Fincher's "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

I would characterize all of them as great fiction, actually.

 

(1) She has Asperger's? You serious? This is seriously the "it" disease of the moment. They gave Zuckerberg Asperger's in "The Social Network." The kid in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" now has Asperger's, though he may have had it in the book, too. I'll have to see the movie and see if they embellished or if I just didn't grasp it first time around. The NYT ran an 80-inch boring story on Christmas Day about a couple with Asperger's.

(2) I've only read "Election" and "High Fidelity" on that list, but considering the rest were written by Jeffrey Eugenides, Michael Chabon, etc., etc., I'm assuming they were not beach fare.

I would say most crime novels play far better on the screen than in books. "Shutter Island" is better as a movie. "Mystic River" is better as a movie. Elmore Leonard books are better as a movie.

 

I've only read The Virgin Suicides among books on that list. (I haven't seen the movie but have seen the other four movies.) That book drew tons of critical praise. I would venture to say Jeffrey Eugenides qualifies as one of the most lauded writers of this generation. He's written three novels: The Virgin Suicides, Pulitzer Prize-winning Middlesex and The Marriage Plot, which I hear is one of the top couple books out this year.

 

One boy in NBC's Parenthood has Asperger's. South Park had an Asperger's episode. House's titular character has gone from intellectual to undocumented Asperger's case. You're not alone in thinking this.

 

I try to avoid reading the book after I've seen a movie, but in this case, I may do it and was even thinking this as I was watching it. Seems like you could pace everything in this story more comfortably in a book format. I'm still dizzy from my eyes trying to scan some of those crowded but short frames for the pertinent detail. I kept saying to myself, "Wait, go back."

 

I agree on the general point, but not gonna lie: I've loved every Lehane book I've read. "Mystic River" is damn good in both formats (as is King's "Shawshank," which was mentioned earlier.)

And if they ever make "The Given Day" -- my all-time favorite Lehane book -- into a movie, I'll be first in line to see it.

 

So the problem I have with "Shutter Island" is that I think it would have been a great short story that was stretched to novel length. While I was reading it, I'm thinking, "I don't know if I can finish this. All of these plot contrivances are way too much, even for a pot boiler." I think Lehane had to really stick some stuff in there to pad it and draw it out. Of course, at the end you slap yourself in the forehead and say, "Ah, so that's why everything seemed so outlandish!" In the movie, I think you can confine some of the mysteries a little bit and not have to make them as implausible while you're taking it in.

 

"Stand By Me" is another Stephen King novella that people say was a better movie than written story.

Back to crime novels, I don't know what it is. On the page, they seem ... slight. Manipulative at times even. On screen, the life-or-death stakes just seem to work so much better.

 

I don't have to defend Chabon or Eugenides literary standing/merits. But both have won the Pulitzer prize for fiction, if it's still in doubt.

Perrotta, King, Hornby and Goldman aren't exactly beach reads either. They may not be highbrow literature, but each of them absolutely exceeds the literary merits of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which is the genesis of the discussion.

 

Saw the movie - and Sherlock and Mission: Impossible during a marathon Friday - and for those that haven't read the book, the ending's the same. Mystery solved, followed by nonstop banking. The book is boring in the beginning, picks up the pace, then ends in boredom. I did really like the movie.

As far as book-movies, The Godfather book isn't a classic like the movies, but I'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it because you'll get some good background on people and there are a few incidents that happen to characters you know from the movie, which didn't take place in the film.

I wonder if people's enjoyment of the book or movie is related to which one they experience first. I certainly prefer the book first, so I can picture the characters myself. Even then, an actor can ruin the picture I have in my head. When I reread it, he's all I see. Speaking of which, for anyone's who read the Jack Reacher books from Lee Child...Tom Cruise is playing the massive 6-5, ripped behemoth. Blech.

 

I agree that Shutter Island was a better movie. Not Mystic River, however. I liked the book a great deal. but as a movie, ss far as Boston noirs go, Mystic River isn't even as good as either of Affleck's offerings: Gone Baby Gone or The Town.

 

Ooh, I'm not sure. I thought "The Town" and "Gone Baby Gone" were entertaining movies, but both severely flawed. Especially "The Town."