Why are the Classics... Kind of Boring?

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Kullervo, do yourself a favour and read Umberto Eco's Foucault’s Pendulum instead. It's a fantastic book and it's not riddled with historical inacurracies.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. The fact that we may have drifted into obscure discussions on the subject of literature shouldn't prevent anyone from sharing what they have to say on this topic.

I for one would welcome any HP fan who would tell us what makes the whole series so great. I'm serious, I'd like to understand. I may have to read the second book to find out if it's any better (although to be honest it's certainly not a top priority for me). If HP had been published 20 years ago I would probably have been thrilled by it. What I find surprising is the fact that many middle aged readers actually share this enthusiasm for HP.

 

I've read and enjoyed it, which goes to all novels by Umberto Eco. Even if the book would've had some inaccuraries, they certainly would have gone unnoticed, as the amount of references and intertextuality is incredible. Still, the story holds together well, it's definitely more than a collection of savvy references.

 

Pretty much any book that gains widespread popularity is formulaic and simplistic but also easy to read and well, entertaining. Any book I have read that has been a real best seller and it pretty much is only the HP books and the Da Vinci code have been written for "non"-readers, for people who do not read very much, people without references. I have no read the Twilight books but I have them on my nighttable as they are very popular with my students and I like to keep in touch with what they read the few who do (plus I think it will be helpful in scoring chicks to be able to know my Twilight, every female between the ages 12 and 30 seems to be taken in ). I expect these to be simplistic and basically just a collection of stolen ideas and concepts.

I do not think a really good book can gain massive widespread popularity but a simple, kinda stupid, easy to read and entertaining book can. I hated the Da Vinci code and found it incredibly silly but I can't deny that it was somewhat entertaining and that I read it fairly fast as whatever else it is it is a pageturner. Same goes for Harry Potter, it isn't *good* but somehow you keep coming back to it until it is finished. I would also like to say that there are worse stuff out there than HP and that it is a good introduction to reading in general and fantasy in particular. When you start reading you do not start with Crime and Punishment or the Red Room you start with someonething light, easy and entertaining.

Oh and I think Lord of the Rings is the only book that is better in movie form than in book form, writing this just to provoke but the books are dull and the characters are bland. That Jackson managed to create such good movies shows a lot of talent. Tolkien was an amazing worldbuilder but a very average writer. I always enjoyed the Hobbit much more than LotR.

 

The Lord of the Rings is a bestseller and since you compare it to the Jackson movies I assume that you have read it. It may be entertaining but it's certainly not stupid or simplistic.

You're deliberately stirring a hornet's nest but I'll play along.

To say that you don't like Tolkien's writing is one thing (I respect that) but to say that the Jackson's movies are better goes a long way to tell how much you really know about The Lord of the Rings.

I won't point out every mistakes and misinterpretations Jackson made, I'll just focus on a few (since I could go on forever on such a topic).

In the first movie, when Frodo is talking with Bilbo in Rivendell, Bilbo asks Frodo to show him the ring. In the movie Bilbo morphs into some kind of orc-like creature and we see Frodo moving away from him in fear. In the book, Tolkien use the word "seem" to indicate that Bilbo does not change into a monster but that it is Frodo who sees Bilbo as a monster.

In that movie, the Ring is having an effect on Bilbo only whereas in the book it is changing Frodo's perception thus reinforcing the idea that the Ring is a corrupting power in the reader's mind. Jackson failed because he was too lazy or didn't care (or possibly -probably- didn't understand the subtlety of this scene).

In the second movie the number of lines actually taken from the book went dramatically down to be replaced by buddy movie lines ("You're late") or stupid jokes (the dwarf tossing comment). Jackson also decided to add scenes that didn't exist in the books (like the one when Aragorn falls from a cliff or the one in which Arwen is swooning on her bed -and I use swooning because I don't want to be too explicit) and didn't bring anything to the story (why add unecessary stuff like this when you have to take away a lot to make it work as a movie I wonder). Jackson also decided that Tolkien's portrayal of Faramir didn't make sense and he took upon himself to make him more like his brother (and that's exactly what Faramir is not).

If that doesn't sound bad to you then let me point out that he had Faramir take Frodo and Sam on a long detour that ends with a very awkward scene (Frodo struggling not to put on the ring when there is a Nazgûl a few feet away). It's an awkward scene because there is no reason for the Nazgûl not to take Frodo and leave, end of story.

Jackson thought that he knew better. If that's not arrogance and pretentiousness on his part I don't know what it is. Tolkien spent twelve years writing this book and he double checked every little detail (as you said he was an amazing world builder but he also knew how to tell a story -Jackson's ability to tell a story pales in comparison to Tolkien's).

In the third movie, Jackson after countless battle scenes decide to end the story without any reference to what had been going on in the Shire (made impossible since Jackson just killed off Saruman early on) and to anyone who has read Tolkien's book it can only appear as a mistake. I didn't like how Denethor's death was played out in the movie and in that respect the book was more cinematic -see the Pyre of Denethor. I won't get into Gandalf's kung fu moves as he kicked Denethor around either as it was utterly silly.

What is even worse is the shift that Jackson operates at the end on Mount Doom. In the book it is quite clear that Frodo claims the Ring for himself and puts it on before Gollum comes in, bites his finger off and stumbles into the crater. In the movie, Frodo is responsible for Gollum's fall into the crater. Frodo is no longer Abel, he has turned into Cain.

That is the most significant and sickening departure from the book and it is a choice that I will never condone as it completely turns around the whole moral of the story.

Radically and fundamentally changing the moral of the book was not necessary to make it into a movie.

And before you label me as a Jackson hater, I'll let you know that I enjoyed the first movie despite its flaws. I recognized the need for some things to be cut or modified (for instance Arwen being too powerful in order to replace Glorfindel or Aragorn being recognized as the King by Boromir were changes that prevented the movie from getting mired into too many details and allowed it to skip some minor characters) and I was happy with the way the book was brought to the screen as despite some flaws it was still true to the spirit of the book.

The second movie was a huge disappointment to me and I'm convinced that as Jackson was moving on with the story he was taking more and more liberties with the plot and the characters making it his own story rather than Tolkien's. To a certain extent that's what a film maker has to do but it wouldn't have been that bad if he hadn't had the gall to make it so obvious that he saw the (radical) changes he introduced as a major improvement on the original (making his quip that "they should make a book about this movie" look rather conceited and arrogant in that light).

Peter Jackson obviously thought he knew better and could improve on Tolkien's work and he believed that he could tie up the story together (when all he did was introducing some major plot holes and inconsistencies not to mention terribly cheap lines -and I've only posted a few examples).

What I found most amusing was that he had the nerve to publicly and openly criticize and mock Willow when he (knowingly or not) imitated it on more than one occasion (the tavern scene in the first movie and the Gandalf vs Saruman fight which looked a lot like the fight between Fin Raziel and Bavmorda -I don't know why Jackson got rid of the "saruman the many colored" scene, it's just one example in a long series of stupid choices resulting from a really bad interpretation of the book. A much better version can be seen in the cartoon:

Spoiler

Jackson dumbed the Lord of the Rings down and lost all the subtlety and depth that made it a great story in the first place. He turned it into a visually stunning but ultimately shallow piece.

But I understand that to some people thay may be seen as an improvement.

 

Are these the Anne Rice knock-offs? I don't know much about them. I'm not sure, but it seems that those are vampire-themed stories. In this regard, Interview compares well with the original by Stoker. It seems almost every generation is drawn to gothic horror in some form, since its formation. But Rice is a pretty good writer, at least IMHO.

Cara - Nice post, again. But you are really quite hard on Jackson although he deserves it, somewhat. He did take some odd liberties with LoTR, as you point out.

 

It is the liberties that makes the movies better, they are in my opinion improvements on the story and that is very rarely the case. I have read the books three times but it was a while ago now. Jackson cut out and removed a lot of stuff that made the original story slow and uninteresting and added some much needed "Hollywood-spice". I do not think there were much subletly and nuance in the original story but if you want to you can read deep meaning into milk carton text. By "dumbing" it down Jackson made it more accesible and more entertaining and that is not always a bad thing and in this case I think the story could have benefited from cutting and "dumbing down" even more.

LotR isn't a widespread popular phenomena like Harry Potter, Da Vinci code or Twilight it is more of a constant presence since its creation with a big upswing with the movies.

My biggest beef with LotR is that if someone is interested in fantasy and want to give the genre a chance probably picks it up as it is the most well known and it is not a good introduction. It starts incredibly dull and the story doesn't get started until they reach Brill, I have spoken with several people who tried to give it a shot but put it down before they met Aragorn. It is probably well suited for analysis but discussion but I do not hold it in the kind of awe so many people do. I like it but, well it is kinda dull and dry. Not to mention that I really like being contrary

 

LoTR is probably far more popular than the books you mention - and will remain so in the long run.

 

Did you notice the "phenomena" part of my post? Meaning that those things induced almost a mass psychosis among a large number of people and of course that the intellectuals (me included) look down on them, kinda like they did with LotR back in the day.

As for the topic at hand I get more and more convinced that what we call classics today is nothing more than the bestsellers of yesterday and it wouldn't surprise me if in 50 years scholars tout the literary brilliance of Rowling and wrinkle their noses at what their children are worshipping.

 

It wasn't clear that you were psycho-analyzing society in your previous post.

Many still do, which was part of the point of this thread. But maybe those of us who like it are just part of a "phenomena."

In this sense, the term "classic" is nothing more than a marketing term for the publishing biz.

 

I'm a big fan of Stoker's Dracula and I've thoroughly studied it. I concur with CtR, Rice's stories are a great addition to the genre (she is a very good writer). The only reproach I could come up with is that she may have gone too far with all the sequels and stuff but if you limit yourself to the core of the Vampire Chronicles then it's a great read.

I haven't read Twilight and I don't think I ever will as I've only heard bad things about it and what I've seen was a big turn off (the trailer made me laugh so much it hurt). It doesn't take a Freudian psychoanalyst to see what would be the appeal of emo vampires/fashion victims for teenager girls.

I wouldn't have been so hard on him if he didn't deserve it. I've read interviews and seen documentaries on the movies and I can definitely say that he thinks he is hot ****.

I respect his work on Bad Taste, Heavenly Creatures and the Frighteners but he failed as far as The Lord of the Rings is concerned. He claimed that he didn't want to make a Hollywood movie and that he shot it in New Zealand to get away from Hollywood but it was all a sham.

@Joacqin: are you deliberately trying to rile me up?

"Hollywood-spice" as you put it is almost always a euphemism for *****.

John Milius did take liberties with Conan the Barbarian but at least his film was true to the spirit of Robert E. Howard's stories.

Since we've mentioned Anne Rice, we could mention Neil Jordan's Interview with the Vampire as well. This movie is a very close adaptation of the novel and it perfectly captures the essence of the book (mainly what it means to be an immortal who has to take lives to survive).

By the way, if we consider Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula (it was called that for copyright reasons), in all fairness we would have to point out that it's certainly not a faithful adaptation of the book. It plays on gender issues (especially in the scene when Dracula visits Mina and lets her drink his blood, in the movie she takes the initiative whereas in the novel she is forced to drink -that's a major difference indeed) and turns the eponymous vampire into a romantic figure. Harker played by Keanu Reeves is completely overshadowed and the focus is clearly on the romance between Mina and the Count. Coppola's Dracula is a tale of redemption that gives the vampire a degree of humanity whereas in Stoker's novel the vampire is utterly alien and evil. This is a significant departure from the novel's themes and in many ways the movie is more similar to Beauty and the Beast. In the case of Coppola's movie this departure from the book was certainly deemed necessary in order to bring something new to a tale that had been told numerous times before (among which Werner Herzog's Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht most certainly stand out). It's not quite the same story but in many ways that's what makes it interesting (especially since it establishes a clear link between vampirism, blood and AIDS -something that in 1992 was on everybody's mind and something that may have brought closer to home the horror that the vampire myth originally represented).

Posting such a remark only proves that you don't know much about the Lord of the Rings.

I won't get drawn into an argument with you on the points you've raised since it would be a useless waste of time and energy.

And the book will still be popular when the movies will long be forgotten (given how CGI evolves I don't give them many years before they start looking quite old and lose the only thing that make them interestering, i.e. great visual quality).

You've made that point before and I totally agree with you.

I don't think that for a book to be a bestseller means anything as far as literary qualities are concerned (which doesn't mean that bestsellers can't be good books but that bestsellers are not necessarily good books).

 

I've thought for a while now that Jackson's plight with LotR may have been fairly simple - namely that he just got in over his head as opposed to his ego taking over. Altering storylines and adapting themes may have been less "I know better" than "I don't know what to do!" though I don't suppose he would ever admit that. Making three (very long) major motion pictures all together would be an endeavor that almost anybody woud be hard-pressed not to get lost inside, I suspect. The notion that he started out okay in the first movie and fell apart after that kind of supports the idea as well.

But then I'm no authority on the books or the movies, so take that with a grain of salt.

Made me

 

I almost stopped watching LotR when Arwen showed up instead of Glorfindel. :/
It wasn't a bad film, but the books are simply in a far different league.

(I would whine about how you can't make a book faithfully into a movie, but some of the British flicks after Discworld novels have convinced me otherwise.)

As for Dracula, have to say the original book surprised me when I first read it, exactly for the reasons Cara mentions - the vampire is consistently evil, throughout the work. Moral ambiguity is never even hinted. It's refreshing, in a strange way.

Also, please don't insult all females everywhere with Twilight.

 

I apologize. I only meant teenager girls who drool over boys bands and movie stars.

I was annoyed by Arwen because in the movie she was responsible for the flooding when in the book it takes Elrond and Gandalf to do the same thing (both have rings of power by the way). But I understand that introducing Glorfindel for a few scenes would have caused problems especially when you already have too many characters in a movie and don't want casual viewers to get confused.

It's refreshing indeed and it turns the vampire into the Enemy. There is no romanticism involved in the description of the vampire either. Unlike his successors, Dracula is definitely not attractive.

Before Dracula vampire tales and stories often focused on female vampires like Goethe's poem The Bride of Corinth, Coleridge's Christabel or Sheridan Le Fanu's short story Carmilla (a major source of inspiration for Bram Stoker).

In a way, Dracula reinstated the figure of a strong patriarchal vampire:

While retaining the interesting figure of the female vampire:

I like that part because of the perfect transgression of the laws of nature the vampire represents, a transgression which is even more striking since the nurturing woman doesn't suckle the infant but suck its blood instead (taking life instead of giving it -despite the fact that at that point Lucy hasn't killed anyone). Furthermore, there is a dehumanization at work as Lucy, the former love interest, becomes an object to be loathed as, interestingly enough, her transformation makes her more sexually aware. A feminist reading is bound to stress the fact that the novel is pitting Victorian men against their women who become overtly sexually active after being corrupted by the stranger Dracula.

Regarding, Dracula himself, it is significant that we only get to hear him on few occasions and that only reinforces the effect that Lore mentioned (in Terence Fisher's Dracula, Christopher Lee spoke only a few lines throughout the entire film). It probably makes him more charismatic as Dracula's few lines are set in sharp contrast with the large amount of dialogue that goes on between other characters.

I'd like to point out however that Dracula's death clearly hints at a possible redemption:

Of course, we shouldn't forget that at this point it is Mina Harker who is telling the story and that the narration is filtered through her own perspective. Still, this "look of peace" is a common theme that is present each time a vampire is put to rest in the novel. In comparison, Coppola's movie takes this theme even further as Dracula's face becomes young again (there is also a shift as the place of his final death is the church where the curse began in the movie).

EDIT: by the way, I've found the passage I was referred to in my previous post.

I you remember the scene in Coppola's movie you can only note the differences. I've looked for this scene on youtube and I've only found it in Spanish, but even without knowing Spanish the differences with the text are pretty obvious.

Spoiler

 

I must admit that you really know your vampires. But I just cant understand why some countries use dubbing, it makes even Dracula sound like a bad telenovela .

edit: If there even are good ones.

 

At least the telenovela bit is rather amusing (that's a very apt way to put it by the way).

Well, dubbing is something that is compulsory in many countries as most people are used to it and won't watch anything with subtitles.

Watching movies in the original language wasn't that easy before DVDs and even now some DVDs in France won't let you get rid of the subtitles... Which is distracting when you start going over the translation as you watch a movie and keep seeing inaccuracies and errors (I try my best to ignore them but it's annoying).

Anyhow on the topic of literature and classics I'd like to point out a very useful site (which I've used for the quotes in my previous post). I'd rather read a real book but having the text available in txt for a quick search can save a lot of time.

 

That's actually one of my favourite sites. A real gold mine.

Especially if (like around here) you can't find books in foreign languages in bookstores. It's where I found/read Dracula. (Truth be told, I got most my "classics" in English off it.)

P.S. Thanks for mentioning Christabel, Cara. I've read Carmilla, but not that one. I'll have to look it up.

 

Reading a book on a screen is not something I enjoy but the good thing with the txt format is that you can print it out if you can't get a copy of the book in the original language (takes time and ink though).

By the way, if you're interested you could give Théophile Gautier's short story La Morte Amoureuse a try (the English version I've found is simply entitled Clarimonde -the French title could be translated as the Dead Woman in Love). Like in most vampire stories before Bram Stoker's Dracula, the vampire is a woman.

There are many vampire stories and it's quite hard to come up with a comprehensive list.

Guy de Maupassant's The Horla (a word he coined in French to mean "the one out there").

Lord Byron's poem The Giaour is another little gem as far as vampire stories are concerned. Which leads us to Polidori's story The Vampyre (Polidori was Byron's physician and he stole the idea from Byron. Lord Ruthven the main character of The Vampyre seems to be based on Byron himself and the story was often attributed to Byron (presumably to boost sales).

I should also mention James Malcolm Rymer's Varney the Vampire another seminal vampire tale. Although the authorship is often attributed to Thomas Peckett Prest (and both were also credited for the creation of Sweeney Todd). It's not on par with the other links I've posted but it may be of interest to vampire fans nonetheless. It's quite long as it was published as a "penny dreadful" (19th century British pulp fiction).

 

Boring? Some of them, sure. For instance, I loathe Jane Austen's writing so much that I simply cannot bring myself to finish any of her books, period. Hardy's 'Tessa d'Urberville' got me desperately, utterly, hopelessly bored, so had 'The Sorrows of Young Werther' (gah, dude, kill yourself already! And please, please, stop with the Oisin! It's not even authentic, you emo boy!). Different examples for different people.

Still, I believe 'boring' is not the word... 'hard to read' would be. Even though that makes three words . I do not intend to come off as snobbish (good thing you cannot hear my fake RP ), but I believe the reason is the literature's certain similarity to wine, some foods, some kinds of sexual acts or just art in general: one needs an acquired taste to enjoy these things. And acquiring a taste may turn out a boring or difficult task indeed.

Alas, I see the thread has taken a slightly different direction now. Since I do not know very much about vampires and their cultural significance, I shall hold my peace (like a good knave should) - for now, id est.

Ah! Before I fall silent: Caradhras, your replies to this tread are simply magnificent. Such erudition... Chapeau bas!

 

Thanks for the kind word, merci beaucoup. I have nothing to boast about though as I did study literature for most of my adult life (for all the good that it has done to me lol).

I like Jane Austen, her writing is quite funny once you get used to it. she was really a master of irony and could portray characters in a very interesting and actually hilarious manner.

Acquired taste indeed and that is a very apt thing to say about literature.