Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘film adaptations’

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B-Movie Sparks Rick Moody's New Novel

by Celeste Ng

Adaptations usually go from novel to film (okay, unless you’re Dave Eggers, in which case all bets are off). But later this month, Rick Moody will publish The Four Fingers of Death—a 700-page novel involving a (fictional) novelization on the B-movie The Crawling Hand. io9 takes a closer look at the novel: It’s the year 2025, and the NAFTA bloc has fallen into such a perilous decline that we barely have an economy or a functioning society any longer, and we’re at the mercy of the much more powerful Sino-Indian economic bloc. A failed writer, Montese Crandall, wins the rights […]


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Trailer for Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go

by Celeste Ng

Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go is being adapted to the big screen, directed by Mark Romanke and with a screenplay by novelist Alex Garland. Stars include Keira Knightly as Ruth, Carey Mulligan as Kathy, and Andrew Garfield as Tommy. It’s hard to say much about the plot without giving away the secret (and oh boy, is there ever a big secret!), but below is the recently released trailer: The movie isn’t out until October 1, so you’ve got 3 months to read the novel. (Click the image at left to find it at an indie bookstore near you.) […]


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Electric Literature's Short Story "Trailer"

by Celeste Ng

Literary journal Electric Literature has put out a wonderfully weird animation based on one sentence from Jenny Offill’s short story “The Tunnel,” from Electric Literature No. 3. It reminds me of a mix between Alice and Wonderland and Monty Python, both whimsical and serious, but take a look for yourself: This video is actually the latest in a series: lots more are available on Electric Literature‘s website. But the videos aren’t just a gimmick; they’re an integral part of the journal’s mission. The editors write: Electric Literature’s mission is to use new media and innovative distribution to return the short […]


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(Even) more on book trailers…

by Celeste Ng

We’ve talked about book trailers on FWR before (see below)–and it seems they’re gaining an even larger (and more interesting) presence…one aspiring to an adaptation genre of its own. GalleyCat reports that the trailer for Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters will be shown in movie theatres around the country. That’s the book trailer, people. On the big screen. Meanwhile, the 1993 novel Going West by Maurice Gee inspired the New Zealand Book Council to create this absolutely jaw-dropping short film. Part book trailer, part adaptation, it’s a bona fide work of art in its own right. The council’s website […]


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The WSJ's Interview with Cormac McCarthy

by Celeste Ng

So you didn’t win the auction for Cormac McCarthy’s typewriter. (Ahem–if you did, we know a great literary site that you could support as well!) For everyone else without a spare $254,500, we offer this interview with McCarthy in theWall Street Journal, available online for free. In the wide-ranging conversation, McCarthy discusses the film adaptation of his novel The Road, how his relationship with his 11-year-old son influences his work, the violence in his work, and much more: WSJ: Does this issue of length apply to books, too? Is a 1,000-page book somehow too much? CM: For modern readers, yeah. […]


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Bone on Bone film collaboration

by Jeremiah Chamberlin

Earlier this fall, FWR contributor Sarah Van Arsdale was in residence at the Djerassi Resident Artists Program in the Santa Cruz mountains. While there, she collaborated with filmmaker Peter Gossweiler on a short video titled Bone on Bone. Sarah calls it “the story of one hapless human’s encounter with modern medicine.” Readers of Sarah’s recent essay “Hobbling Up The Magic Mountain“ will recognize her wonderful illustrations. The wit and humor of her voice as a writer are here again too, highlighted even more so by the fact that Sarah narrates the piece (via Vimeo): The next application deadline for the […]


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Wild Things Roundup

by Celeste Ng

Maurice Sendak’s picture book Where the Wild Things Are is nearly 50 years old, but the release of Spike Jonze’s film adaptation has sparked a resurgence of critical interpretations of the story. A sampling: On the Oxford University Press blog, philosophy professor Stephen T. Asma ties our love for Where the Wild Things Are to our fascination with other monsters–“zombies, vampires, and serial killers”: As the movie’s trailer reminds us, “Inside all of us is a wild thing.” And in our therapeutic era, we generally accept that it is good and healthy to visit our wild things –to let them […]


Reviews |

Livability by Jon Raymond, and Wendy and Lucy

I saw Wendy and Lucy this past April, and there wasn’t any sound for the first ten minutes. Well, not no sound; there were the suggestions of breathing, some ambient rustling. The whispers filling the theater were mainly curious—could this be some new super-indie technique, perfected by director Kelly Reichardt for her second film? It turned out to be a technical mistake, and I found out what I missed when I read Jon Raymond’s “Train Choir,” the closing piece in his first collection, Livability, and the story on which Reichardt’s film is based.


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adaptations forecast at Powell's blog

by Anne Stameshkin

I recently discovered this frequently updated string of Powell’s posts called “Read It Before They Screen It”. Among the most intriguing adaptations-in-the-making is Jim Crace’s Being Dead. Another fun fact: film rights to The Story of Edgar Sawtelle will be bestowed based on the quality of proposals pitched in person to author David Wroblewski.




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