READ THE BOOK OR WAIT FOR THE MOVIE?

When The Devil wears Prada was published, I read the book. For whatever my brain was doing to me, I decided I didn't want to see the movie. Tonight I have been watching the movie on TV, long enough after reading the book that I didn't recall parts of it until I saw what followed. The end result is that I really enjoyed reading that book more than the movie.

This puzzled me because it is not at all the way I felt reading Lord of the Rings by Tolkien. Despite really finding the books wonderful to read, written with clear word pictures so that it was easy to place myself just where Tolkien wanted me, I still enjoyed the movies probably just as much. It took me some time to compare some books I liked as movies and those I did not. The ones I liked were able to translate all that sensitive word picture ability onto the screen. That is more easily done about places and things but difficult to do with the thought processes of characters. I presume that whoever wrote the film script really felt the words and word pictures in the book. When Directors take great liberties with the plot, it offends me as I am offended when great singers (with their mesmerizing voices) take liberties and sing their own lyrics or ad lib the melody. Some of us, who love that which the composers and lyricists did, are disappointed not to see the sunset through the eyes of the writer, or feel love with all the emotions felt by recipient to the words and actions of the person expressing it, regardless of the musical genre.

As with most creations, those with little talent take someone else's work and mutate it to fit their lesser talent...rarely do they make it over the bar set by those who gestated the prototype. I shall continue to read and watch and live with my opinions.