An amusing satire of the far too many people these days who write books that are meant to be made into movies.There’s an old expression, “If you can’t beat them, join them”.
It never much appealed to me. Sounds a wee bit too compromising. Some, perhaps, may consider this a shortcoming of mine, but I’ve never been particularly conciliatory by nature. I’m competitive. A nasty word these days, but there it is. I enjoy beating them, whoever ‘them’ are. And if, after putting forth my best effort, it becomes obvious that beating them is not in the cards then I simply fold my hand and walk away from the table.
Joining them has always been out of the question.
Recently, however, a certain dilemma has presented itself wherein it seems to me that the only way to beat them is to join them. For a long time now I have been growing more and more exasperated with the publishing business’s bias in favor of books that demonstrate a potential for being made into movies. I don’t write those kinds of books. Nor, for the most part, do I read them. The authors I enjoy and respect never produced anything with the intention of it being picked up by some slick Hollywood agent and made into a film. Of course, the authors to whom I refer have been dead for a quite awhile. Some of their works have been made into films and ‘film’ is an apt way of describing the end result. Books are meant to have a multi-dimensional depth of character and style. They have a holding weight; a substance. Good books are not film, damn it!
It never much appealed to me. Sounds a wee bit too compromising. Some, perhaps, may consider this a shortcoming of mine, but I’ve never been particularly conciliatory by nature. I’m competitive. A nasty word these days, but there it is. I enjoy beating them, whoever ‘them’ are. And if, after putting forth my best effort, it becomes obvious that beating them is not in the cards then I simply fold my hand and walk away from the table.
Joining them has always been out of the question.
Recently, however, a certain dilemma has presented itself wherein it seems to me that the only way to beat them is to join them. For a long time now I have been growing more and more exasperated with the publishing business’s bias in favor of books that demonstrate a potential for being made into movies. I don’t write those kinds of books. Nor, for the most part, do I read them. The authors I enjoy and respect never produced anything with the intention of it being picked up by some slick Hollywood agent and made into a film. Of course, the authors to whom I refer have been dead for a quite awhile. Some of their works have been made into films and ‘film’ is an apt way of describing the end result. Books are meant to have a multi-dimensional depth of character and style. They have a holding weight; a substance. Good books are not film, damn it!
