A very generous and insightful essay on novelizations of screenplays in general and the novels of William Kotzwinkle — a writer I'd never before encountered — in particular. You make your case well, with lots of supporting evidence in the excerpts you include. Thank you.
I can tell you how to experience the truly life-changing sensation of a perfect cup of coffee but it's a bit complicated. It would take me several hundred words at a minimum to explain how to do it, and, should you attempt to follow my instructions it would require you to remove to a remote small African village and live there for an extended period during a time of pestilence an ddrought. Also it would require you to get your hands on a time machine. Because I think it unlikely that you would follow my instructions even if I spelled them out step by step I will not got to the trouble now, but I might if you would really like me to do so.
As for generational rites of passage that I missed out on, I was a teenager during the 60's, the so-called 'free love' era, and I was a virgin until I was 21. Believe me, that was not by design. I will stop now before I embarrass myself and anyone reading this far.
Alright, well now I've got to ask the burning question - if you don't do coffee (I can't believe it!!!), what DO you drink? Are you a tea guy? How do you start your mornings? I wouldn't call myself coffee obsessed by any stretch - I'm 1 cup a day in the morning with the paper just to get me going - but I couldn't imagine not having it in my life completely.
Some years ago, Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics fame did a lengthy blog doing a page by page read through of the novelization of Back to the Future. The book departed from the movie in some truly bizarre ways, and North’s commentary was hilarious.
I'm about your age as well, and I was a voracious reader of novelizations. Somewhere I still have the one for Star Wars. And I can remember arguing, maybe 40 years ago, that the books were always better than than the movies.
As for cultural blindspots, I have a bunch, but the one that comes to mind, given the holidays just ended, is Love Actually. I think that's the name of it. I've never seen it.
I used to have a bunch of literary ones--I somehow managed to get through my entire education career (and I was an English major to boot) without reading Moby Dick or Paradise Lost or The Iliad or The Aeneid or Crime and Punishment or Ulysses and some others I can't even remember now. I've since read them all, though, so there's at least that. Except for Ulysses. I got bogged down halfway through and just could not finish it.
I remember getting a copy of The Return of the Jedi novelization a week or so before the movie came out, at my local bookstore - can you imagine such a thing being permitted in this day and age? I managed to not read the whole thing before seeing the movie, but man it was hard. As for cultural milestones I missed, the first that comes to mind is that I’ve never seen Rocky Horror Picture Show - unless you count the version they did on Glee! 😆
Wow, I had completely forgotten about the novelization of movies once being a thing. Thank you for reminding me of the name of the author of The Bear Went Over the Mountain, a book I read in the nineties because of the recommendation on the cover from Terry Pratchett, something like "Hilarious, and quite possibly true."
I was born in 1981 so was in high school when Titanic came out. New Zealand's rough two hour weekly equivalent of MTV (which
i never missed) played the tie in music video song every week for months, and quickly progressed from the "basic music video with some shots from the movie" version to the "as many dialog snippets as we can possibly Cram into this song" version. To say nothing of the radio. After a few months I was the only person who hadn't seen it, but felt like I had because I'd essentially seen the potted version many times. I also had a cousin who had accidentally received the Leonardo Dicapro haircut at the time and i felt weird about crushing on Leo who looked like my cousin. I only finally watched it with the re-release for the twentieth anniversary. I'm not sure I had missed out on anything, as the movie moments had saturated popular culture to such an extent I knew them all anyway.
Oh, man. The E.T. novelization was dreamy, probably the best novelization I have ever read. I lost it and all but one of my Kotzwinkle books in what I call "the Great Accidental Book Sell-Off," where I sold nearly 2/3rds of my books to pay for a lawyer during a nasty divorce. The purchaser made off with two boxes he wasn't supposed to. Gone were my copies of Kotzwinkle, first-edition Ellroys, nearly all my Ellisons, and some Asimovs. I managed to keep a first edition of Kotzwinkle's Fata Morgana.
If you're ever in Melbourne, Australia I will take you to multiple good coffee places. The brown dirt water you Americans call "coffee" does the beverage a disservice.
You know, I'm sure I had and read the E.T. novelization as a kid, but for some reason the Kotzwinkle novelization that I remember most fondly, and SURELY is better than the source material, has to be the Superman III novel. You know, the Richard Pryor/Robert Vaughan one? If I recall, it opened (?) with an astonishing slapstick set piece that, as an 11-year-old, I'd never seen the likes of. I am now of course a little nervous to go back and check it out.
I have never tried coffee either, except for one sip of iced coffee. (Surely that doesn't count against my record?) I like the flavor of coffee only when it accompanies chocolate.
ET came out when I was too young to care, but I quickly developed an irrational fear of his creepy Visage. By age eight I had never seen it until we saw it in class at the end of the school year, and my teacher was puzzled that I found the movie both scary and generally emotionally intense. For a long time I had seen nothing but Disney animated classics and then spent years learning to erect emotional detachment barriers to be able to consume normal movies. This post together with a brief mention of the film in Chuck Wendig's book Gentle Writing Advice has me quite interested to see it and also read that book... which will likely involve hunting down a second hand copy, which is always fun!
A very generous and insightful essay on novelizations of screenplays in general and the novels of William Kotzwinkle — a writer I'd never before encountered — in particular. You make your case well, with lots of supporting evidence in the excerpts you include. Thank you.
I can tell you how to experience the truly life-changing sensation of a perfect cup of coffee but it's a bit complicated. It would take me several hundred words at a minimum to explain how to do it, and, should you attempt to follow my instructions it would require you to remove to a remote small African village and live there for an extended period during a time of pestilence an ddrought. Also it would require you to get your hands on a time machine. Because I think it unlikely that you would follow my instructions even if I spelled them out step by step I will not got to the trouble now, but I might if you would really like me to do so.
As for generational rites of passage that I missed out on, I was a teenager during the 60's, the so-called 'free love' era, and I was a virgin until I was 21. Believe me, that was not by design. I will stop now before I embarrass myself and anyone reading this far.
When it first came, I took my wife and three kids to see it. We all enjoyed it, a good family outing!
1. I missed out on Goonies, tried to watch it a few years ago, was like, “What. This?” and upset my friends.
2. My year-end post encouraged readers to have NO reading goals at all! This is new for me. I feel so free. Freedom!
3. Coffee is disgusting. Freedom x2!
Alright, well now I've got to ask the burning question - if you don't do coffee (I can't believe it!!!), what DO you drink? Are you a tea guy? How do you start your mornings? I wouldn't call myself coffee obsessed by any stretch - I'm 1 cup a day in the morning with the paper just to get me going - but I couldn't imagine not having it in my life completely.
Some years ago, Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics fame did a lengthy blog doing a page by page read through of the novelization of Back to the Future. The book departed from the movie in some truly bizarre ways, and North’s commentary was hilarious.
I'm about your age as well, and I was a voracious reader of novelizations. Somewhere I still have the one for Star Wars. And I can remember arguing, maybe 40 years ago, that the books were always better than than the movies.
As for cultural blindspots, I have a bunch, but the one that comes to mind, given the holidays just ended, is Love Actually. I think that's the name of it. I've never seen it.
I used to have a bunch of literary ones--I somehow managed to get through my entire education career (and I was an English major to boot) without reading Moby Dick or Paradise Lost or The Iliad or The Aeneid or Crime and Punishment or Ulysses and some others I can't even remember now. I've since read them all, though, so there's at least that. Except for Ulysses. I got bogged down halfway through and just could not finish it.
I remember getting a copy of The Return of the Jedi novelization a week or so before the movie came out, at my local bookstore - can you imagine such a thing being permitted in this day and age? I managed to not read the whole thing before seeing the movie, but man it was hard. As for cultural milestones I missed, the first that comes to mind is that I’ve never seen Rocky Horror Picture Show - unless you count the version they did on Glee! 😆
Wow, I had completely forgotten about the novelization of movies once being a thing. Thank you for reminding me of the name of the author of The Bear Went Over the Mountain, a book I read in the nineties because of the recommendation on the cover from Terry Pratchett, something like "Hilarious, and quite possibly true."
I was born in 1981 so was in high school when Titanic came out. New Zealand's rough two hour weekly equivalent of MTV (which
i never missed) played the tie in music video song every week for months, and quickly progressed from the "basic music video with some shots from the movie" version to the "as many dialog snippets as we can possibly Cram into this song" version. To say nothing of the radio. After a few months I was the only person who hadn't seen it, but felt like I had because I'd essentially seen the potted version many times. I also had a cousin who had accidentally received the Leonardo Dicapro haircut at the time and i felt weird about crushing on Leo who looked like my cousin. I only finally watched it with the re-release for the twentieth anniversary. I'm not sure I had missed out on anything, as the movie moments had saturated popular culture to such an extent I knew them all anyway.
I watched Killers of the Flower Moon movie last night and it may be the first time that I liked the movie better than the book.
Someone wrote a novelization of the 1994 film version of "Little Women". That is not a joke.
I don't care for coffee (I'm a tea drinker), but I make an exception for café au lait when I'm eating beignets.
Oh, man. The E.T. novelization was dreamy, probably the best novelization I have ever read. I lost it and all but one of my Kotzwinkle books in what I call "the Great Accidental Book Sell-Off," where I sold nearly 2/3rds of my books to pay for a lawyer during a nasty divorce. The purchaser made off with two boxes he wasn't supposed to. Gone were my copies of Kotzwinkle, first-edition Ellroys, nearly all my Ellisons, and some Asimovs. I managed to keep a first edition of Kotzwinkle's Fata Morgana.
If you're ever in Melbourne, Australia I will take you to multiple good coffee places. The brown dirt water you Americans call "coffee" does the beverage a disservice.
You know, I'm sure I had and read the E.T. novelization as a kid, but for some reason the Kotzwinkle novelization that I remember most fondly, and SURELY is better than the source material, has to be the Superman III novel. You know, the Richard Pryor/Robert Vaughan one? If I recall, it opened (?) with an astonishing slapstick set piece that, as an 11-year-old, I'd never seen the likes of. I am now of course a little nervous to go back and check it out.
I have never tried coffee either, except for one sip of iced coffee. (Surely that doesn't count against my record?) I like the flavor of coffee only when it accompanies chocolate.
ET came out when I was too young to care, but I quickly developed an irrational fear of his creepy Visage. By age eight I had never seen it until we saw it in class at the end of the school year, and my teacher was puzzled that I found the movie both scary and generally emotionally intense. For a long time I had seen nothing but Disney animated classics and then spent years learning to erect emotional detachment barriers to be able to consume normal movies. This post together with a brief mention of the film in Chuck Wendig's book Gentle Writing Advice has me quite interested to see it and also read that book... which will likely involve hunting down a second hand copy, which is always fun!