And those electronic reading tablets don’t help because while they show the text of a book electronically they also seem to be riddled with hyperlinks for every name or key word such that the reader becomes more easily sidetracked by scrolling through the links which fragments the attention you would otherwise have given without interruption to the text.
Not sure what type of tablet you’re talking about, but that is not something I’ve experienced with a Kindle (or a Sony reader, for that matter). I suspect that there is a setting that would enable you to turn the hyperlinks off.
My father made the same argument with respect to radio over television, in the days when radio had narrative programming, which morphed into TV and left little in the way of characters and staging to the imagination. The last vestiges of this audio experience, aside from audio books, was on of the BBC radio channels that did full blown plays or books, when I lived in the UK in the late 1970's.
As an aside, much to my wife's puzzlement, I purposely don't associate the characters in a movie with a a specific star (John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, excepted), so that I think of them as characters, rather than actors, when I see them on screen.
As another aside relevant to another comment, I probably have 600 titles in my Kindle library. I enjoy the ability to link to references in the text or to have new or obscure words defined for me at the tap of a finger. I can choose to take advantage of this convenience or not, but I find it enhances my reading, rather than disrupting it.
My husband is always surprised that I never know who the actors are that he tells me about in some movie he's watching. I don't care who they are (except for a couple of favorites, okay), and I don't care to know all about their lives off screen. I'm just interested in the story and its characters.
You are, I believe, a hundred percent correct. I have been an insatiable reader since I was quite young, and my mind takes the words off the page and transforms them into a sort of mental movie which, with a well written story, falls into much the same mental space as personal recollections. Although I DO remain capable of distinguishing between reality and fiction, nonetheless there are many characters who still seem like old friends or acquaintances. While it is disconcerting when actors in a play, movie, or television show differ greatly from my mental images, I can deal with it to some extent. However, when it clearly been changed in order to satisfy some demand of DEI despite there being no rational explanation for the change, it has the same effect on me as typos, missing or misspelled words, words used incorrectly, etc. - i.e. it takes me out of the story and makes me hyper-aware that I’m merely reading or watching an artificial production, not a retelling of something that did - or could have - actually happened.
Years ago I saw a stage production of “A Christmas Carol” set, of course, in 19th century Victorian England. While all the characters —Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchet, Ebenezer Scrooge, et, al.) were Anglo with proper British accents, Mrs. Fezziwig was a large black lady who sang a song reminiscent of a negro spiritual. Nothing against the actress or her singing style, but it was totally out of character. No way an interracial couple (Mr. Fezziwig was white) would have existed in that setting.
Interesting to note though, that while woke casting directors have no problem replacing white characters with other ethnic actors, they would find it appalling to replace black, Asian, Hispanic etc. characters with white actors. Total double standard.
Sometimes I have wondered if Japanese/Chinese have some sort of education advantage having such a complex “alphabet” for their languages. Children who master that might find math and science to be easy. Or maybe only easy to memorize the answers?
Western culture is papering over its failure to effectively teach all children to read and compounding that error with replacing studying classic Western literature and responding to it in writing with exploring "updated, diverse, and non-written" communication.
Modern "news outlets" fail to stick to classic journalistic standards of leading with the five Ws and leaving "color commentary" to the readers and the Opinions page.
Spot on & - as entertainment value - it can’t be exceeded. As a lover of Military History from a tender age, I’ve felt the experiences of a Sergeant of The Imperial Guard thru the occupation & retreat from Moscow in 1812 to those of a Screaming Eagle of the 101st Airborne advancing up the shell-blasted slope of Hamburger Hill in South Vietnam in 1969.
I almost always decline to watch movies based on books I have read and loved. Only very rarely have I been pleasantly surprised when I've done so. I wonder if there's any connection between what you say here and the idea that an increasingly visual culture is an increasingly pagan culture . . . just musing; I haven't thought it through.
There are a few movies that I felt lived up to or exceeded the books… the Ring trilogy (but most definitely not the Hobbit), Game of Thrones, maybe a handful more. Most just either leave out way too much, or dumb them down for the presumed lower sophistication of movie audiences.
I recall a short story, “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank,” which carried a great theme of personal responsibility and growth… and was turned into a juvenile hacker made-for-TV movie.
I don’t care if they change things from the way I imagine them, as long as they retain the core.
And those electronic reading tablets don’t help because while they show the text of a book electronically they also seem to be riddled with hyperlinks for every name or key word such that the reader becomes more easily sidetracked by scrolling through the links which fragments the attention you would otherwise have given without interruption to the text.
Not sure what type of tablet you’re talking about, but that is not something I’ve experienced with a Kindle (or a Sony reader, for that matter). I suspect that there is a setting that would enable you to turn the hyperlinks off.
Excellent essay. Thank you!
My father made the same argument with respect to radio over television, in the days when radio had narrative programming, which morphed into TV and left little in the way of characters and staging to the imagination. The last vestiges of this audio experience, aside from audio books, was on of the BBC radio channels that did full blown plays or books, when I lived in the UK in the late 1970's.
As an aside, much to my wife's puzzlement, I purposely don't associate the characters in a movie with a a specific star (John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, excepted), so that I think of them as characters, rather than actors, when I see them on screen.
As another aside relevant to another comment, I probably have 600 titles in my Kindle library. I enjoy the ability to link to references in the text or to have new or obscure words defined for me at the tap of a finger. I can choose to take advantage of this convenience or not, but I find it enhances my reading, rather than disrupting it.
My husband is always surprised that I never know who the actors are that he tells me about in some movie he's watching. I don't care who they are (except for a couple of favorites, okay), and I don't care to know all about their lives off screen. I'm just interested in the story and its characters.
You are, I believe, a hundred percent correct. I have been an insatiable reader since I was quite young, and my mind takes the words off the page and transforms them into a sort of mental movie which, with a well written story, falls into much the same mental space as personal recollections. Although I DO remain capable of distinguishing between reality and fiction, nonetheless there are many characters who still seem like old friends or acquaintances. While it is disconcerting when actors in a play, movie, or television show differ greatly from my mental images, I can deal with it to some extent. However, when it clearly been changed in order to satisfy some demand of DEI despite there being no rational explanation for the change, it has the same effect on me as typos, missing or misspelled words, words used incorrectly, etc. - i.e. it takes me out of the story and makes me hyper-aware that I’m merely reading or watching an artificial production, not a retelling of something that did - or could have - actually happened.
Exactly!
Years ago I saw a stage production of “A Christmas Carol” set, of course, in 19th century Victorian England. While all the characters —Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchet, Ebenezer Scrooge, et, al.) were Anglo with proper British accents, Mrs. Fezziwig was a large black lady who sang a song reminiscent of a negro spiritual. Nothing against the actress or her singing style, but it was totally out of character. No way an interracial couple (Mr. Fezziwig was white) would have existed in that setting.
Interesting to note though, that while woke casting directors have no problem replacing white characters with other ethnic actors, they would find it appalling to replace black, Asian, Hispanic etc. characters with white actors. Total double standard.
Thanks for your comment.
The book is always better than the movie. Every single time.
Sometimes I have wondered if Japanese/Chinese have some sort of education advantage having such a complex “alphabet” for their languages. Children who master that might find math and science to be easy. Or maybe only easy to memorize the answers?
Western culture is papering over its failure to effectively teach all children to read and compounding that error with replacing studying classic Western literature and responding to it in writing with exploring "updated, diverse, and non-written" communication.
Modern "news outlets" fail to stick to classic journalistic standards of leading with the five Ws and leaving "color commentary" to the readers and the Opinions page.
Spot on & - as entertainment value - it can’t be exceeded. As a lover of Military History from a tender age, I’ve felt the experiences of a Sergeant of The Imperial Guard thru the occupation & retreat from Moscow in 1812 to those of a Screaming Eagle of the 101st Airborne advancing up the shell-blasted slope of Hamburger Hill in South Vietnam in 1969.
Find Veteran’s experiences absolutely riveting.
I almost always decline to watch movies based on books I have read and loved. Only very rarely have I been pleasantly surprised when I've done so. I wonder if there's any connection between what you say here and the idea that an increasingly visual culture is an increasingly pagan culture . . . just musing; I haven't thought it through.
There are a few movies that I felt lived up to or exceeded the books… the Ring trilogy (but most definitely not the Hobbit), Game of Thrones, maybe a handful more. Most just either leave out way too much, or dumb them down for the presumed lower sophistication of movie audiences.
I recall a short story, “Overdrawn at the Memory Bank,” which carried a great theme of personal responsibility and growth… and was turned into a juvenile hacker made-for-TV movie.
I don’t care if they change things from the way I imagine them, as long as they retain the core.