Christopher’s Comments (group member since Mar 05, 2009)

Christopher’s comments from the fiction files redux group.

I understand Hollywood wants to make their own film version(s)--I wonder if they'd be any good. Casting would be everything. I predict Peter Sarsgaard will be Blomkvist, but it's Lisbeth Salander that would be key to making a film version work. Martyn, what did you think about the Swedish film version?

The math part wasn't my favorite, but it gave me some insight into Lisbeth, which is why I think it works in the novel. But yeah, that list stuff--like the excerpt Mo posted above about Salander's shopping trip--gets old.

Got it on hold at the local library and will hopefully pick it up soon--I plan to read it immediately.

Gunnarson's film has its moments, but then you've got Sarah Polley as some sort of witch/sex object for Beowulf, and Grendel's mother is almost laughable. The Icelandic setting is the best thing about that film.

I understand why screenwriters want to "update" the Beowulf story. It doesn't really have a traditional story arc, except that Beowulf is young at first and then old at the end with the dragon. So screenwriters cook up ways to make the story "work" by creating backstories, in both of these cases by making King Hrothgar the bad guy.

I'll add that after teaching "Beowulf" to a class of high-school seniors, I showed them the Robert Zemeckis film version. Some of them--all boys--loved the film, but one boy, the president of his class, looked at me when the lights came up and said, "That was a travesty."

Having seen "Beowulf and Grendel," this is probably worse:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGlSAt...

To say nothing of the "Beowulf" travesty with Angeline Jolie as a naked, golden monster whore:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9qpqy...

According to Wikipedia, the film version is "vaguely based" on the novel. But it has Richard Widmark and Sidney Poitier in it, so it can't be horrible.

It is a long book, but it's not a hard read. Bengtsson likes to use comic understatement, and the Vikings are mostly likable rogues who can be vicious killers when the need arises, which isn't infrequent.

Speaking of vikings, I can't tell if this looks great or just bloody:

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/in...

I've read it. Good adventure tale. Lots of it told rather than shown, so years of creative writing classes prejudiced me against the book at first. But slowly the book won me over. A good, grand sweeping tale. I'd be up for a group read of it.

Speaking as a fan of these books, I think this piece in The New Yorker is brilliant parody: "The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut" (http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2010/0...)

I'm with e-monk and JE. If the novel is dead, then I, Martyn, JE and the rest of us have been wasting our time. Which I would vehemently argue is not true. The long fiction form can do things no other art form can do. It will change and evolve just as it has from Tom Jones to Jane Eyre to Ulysses to now, but it's not dead.

Happy belated birthday, Dan and Shel!

How about novels by David Liss like A Conspiracy of Paper, The Coffee Trader or The Whiskey Rebels? Or are you looking for novels in a more modern setting (past one hundred years or so)?

I made it about halfway through Atlas Shrugged before closing the book for good. Read Tobias Wolff's Old School for a priceless scene with Ayn Rand and her disciples.

Her writing makes me laugh.

Hope you've had a great one, Patrick.

Happy birthday, Jennie Hettrick! Be good or don't get caught.

As someone who would like to, one day, make a living (of any sort) off of writing fiction, this is pretty interesting stuff. Recently, Ken Auletta wrote an article in The New Yorker titled "Publish or Perish," about the iPad vs. the Kindle and the future of publishing. Sums up the problems of bricks-and-mortar stores & publishing companies on the one hand and e-readers and digital publishing on the other. Check it out: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/20...

One point brought up: with digital publishing, it's possible a writer could make far more than 7%. But traditional publishers still offer writers more than if, say, Amazon became a major publisher. Money quote:

"Although critics argue that traditional book publishing takes too much money from authors, in reality the profits earned by the relatively small percentage of authors whose books make money essentially go to subsidizing less commercially successful writers. The system is inefficient, but it supports a class of professional writers, which might not otherwise exist."

Happy b-day, Jennifer!

Dinesen's "The Sailor-Boy's Tale" is in my top five best short stories of all time.

(Potential spoilers for "Shutter Island" below):

"Shutter Island" was a great mind-twist. Sometimes novels like that bother me because I feel I've been had, but not in a "oh, you got me!" kind of way...more of a, "WTF? That's completely bogus" kind of way.

If I've been given the same information or clues as the protagonist, then I feel it's fair to be fooled. Especially if there are Watson-type characters in the story who don't get it, either, until the end.

Haven't read anything else of his yet. What would you all recommend? I think I've got "Mystic River" lying around somewhere...

Oi, Martyn! Congratulations!