studied. That film adaptation of JE is great, but NOTHING captures the passion of the novel like the text itself.

4. On April 23rd, 2012 at 10:26 am
   Phillipa Says:
   

   They do add some depressing books to exam lists whereas Jane Eyre is uplifting, exciting and passionate!

5. On April 25th, 2012 at 9:33 am
   Diane McIlmoyle Says:
   

   It is odd, isn’t it? I can understand them watching the adaptation as well as reading it, but not instead. On the subject of depressing English A levels – mine included Lear, Othello, the poems of Thomas Hardy and Ted Hughes. I shall never forget the opening line, ‘November. Month of the drowned dog’.

   Of course another excellent reason to read Decent Exposure (has the UK name changed?) is that it’s set in the Lake District 🙂

6. On April 25th, 2012 at 9:37 am
   Diane McIlmoyle Says:
   

   Trying again – wordpress doesn’t seem to like letting its people comment these days!

   I can understand the student watching the adaptation as well as reading the book, but not instead of it. And talking of depressing A Levels – mine included Lear, Othello and the poems of Thomas Hardy and Ted Hughes (“November. Month of the drowned dog”). And I also did Sartre for French. It’s a wonder I survived, really.

   Of course another reason to read Decent Exposure (has the book changed name, too?) is that it’s set in the Lake District 🙂