sister_luck (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sister_luck) wrote2007-06-10 04:00 pm
sister_luck) wrote2007-06-10 04:00 pm
Entry tags:
Reading and talking
I managed to snap my glasses in half on Friday morning - in the school parking lot while cleaning them with the hem of my t-shirt. I knew that was a bad habit, but I didn't know it could be lethal to the frames. It meant that I taught the whole day wearing my stylish sun glasses. That got a few odd looks.
Breaking my glasses had a positive side-effect though. On Friday afternoon we walked to the optometrist, so I could get them replaced. Of course, the guy there needed some persuading that this was a case for the three-year-warranty. They're currently trying to order a new frame and if that doesn' work out I'll just have to get new ones.
So, where's the positive? There's a huge bookstore opposite the optometrist and I just had to go in there. I came out with two books: T.C. Boyle's Talk Talk and the first Dexter novel which I got for the bargain price of 5 €.
Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter is a good book, but the television series achieves so much more. The groundwork is already there, but the version on the screen expands it, fleshes out the minor characters and makes the central mystery of the ice-truck killer much more compelling, more horrifying and structurally better. The constraint of having a serial killer as a first-person-narrator is fairly limiting and by putting it on screen the audience is offered a broader perspective. I don't know the extent of the original author's involvement in the screenwriting, but for me this is one of the few successful transitions of a crime novel to the screen. Probably because they had a 12 episode season for one book - they added a few more subplots and murders of the week, but the overall arc of the season is the central mystery of the book. Maybe that's how it should be done - one book as one season, but I guess this wouldn't work for most detective novels because there aren't enough subplots. The television adaptations of the Rebus novels by Ian Rankin might have benefited from this treatment though.
The T.C. Boyle novel was a surprisingly quick read, but I think I barely scratched the surface. It's very accessible and basically a mystery, too, so you're tempted to read it for the plot. The underlying issues of identity, communication and language are still swirling through my brain and might need a second visit to be more fully understood. As always the characters aren't judged - that's the reader's job. They're all flawed and sometimes rather annoying, but to different degrees.
Breaking my glasses had a positive side-effect though. On Friday afternoon we walked to the optometrist, so I could get them replaced. Of course, the guy there needed some persuading that this was a case for the three-year-warranty. They're currently trying to order a new frame and if that doesn' work out I'll just have to get new ones.
So, where's the positive? There's a huge bookstore opposite the optometrist and I just had to go in there. I came out with two books: T.C. Boyle's Talk Talk and the first Dexter novel which I got for the bargain price of 5 €.
Jeff Lindsay's Darkly Dreaming Dexter is a good book, but the television series achieves so much more. The groundwork is already there, but the version on the screen expands it, fleshes out the minor characters and makes the central mystery of the ice-truck killer much more compelling, more horrifying and structurally better. The constraint of having a serial killer as a first-person-narrator is fairly limiting and by putting it on screen the audience is offered a broader perspective. I don't know the extent of the original author's involvement in the screenwriting, but for me this is one of the few successful transitions of a crime novel to the screen. Probably because they had a 12 episode season for one book - they added a few more subplots and murders of the week, but the overall arc of the season is the central mystery of the book. Maybe that's how it should be done - one book as one season, but I guess this wouldn't work for most detective novels because there aren't enough subplots. The television adaptations of the Rebus novels by Ian Rankin might have benefited from this treatment though.
The T.C. Boyle novel was a surprisingly quick read, but I think I barely scratched the surface. It's very accessible and basically a mystery, too, so you're tempted to read it for the plot. The underlying issues of identity, communication and language are still swirling through my brain and might need a second visit to be more fully understood. As always the characters aren't judged - that's the reader's job. They're all flawed and sometimes rather annoying, but to different degrees.
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Compared to the television series the book is fluff - not as intense, because the visuals and the acting make the characters come to life. It's nice to read though, because you can hear the actors say the lines, especially Dexter's sister.
Rita, on the other hand, is dull in the book, because you only get Dexter's perspective and the same goes for many of the other characters - LaGuerta and Angel especially. The character of Doakes works quite well in the book, because Dexter recognizes him as a possible adversary and a threat.