Language in Historical Fiction

I've just finished watching Season Four of THE CHOSEN, the streaming series about Jesus and his followers. (It seems likely the title refers to the latter.) I find it captivating, although naturally it's not perfect. In the first season, the Roman soldiers sometimes act like the Gestapo in a Nazi-occupied country, whereas from what I've read, the Roman occupation was more like the British Raj in India. The Pharisees are portrayed as if they wielded official authority, when in fact they were a self-appointed religious-political pressure group promoting strict observance of the Law. What the series brings to mind for me at the moment, though, are linguistic issues. How should characters in a historical novel or film talk in order to seem approachable by modern audiences yet also quasi-authentic or at least not blatantly anachronistic?

If a historical person's speech includes jarringly contemporary slang -- unless it's humorously meant as parody, of course -- it throws the reader or viewer out of the story. On the other hand, characters who speak "forsoothly" can feel emotionally distant rather than engaging. Worse, some writers have a tenuous grasp of archaic language and season their texts with random peppering of "thee," "-est," "-eth," etc., with no regard for the actual grammar of premodern English. Obsolete words can lend the narrative an authentic flavor but, if the meanings aren't obvious from context, may confuse the reader. I admire the way Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Count Saint-Germain novels refer to clothing and some other everyday items by the terms used in the respective historical periods rather than substituting modern approximations. But, then, Yarbro is an expert with many decades of experience, and even so, I'm not always certain what a particular article of clothing looks like; her skill, fortunately, always gives the reader enough to go on with.

Then there's the issue of narrative and dialogue meant to be understood as translating from a foreign language. Some old war movies show enemy soldiers speaking with German accents, as if they're foreigners to themselves. The new miniseries adaptation of SHOGUN makes the bold decision to have Japanese dialogue spoken in that language with English subtitles, immersively realistic but rather demanding on the audience. The filmmakers do give us a rest by letting the European characters talk to each other in English when they're presumably speaking Portuguese. In my opinion, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER made an excellent choice with scenes on the Russian submarine. For the first few minutes, the actors speak Russian with subtitles. Then we have a conversation when the captain (Sean Connery) is reading aloud from a book written in English. His spoken dialogue segues from Russian into English, and thereafter Russians talking among themselves do so in English "translation." When foreign languages in historical fiction are "translated" into English, as in most novels and movies, it seems appropriate to render casual speech from the supposed original language into colloquial modern English rather than making the characters talk in an unrealistically stilted, formal style. With one precaution -- the writer should take scrupulous care to avoid anachronistic references, such as metaphors based on technology that didn't exist in the particular past era, e.g., "like a broken record" before the 20th century. But how far should the dialogue go in the direction of informality to be accessible without the intrusion of jarringly modern slang?

I'm ambivalent about the way THE CHOSEN handles that question. Mostly I like the casual, colloquial dialogue, but sometimes the characters use trendy phrases that I think make them sound too much like contemporaries of our Gen-X children. I don't object to words such as "okay," though. That's been around since before the mid-19th century. As for accents, it puzzles me that the locals speak with what I guess is meant to be a Middle Eastern accent, again as if they're foreigners to themselves. Logically, the Jewish characters should speak unaccented English and the Romans, as the outsiders, should have an accent -- maybe a hint of Italian? I winced, by the way, when a Roman soldier stumbles over the name "Peter." It's Greek, the common language of the eastern Roman empire; of course he would know it means "rock"! (Furthermore, for maximum realism the disciples should address Peter by the Aramaic word for rock, Cephas.)

The regional and class issue should also be taken into account, in my opinion. Dorothy Sayers, in the introduction to her radio play cycle THE MAN BORN TO BE KING, discusses accents in this context. Should Jesus and his disciples speak more correctly than the working-class people around them, as if the disciples weren't part of the same population? Jesus and his mother need to share the same accent, but would it make sense to have them talk differently from his followers? Sayers also brings up and dismisses the complication of regional dialects. THE CHOSEN doesn't allow for that, either. I wish they'd taken into account the fact that Jesus, his mother, and several of the disciples come from Galilee. Since inhabitants of that area were considered uncouth by people from around Jerusalem, the dialogue should reflect that difference. I'd like Jesus, Peter, et al to have a distinct regional accent, maybe a tinge of Scottish or Irish, something I've never seen in any film version of the Gospel story. I wonder how THE CHOSEN will handle the moment during Peter's denial scene when a bystander recognizes him as a disciple by his Galilean accent?

Writers of fiction set in past eras or foreign cultures need to strike a delicate balance between annoying purists and baffling casual readers.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Do Spoilers Really Spoil?

The latest issue of SKEPTICAL INQUIRER includes an article exploring whether advance exposure to spoilers actually makes the experience of reading a book or viewing a movie (the author mainly discusses films) worse, neutral, or better:

Savoring Uncertainty

The author, Stuart Vyse, starts by analyzing the difference between stories that provide a "clear resolution" and those that end with ambiguities unresolved. He notes, "Given the chaos of everyday life, it’s understandable that people are drawn to stories that make sense and provide closure." He links this tendency to a wish to believe we live in a just universe, offering the TV series LAW AND ORDER as a typical example. There I think he's absolutely right. The traditional detective novel is the most moral of genres. It promises that problems will be solved, questions answered, justice served, and criminals punished. In rare cases when the criminal escapes the grasp of the law, it's because the detective has determined his or her crime was justified. Vyse contrasts the traditional formula with the "noir" subgenre, in which ambiguity reigns, morality comes in shades of gray, and justice is far from guaranteed.

He then discusses the connection, if any, between enjoyment of ambiguity and tolerance of spoilers. He also goes into the definition of a spoiler, which can vary according to the individual experiencing it -- e.g., someone who's naive about the particular genre, such as a small child -- and to what extent the information constitutes "common knowledge." We'd all probably agree that the prohibition on spoilers has run out for mentioning that Romeo and Juliet die at the end of the play, for example. For a century or more, certainly since the first movie adaptations came out, everybody has known Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde inhabit the same body. The phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" has become proverbial. When the novella was first published, however, that secret came as a shocking revelation near the end. Upon the original publication of DRACULA, readers who ignored reviews could have picked up the novel without suspecting the Count's true nature. Nowadays, even elementary-school kids know "Dracula" equals "vampire."

Vyse cites research on whether spoilers decrease appreciation for a work, increase it, or have no effect. Results of various studies yield different answers. I've noticed tolerance for spoilers ranges from the zero-tolerance of fans such as one of our children, who avoids even book cover blurbs if possible, to my own attitude, sympathetic to a comment I read somewhere that a story capable of being "spoiled" by knowledge of what happens isn't worth spoiling. I admit exceptions of course, such as knowing the killer before the big reveal in a murder mystery (on first reading, at least) or works in which the climactic twist is the whole point of the thing, such as THE SIXTH SENSE. I don't at all mind knowing in advance whether a major character will live or die; in fact, I sometimes sneak a peak at the end to relieve the stress of wondering. When the series finale of FOREVER KNIGHT aired, I was glad I'd read a summary before viewing the episode. When I actually saw the devastating final scene, having braced myself for the worst allowed me to feel it wasn't quite so bad as other fans had maintained. Having reread many of my favorite books over and over demonstrates that foreknowledge of the plot doesn't bother me. With that knowledge, I can relax into the pleasure of revisiting familiar characters.

In one of C. S. Lewis's works of literary criticism, he declares that the point of a startling twist in a book or any artistic medium isn't the surprise in itself. It's "a certain surprisingness." During subsequent exposures to the work, we have the fun of anticipating the upcoming surprise and enjoying how the creator prepares us for it. In a second or later reading of a mystery, for example, we can notice the clues the author has hidden in plain sight. We realize how we should have guessed the murderer and admire the author's skill at concealing the solution to while still playing fair with the reader. (Along that line, I was astonished to hear Nora Roberts remark at a convention that she doesn't plan her "In Death" novels written under the name "J. D. Robb" in advance. How can anyone compose a detective story without detailed plotting? She must have to do an awful lot of cleanup in revision.)

Learning the general plot of a novel or film prior to reading or viewing doesn't "spoil" it for me. I read or watch for the experience of sharing the characters' problems, dangers, and joys, discovering how they navigate the challenges of the story, and getting immersed in their emotional and interpersonal growth. Once the "narrative lust" (another phrase from Lewis, referring to the drive to rush through the narrative to find out what happens next) has been satisfied by the first reading or viewing, in future ones we can take a while to savor all the satisfying details we didn't fully appreciate the first time.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt

Grumbling About Adaptations

The second season of the current INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE series has begun. I'm ambivalent about this project. It has lots to admire. The series format allows far more delving into and expansion on the novel than the movie did. The TV version restores the subplot of Louis's religiously devout brother, replaced in the movie by a simplistic premise of "my wife died young, so I have nothing to live for." Presenting the interviewer, hardly more than a boy in the book, as an aging, sickly, cynical veteran journalist revisiting his youthful conversations with Louis to set the record straight impresses me as a stroke of genius. Among other things, this technique cleverly justifies discrepancies between the novel and the new adaptation.

I dislike two major changes made by the series, however: First and less critical, the aging-up of Claudia from a little girl to a 14-year-old. Of course, the metafictional reason is obvious. A child actress would outgrow the role too fast, whereas Claudia is supposed to be frozen at the age when she was turned. But making her old enough to pass for late teens or even early twenties (though we haven't seen her do the latter) loses both the horrifying and tragic dimensions of an adult mind potentially stuck for centuries in a child's body. The preview of next week's episode, though, does show her exploiting that frightfully perverse situation as an actress in the Theatre des Vampires. She wears a frilly baby-doll costume and introduces herself as a murderous vampire trapped in the shape of a little girl.

More importantly, I was disappointed by the time shift. Sure, early 20th-century New Orleans has exciting possibilities as a setting, but so does antebellum New Orleans from the original source. Although the producers claim they didn't think audiences would find the early 19th century interesting or relatable, I suspect them of being too lazy or stingy to recreate the period. What, TV audiences didn't embrace GAME OF THRONES (medieval-style fantasy world) or OUTLANDER (mid- to late-18th century Scotland and America)? Antebellum New Orleans had a thriving "free colored" population (as richly portrayed in Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January historical mystery series). I would have loved to see Louis as a free Black businessman in that era. A fantastic opportunity wasted, in my opinion.

I recently read FRANKLY, MY DEAR, a film scholar's in-depth analysis of GONE WITH THE WIND, mostly the movie but with cogent comparisons to the novel as well. As epic movies go, this one mostly sticks about as close to the source material as could reasonably be expected in the allotted running time. A miniseries version, which would allow inclusion of the subplots left out of the movie, would be highly desirable -- except that it's hard to imagine a convincing new Scarlett with Vivian Leigh lingering in the audience's mind's eye. Not to mention Rhett Butler. (I didn't mind the replacement actress in the sequel, SCARLETT, because she's older there than in most of the novel, so it's believable that she would have changed some. Rhett, though -- to me, Rhett IS Clark Gable.) The censoring of language, required by the film code of that era, is more amusing than annoying. It's not as if we don't know what they really mean, and the director doubtless had to make concessions to earn Rhett's final "damn." For instance, Prissy can't say she'd be skinned alive for entering a "ho house"; she has to say something like "Miz Watling's place." The prudishness rises to a level of absurdity, though, when Scarlett banishes Rhett from her bedroom. In the book, he tells her, "Keep your chaste bed." In the film it's, "Keep your sanctity." A mention of chastity was considered obscene? LOL.

The one major change I disapprove of is the omission of Scarlett's first child, the boy fathered by ill-fated Charles Hamilton. We don't miss her daughter by Frank Kennedy, who's little more than a cipher in the novel anyway. But Scarlett's first pregnancy helps to explain how she could get through Melanie's rough delivery with only the dubious help of Prissy, who notoriously doesn't know anything about birthin' babies. In the real 19th century, well-to-do women often provided aid to poor families during occasions of sickness or childbirth, as Scarlett's mother does in GONE WITH THE WIND. Unlike Marmee in LITTLE WOMEN, however, Ellen O'Hara apparently shelters her daughters from such activities. So Scarlett's first pregnancy serves a plot purpose in the book, and its omission in the movie leaves her relative competence in the Atlanta childbirth sequence unexplained.

While I reluctantly realize that fiction and film are two different media and no movie or TV adaptation can capture everything in its source material, for me the book is always primary. When viewing a film version of a book, I want as faithful a rendition of the original as possible. For example, ROSEMARY'S BABY is practically perfect in that respect, and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS comes close. The miniseries versions of WINDS OF WAR and WAR AND REMEMBRANCE (available on DVD) do an impressively good job, not surprising with a script written by the author of the novels, Herman Wouk. If the producers and directors of an adaptation don't really like the story as it comes to them, why do they bother making a movie or series of it? (Such as the travesty of STARSHIP TROOPERS, which lifts the title and superficial plot elements from Heinlein's novel to construct a script that leaves out the most important scenes of his book -- the flashbacks to the high-school ethics course, one fragment of which is included but twisted to convey the opposite of what's meant in the novel -- and directly contradicts its core message.) So the first thing I look for in a book-to-film transformation is respect for and maximum feasible fidelity to the author's story. After that, one hopes for all the other elements to be good, too.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Modernizing Scrooge

Many of Shakespeare's plays have been transmuted into modern settings, such as WEST SIDE STORY (from ROMEO AND JULIET), SHE'S THE MAN (from TWELFTH NIGHT), and 10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU (from THE TAMING OF THE SHREW), not to mention at least one animated animal drama, Disney's THE LION KING (from HAMLET). Jane Austen's novels have become a source for modern romantic movies, e.g. BRIDGET JONES'S DIARY (from PRIDE AND PREJUDICE) and CLUELESS (from EMMA). The classic film of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS was updated to the time when it was made (1950s) rather than its original 1890s setting.

A CHRISTMAS CAROL, of course, boasts a huge number of film adaptations, some of which have contemporary settings. Three movies illustrate different ways of approaching such a project: A DIVA'S CHRISTMAS CAROL obviously takes place in an alternate universe where Charles Dickens's novel was never published. Nobody in the cast seems to find anything odd about a Black superstar singer named Ebony Scrooge with a dead partner named Marley (one member of the female trio Ebony belonged to at the beginning of her career) and a manager named Bob Cratchit who has a sick child called Tim. Ebony has a niece, rather than a nephew, with whom she reconciles at the end. This retelling is fun and, in my opinion, surprisingly good. The characters in the comedy-drama SCROOGED, on the other hand, are thoroughly genre-savvy, being involved in a production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL themselves. Its star's happy ending has one feature most adapatations don't; he wins back his former lover, the movie's Belle substitute. AN AMERICAN CHRISTMAS CAROL, whose Christmas Present action occurs during the Depression, completely revamps the story with new names and backstories for the characters within the familiar basic plotline. Although the Scrooge figure, Ben Slade, is aware of the book, he hasn't read it. It's clear he's not much of a reader, especially given his decision to destroy the repossessed contents of a bookstore for the books' paper and leather components. When he glances through the novel, he pronounces it "claptrap" and is even more resistant to belief in spirits than old Ebenezer.

Of the three, I like the last one best. The Depression-era setting resonates with the wealth-and-poverty dichotomy of the original story's Victorian background. Ben Slade (played by Henry Winkler -- very effectively, too) has similar financial power over the less fortunate characters as Scrooge in Dickens's book. In fact, Ben has more power, since the action takes place in a small New England town, where he's virtually the only rich, influential person. The wintry landscape visually enhances the story, too.

Like many classics, A CHRISTMAS CAROL can be reimagined to a considerable extent while still keeping the fundamental plot and characters recognizable (Mr. Magoo? Mickey Mouse's Uncle Scrooge?), even if a modern milieu is chosen and requires omitting the "Bah, humbug!"

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Karen Wiesner: Fiction Series So Big, They Cross Multimedia Platforms: The Witcher Series

Fiction Series So Big, They Cross Multimedia Platforms:

The Witcher Series, created by Andrzej Sapkowski

by Karen Wiesner

In this article series I'm calling "Fiction Series So Big, They Cross Multimedia Platforms", I plan to explore supernatural fiction series that sometimes had their beginnings as books but branched out into other types of mediums, like videogames, movies/TV series, board/card/role-playing games, and music. In each individual article that I hope will introduce entertainment connoisseurs to some incredible fiction or components of similar themed stories they might have otherwise missed, I'll discuss the origins of the series elements as well as my individual experience with the various types of media, which will be presented as a kind of review of the series. Let's start with a particular favorite of mine: Polish bestselling author Andrzej Sapkowski's The Witcher Series.

In Poland, The Witcher Series has a cult following and is so popular, a garden square in the author's hometown was renamed Witcher Square and a mural (the largest in Poland!) of the main character, Geralt, was painted on a local skyscraper. Americans didn't get translations of the book series for 17 years after the first story was published in Poland (and a couple of them still remain untranslated). The popularity of the videogames no doubt gave rise to interest in the books, which in turn incited the TV series that's become a favorite among fans of the supernatural.

Which Came First?

Sapkowski's The Witcher book series has everything a lover of the supernatural could want with the cool twist of a "genetically engineered" hero designed to hunt monsters of lore using melee combat, alchemical potions and decoctions that would be poison to anyone without the witcher mutagen, and some magical abilities called signs. Geralt of Rivia is one of several other Witchers. In the past, the word "witcher" translated from the Polish was "hexer" or "spellmaker". Witchers are a dying breed, to be sure, in this series, and they're frequently aided by sorceresses like Yennefer of Vengerberg and Triss Merigold (male witches also exist in this world). Bards are popular in this world as well, whether a help or hindrance, especially Geralt's best friend, Dandelion (or Jaskier in Polish, which is what he's called in the Netflix series to much confusion for those who have read the English translated books or played the games).

The series is set on an unnamed continent settled thousands of years earlier by elves who came from overseas. War broke out between the elves and the dwarves who dwelled on the continent. Other beings existing at that time are gnomes, halflings, and dryads. Humans arrived after this time (500 years before the events of the series) and dominated all other races. Humans war amongst themselves as well. Like the author, the main character despises politics and tries to remain neutral, not always successfully. After a magical event called the Conjunction of the Spheres, werewolves, vampires, and a whole host of mystical creatures (taken from existing lore as well as unique creatures invented by the author, or hybrids thereof) spilled onto the continent.

Previously a traveling fur salesman with a degree in economics and a lover of fantasy, the Polish author wrote a short story called "The Witcher" that he entered in a competition held by a Polish sci-fi and fantasy magazine his son liked. Though he waited a year for the results (taking the 3rd place prize), readers of the magazine spurred the author to write more short stories with their approval. Positive reception quickly led him to undertaking a fantasy saga complete with novels. The Witcher Series was published in Poland between 1990 and 2013 while the first wasn't released until 2007 in the USA. Spin-offs include stories (written by other writers) set in the world of The Witcher featuring its characters. Comic books of The Witcher were published from 1993 to 2014. 

Early screen adaptations were an overseas 2001 film and a 2002 TV series (titled The Hexer). Netflix adapted the series to television in 2019 along with an animated film in 2021 and a live-action prequel series is also in the works.

The first Witcher videogame was released in 2007, the second in 2011; and the third and final of the trilogy, in 2015. The games, particularly the latter, are bestsellers and have received countless awards. A remake of the first game is in the works, along with a second trilogy.

In 2001, a tabletop role-playing game based on the books was published. Another was released in 2018 based on the videogames. Board games, available in physical and digital forms, are currently available. Additionally, card games based on the videogames are in circulation.

Soundtracks for the videogames contain breathtakingly beautiful music. A rock opera and a musical based on the series were produced by a Russian symphonic rock band between 2009 and 2012.

A Review of the Various Medium Components Available

I became intrigued with the Witcher Series when I watched my son playing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. I bought myself a copy, and my fascination with the series became absolute. I've played it countless times, many times a year, and the Blood and Wine DLC is some of the best bonus game material I've ever encountered. Every award this game won was well-deserved. This game is open-world and non-linear (you can do the quests in any order, for the most part), and much of the outcome is directly based on choices the player makes throughout, which is my favorite kind. As a gamer, I'm also a completionist, so I tend to do nearly every quest available (at least the first time), giving me a good two hundred hours of gameplay with this one. For the similarly obsessive type, I have an alphabetized, complete quest checklist uploaded here:  https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/5/5/23554234/witcher3questskarenwiesner.pdf.

After I played The Witcher 3 (and prior to playing The Witcher 2, which I'll talk about soon), I bought all Sapkowski's Witcher books and read them compulsively, more than once. They're phenomenal. Truly, some of the best books I've ever read. Below, you'll see the titles available in The Witcher Series (presented in chronological order--as they should be read--rather than in publication order):

1)    The Last Wish

2)    Sword of Destiny

3)    Season of Storms

4)    Blood of Elves

5)    The Time of Contempt

6)    Baptism of Fire

7)    The Tower of Swallows

8)    Lady of the Lake

9)    The Lady of the Lake

Next, I played The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. The gameplay is a bit trickier than 3, requiring the player to be prepared and anticipate monster attacks in advance with oils for the sword and potions designed to aid defense and attack (death otherwise, meaning multiple saves are necessary in case you die and need to reload to a previous save state). I'm so glad they changed this in the third game! Witcher 2 also has the unfortunate annoyance of forcing the player to (somehow) know the exact order each quest must be played in order to avoid missing out on anything. I designed my own "ideal order of quests" checklist to ensure I don't miss anything important in the 25 hours plus of gameplay this installment boasts. Gamer completionists can find my fairly thorough console version walkthrough here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/5/5/23554234/witcher2walkthroughkarenwiesner.pdf.

I enjoy this game immensely, though not quite as much as The Witcher 3, in part because it's a hybrid between a linear and a non-linear game. You're forced to complete certain of the quests (i.e., main quests) at a certain time, usually advancing you to another location in the game. Once those major quests are completed in the order they're required, you can settle in for a bit and complete location questions in a more non-linear manner. Again, the player's ongoing decisions affect the outcome of the storyline.

I do own the videogame The Witcher 1 on Steam and computer disk. Though it was supposed to be released on console back in the day, it ended up available only on PC. I find it much harder to play anything but point and click games, like Nancy Drew, on PC. A complicated combat game like The Witcher works so much better, in my opinion, using a game controller instead of a keyboard. In any case, I'm hopeful I will get to play the remake of The Witcher 1 in the coming years, if the promise of it comes to fruition--and that it's available on PC and consoles at the time of release.

Another media component of the videogames for this series are game soundtracks. I fell in love with the incredible soundtracks from each of the games, particularly the one for The Witcher 2. The gorgeous compositions created for the games have carried me through endless hours of writing sessions. Check them out here:

The Witcher 1 Soundtrack: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFIbVqHOOIU

The Witcher 2 Soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=witcher+2+soundtrack

The Witcher 3 Soundtrack:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=witcher+3+soundtrack

As if all this wasn't enough to embrace concerning a series with so many multimedia components, I love the mini-games that are played within each of the videogames. Specifically, Gwent in The Witcher 3 is a favorite card game of mine. I own all the physical decks along with an authentic game mat. I also enjoy Kings Dice from The Witcher 2. I've heard that in The Witcher 1, the player has the option of collecting "naughty" playing cards that are somehow related to Geralt's many sexual conquests. He must have a huge deck, if it's based on that, lol. This is one amorous hero, and the ladies (regardless of their race) love him.

I was thrilled when I heard about the Netflix adaptation of The Witcher Series, but I've found the results mixed, thus far. First, I strongly question the choices for some of the actors in the show, though they're growing on me, despite my qualms, a bit more after two seasons. Also, the first season whipsaws through time shifts so even a veteran reader of the books could easily become confused. The second season changes the series radically from the books with a new vision. I do admit, though, if I didn't consider the books canon, I might like the series more than I currently do. Those unhindered by the books will probably love the TV series. 

Whether you're a supernatural book reader, gamer, lover of TV and movies and music, I highly recommend The Witcher Series in all its multimedia facets. They're worth whatever time and monetary investments made on their behalf.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150+ titles and 16 series. Visit her here:

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Books to Films (Again)

The premiere of the AMC miniseries of Anne Rice's INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE set me thinking, again, about film adaptations of print fiction. Is it an unpardonable sin if a movie or TV series doesn't attempt to follow its book source as closely as possible (taking into account the different media and the limitations of the dramatic art as opposed to print fiction)? When I watch a movie or series based on a novel, I'm looking for the visual equivalent of the book. I want to see a faithful rendition of the story I enjoyed reading. With this new vampire series, I hoped for a more accurate translation of the novel to the screen than the original movie offered. Well, we don't get that. Louis's story in Rice's book begins in the late 18th century, but in 1910 in the TV series. Moreover, Louis becomes a mixed-race (therefore, by law black) owner of several brothels in the Storyville district of New Orleans. The declining fortunes of his well-to-do family depend on his business to prop them up. The retold story does retain Louis's mentally and physically fragile, fanatically religious brother, whose death drives Louis to accept Lestat's "dark gift." So far, the setting of early 20th-century New Orleans has an undeniable fascination, and the atmosphere is darkly enthralling, with a tinge of twisted eroticism. On its own terms, this series looks like a compelling tale of dark fantasy. But it diverges significantly from Rice's narrative.

The fidelity of adaptations to their sources ranges from almost complete to appropriating a title and little else. THE LAWNMOWER MAN exemplifies the latter, having nothing in common with the Stephen King short story it's ostensibly based on other than including a lawn mower. On the opposite end of the spectrum, ROSEMARY'S BABY follows its original as faithfully as can be expected in the time span of a feature film, and GONE WITH THE WIND comes almost as close as feasible without turning it into a miniseries. The typical movie version of a book, though, has to select elements from the original to translate the highlights of the story to the screen, since there wouldn't be time to incorporate every scene and dialogue passage. That's why the ideal film medium for a full-length novel is a miniseries, not a cinematic feature. Then there are movies that hijack title, characters, and basic plot points, then drive the resulting product off into the tall weeds with little or no respect for the plundered original. STARSHIP TROOPERS comes to mind.

It's often pointed out, quite reasonably, that because print and film are two different media, most print narratives can't be translated to film intact. Movies even have advantages over books in some respects such as showing scenes in a few minutes that would take many paragraphs to describe on the page. Physical action, particularly, works better in a visual medium. On the other hand, books have the advantage when it comes to conveying what goes on in the minds of characters. Some novels that have been assumed unfilmable, however, have been made into successful movies. For instance, GERALD'S GAME, the Stephen King work focusing almost entirely on a solitary woman handcuffed to a bed, became a very effective streaming program.

Although I strongly prefer an adaptation that maintains complete fidelity to its source, or nearly so as possible, I can enjoy almost anything that's well made and shows sincere respect for the original.

Carter's Crypt

Fiction About Creating Fiction

This week I watched the Fred Astaire musical THE BAND WAGON. The plot (such as it is) revolves around a lighthearted musical play the Fred Astaire character's two best friends have written for him as a comeback vehicle. The famous director who's persuaded to take charge of the production insists they rewrite the story as a contemporary, avant-garde musical adaptation of FAUST. When the opening performance proves to be a spectacular flop, the cast and crew remake the play according to the original script. So this movie is a musical about the making of two musicals.

KISS ME, KATE is another well-known example of a film about producing a play. Many others appear in the list on the TV Tropes page titled "The Musical Musical":

The Musical Musical

Of course, the device of a play within a play goes back to Shakespeare, if not earlier. In A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, the workmen of the city put on a play about Pyramus and Thisbe, meant as a movingly tragic drama but turning into a farce. Hamlet writes a revenge drama for the visiting actors to perform in an attempt to expose his murderous uncle and even lectures them on acting techniques.

Then there are films and TV series such as WANDAVISION and PLEASANTVILLE, in which the protagonist is trapped inside a TV show or movie come to life.

Novels about writing books are not uncommon, also. One obvious example is Stephen King's MISERY, in which the villainess forces the author of her favorite series to compose a sequel restoring the supposedly dead heroine to life.

Such stories can go either way in terms of the relation of the embedded fiction to the main plot. In MISERY, the melodramatic historical novel the author writes during his captivity contrasts sharply with his own desperate plight; the process of creation offers temporary escape. In HAMLET, the content and theme of the play within a play deliberately echo the situation at Elsinore.

Do authors create stories like this mainly because, as labeled on TV Tropes, "Most writers are writers," and we tend to "write what we know"?

Most Writers Are Writers

Or are there deeper reasons why many people enjoy metafictional fiction?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt