Reading in Reykjavík

The Weekly Geeks blogging prompt is a juicy one this week: “Do you have a best list? a worst list? Perhaps a why-oh-why list? Which movies (based on books) would you recommend most? Do you always compare the book and the movie? Or are you able to enjoy each separately? Does a film have to be faithful to the book to be good? Are there any films that you like better than the book? Has a movie ever inspired you to pick up the book? Are there any books that you'd love to see as a movie? Do you have a music playlist--soundtrack--for a book?” I already did the “best” list as a Top Ten Tuesday meme , but this happens to be a subject I can talk about for hours, because it is part of my field of study (translation). As a matter of fact, I considered writing my thesis about book-to-film adaptations as translation. Translation isn’t just the rendering of a text in one language into an equivalent text in another language. Translation studies also cover interpretation of the spoken wor...

This meme is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish . To see more favourite book-to-movie adaptations, head over there to see which movies the other participants have nominated. I am going to cheat and interpret ‘movie’ as ‘film’, so I can include television adaptations. Oscar and Lucinda , from the book by Peter Carey. Apart from the changed ending it is an incredibly faithful adaptation, with every character perfectly cast. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo , from the book by Stieg Larsson. This one actually improves on the book, which is well plotted but badly written. Cold Comfort Farm , from the book by Stella Gibbons. Perfect casting and quite faithful to the original. High Fidelity , from the book by Nick Hornby. Moving the story to America didn’t hurt it one bit. Fried Green Tomatoes (at the Whistle Stop Café), from the book by Fannie Flagg. Perfect casting and faithful to the story. Pride and Prejudice from the book by Jane Austen, the latest BBC adaptation. Incredibly f...

Originally published in September and October 2004, in 2 parts. Book 32 in my first 52 books challenge. Edited out some non-review stuff. Author: Robert McKee Year published: 1998 Pages: 466 Genre: Non-fiction. Story structure, screenwriting, practical film theory Where got: Student book store This is apparently one of the best books available to people who want to learn screenwriting, and is required reading for many courses on the craft. And no, I’m not about to run off to Hollywood to become a screenwriter. This is one of two set books for the university course I’m taking on media translation. Since a lot of media translation consists of translating movies and TV series the teacher thought it would be a good idea if we were well acquainted with the way such material is built up. In order to become a good screen translator, one needs to be aware of the extra-linguistic content of the story one is translating, not just the linguistic aspects. This is why I’m reading the ...