Imaginadium: Challenging 'It's not as good as the book'

imaginadium:

We’ve all had Gatsby fever for months. It seems eons since another film has been so highly anticipated, making the news that Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby may not be so great all the more disappointing. Adapting a novel so dearly loved by so many is a dangerous sport. Walter Salles’ recent…

Did Baz Lurhmann’s Great Gatsby adaptation leave you feeling a little disappointed? Then consider Kate Kelsall’s short list of “utterly compelling cinematic adaptations” to be just what the doctor ordered.

I’d say Wolitzer has written ‘a novel of ideas’ if said novel weren’t so engaging. (In my household, the phrase, “a novel of ideas,” is followed by an eye-roll. Such books are made for humorless people who don’t like television, candy, and/or dancing.) I read the book in four days, hushing anyone who tried to speak to me as I finished a paragraph or chapter, and laughing aloud at various cafes (yeah, I became that person).
Sing It, Sister! On Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings by Edan Lepucki
“As I read its final lines, declarative and profound and true, I felt mournful. The book — this book! — was over. I closed the novel and wondered if I could write a book this big, this ballsy. I imagined Ms. Wolitzer behind an imposing mahogany desk, quill in hand. ‘Why not?’ she said to me, and smiled. Yes, why not?” Sing It, Sister! On Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings by Edan Lepucki
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“As I read its final lines, declarative and profound and true, I felt mournful. The book — this book! — was over. I closed the novel and wondered if I could write a book this big, this ballsy. I imagined Ms. Wolitzer behind an imposing mahogany desk, quill in hand. ‘Why not?’ she said to me, and smiled. Yes, why not?”

Sing It, Sister! On Meg Wolitzer’s The Interestings by Edan Lepucki

“It was only when Kushner started writing her book that she made a discovery that is vital to any novelist trying to spin fiction out of historical events: the great danger is emptying your notebook, becoming lulled by your research into forgetting that novels are, first and last, works of the imagination.” Rachel Kushner Is Well On Her Way to Huge by Bill Morris
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“It was only when Kushner started writing her book that she made a discovery that is vital to any novelist trying to spin fiction out of historical events: the great danger is emptying your notebook, becoming lulled by your research into forgetting that novels are, first and last, works of the imagination.”

Rachel Kushner Is Well On Her Way to Huge by Bill Morris