Torn: a book people should read

This is not a post about screenwriting. I'm gonna go off topic today and talk about my friend Justin and his book.

Back in middle and high school, I had this friend named Justin Lee. Justin was super smart - Math Counts and all that - at a school filled with smart people. Our high school was the main destination for kids whose parents worked at Research Triangle Park: Raleigh, NC's technology research center, so like half the kids I knew were 1) Asian and 2) Offspring of geniuses. Not having a natural scientific inclination, I latched onto my wonderful French friend and we watched her dad make our science project for us. We got third place. I still have no idea how it worked, but I gladly accepted my A.

Anyway, the point is, smart sciency people abounded at my high school, and Justin was one of them. But Justin also stood out a bit in that he was incredibly religious. Despite being smack in the Bible belt, the fact that our school was so filled with kids raised in the science community meant that religion wasn't a huge factor in most of our lives. But not Justin. He was seriously into Jesus.

I knew other people into Jesus. I lived down the street from The Flanders. They had five kids who went to a private Christian school and they constantly tried to convert me. My parents were DIVORCED! How horrible! And not only did I go to public school, but we didn't even go to church every Sunday. Mrs. Flanders literally forced 8-year-old me to "take Jesus into my heart" one day and sent me home with a psalm book and a cross. Later, she asked for her psalm book back. She also cast me as Mary Magdalene in the annual Easter pageant because none of her kids should play a whore.

So this is how I came to understand Christianity.

Freshman year I ate lunch with Justin and a few others in the cafeteria. We used to get into long debates about Christianity and I was constantly trying to prove something. I didn't know anything about the Bible, but I knew lots of shit didn't sound right to me. Justin never wavered. He had an answer for everything. He once told me "You don't know God like I know God." At the time, I thought that was incredibly pompous, and he'd probably agree that it was, but he also had a point. I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about, and he did.

So I blame Justin for all those religion classes I took in college. I often thought of those discussions he and I had, and I didn't like coming from a place of ignorance. I decided to get educated.

I had a wonderful professor named Calvin Mercer who blew my mind with his vast biblical knowledge and his way of making everyone in the room comfortable with both facts and theology. No matter your beliefs, his classroom was a safe place to talk about Christianity. It launched a lifetime fascination with religion.

I set out to prove that the Bible was full of bullshit. Instead I gained an appreciation for its power and intent. And whenever Christianity came up in my classroom, I modeled my teaching methods on Mercer's. The kids never could guess at my religious beliefs, though they often tried.

Our class president is basically Legally Blonde's Elle Woods, so we had a five year reunion. That's where I learned that Justin was gay.

My thoughts, that I admit with a bit of shame, were as follows:

"Whoa, really? HAHA where did all that religious shit get you now, buddy? See! I WAS RIGHT!"

Because I was still kind of an asshole back then. Not that I'm not still kind of an asshole now, but, you know, I like to think I'm a little classier.

But after the initial reaction wore off, we had a good time talking and I enjoyed the nostalgia - I'm big on nostalgia - and it was clear that Justin was still the smart, kind person he had always been. A lot of Christians are hypocrites. Not Justin. He's the real deal. He's also clearly a better person than I am, because I'm pretty sure he wasn't going through a bunch of ITOLDYOUSOs in his head.

So flash forward a few years, and in one of those cursory Facebook searches I found present day Justin. He's still a Christian, still gay, a spokesman for the Gay Christian Network, and he just published a book called Torn, about his experiences reconciling his faith with his sexuality.

Naturally, I was curious. I was in the middle of researching a screenplay so I was deeply into this boring million-page snoozefest about Blackwater, so I couldn't read his book yet, but I went ahead and got it on my Nook for later.

Then I told my mom. My mom was everybody's favorite middle school teacher, and Justin was once in her class, so I knew she'd want to read his book. She ran out and got it right away, and then she flipped for it. She showed it to everybody. And for the past few months, every single time we talked on the phone she asked me if I'd read it yet.

So the other night, as I was falling asleep AGAIN trying to push my way through this terrible Blackwater book, I gave it up and pulled up Torn. I ended up staying up like three more hours reading until I finally had to force myself to put it down so I could sleep.

It turns out that despite being a math nerd, Justin can really write. And his story is engaging as hell. He starts out talking about high school, which was all giggly for me, because again - nostalgia lover here - but it made me think about how weird high school was.

I was going through shit then. I had major father figure problems. I had a mom who cast a long shadow over me. And at the same time, Justin was trying to fight the growing realization that he was gay. And both of us were trying to pretend we were completely normal. Imagine that, and entire high school of Emilys and Justins, all pretending to be completely normal despite the crazy secret shit we were all dealing with.

If we'd all just confessed our drama, do you think high school would have been an easier place?

After that first year, Justin went off to eat lunch with a much smarter crowd while I ran off to hang out with the hacky-sack/ultimate frisbee types. We didn't chat much anymore, but I always thought of him fondly. I wish I could remember what girl he took to prom.

Anyhow, my point here is, this is a good book. It's largely about Justin's journey, but the bigger story is an analysis of the way our society has split Christians and gays into two camps, constantly at war. You can either be gay or Christian, not both. So what happens if you're a devoutly Christian man who is attracted to other men?

No matter what your philosophy on the issue, this book is well worth a read. I expect to see Justin on The Daily Show any day now after Jon Stewart pours through this thing, and then I'll be able to poke people and go "I remember that guy when he still had hair."

The book: Torn: Rescuing the Gospel from the Gays vs Christians Debate

I am trying to read

I'm doing things now that I can't talk about, which is pretty awesome. Not sure if it will go anywhere in the long run, but I'm doing stuff. Doing stuff is always good.

I'm reading more these days. You know when you were a kid, and you had like, a whole day to just read? You'd pick a book up and just keep rolling on through until dinner time? Well, I did, anyway. I probably read all the Little House books in a single weekend.

But then you grow up and there's landscaping and dog walking and work and car repair and grocery shopping and going out with friends (because by now, presumably, my friends are no longer my books) and then you just lose time for reading. Oh sure, I still dig into screenplays every so often, but I miss prose.

So now every weekend I try to hang out for an hour or two in the mornings just reading. Right now I'm reading Tales From Development Hell, a book about movies that were never made, or that took a million years to get to the screen. It's fascinating, and a good lesson to learn about this industry.  I love biographical stuff about this business, and this book is filled with interviews and info about how great ideas get fucked by development. My favorite examples so far is the exec who wanted a scene where the human in the Planet of the Apes reboot teaches the apes to play baseball, and his insistence on this one silly scene sabotaged the entire project. This is the version that eventually became the Tim Burton remake, but it started off as a really cool original idea.

Speaking of Development Hell....

I'm also reading more comic books. I realized today that as much as I love Wonder Woman, I've never read any of the actual comics. I read the script for the film and the pilot, I used to watch the show religiously, and I've seen many a Justice League, but I've never gone to the source material. This seemed a tragedy, so I went to House of Secrets in Burbank (a place I highly recommend because they have always been so nice to me even though I always pester them with a zillion questions because I don't know much about comics) and picked up a couple of The All New Wonder Woman issues. Now I want to go back and get more, but I didn't want to look like a massive dork going to the comic shop twice in one day, because, you know, I have a reputation of coolness to uphold, one I have really cemented by wearing this awesome Admiral-Akbar-caught-in-a-Chinese-finger-trap shirt.

I also got the third collection of Y The Last Man because that's my favorite graphic novel.

I'm also working on a post that's been a long time in coming about the various books people have sent me over the years. I feel pretty guilty because at least five people have sent me screenwriting books to read and review and I didn't finish any of them, so I'm trying to read them so I can post here about whether or not they were useful. Then I'll write about books I've read on my own that ended up being useful.

Then there's all those fiction books I keep meaning to read. I'm kind of a failure as an English teacher because all I ever read is nonfiction. Funny how much our lives change our reading habits. Maybe I'm just inundated with TV shows or something. Speaking of which, time for The Walking Dead. Because I love zombies. I was going to get an issue of the comic book today, but then I forgot.

You guys should totally read these books

If you're looking for a good E-book, or just a good book book, you should read my buddy Harry Connolly's book Circle of Enemies. It's the third in a series of urban fantasy books called the Twenty Palaces books.

Sometimes Harry posts comments here so maybe you've seen him around. He's a good dude who can write great stories.

But more importantly, he writes good books. You know when your friend writes something and they're all excited about it and you're like Oh man this is gonna suck and I'm gonna have to pretend to like it? Well I didn't have to do that with Harry's books. They are really good. Like super good, like read-the-whole-thing-in-a-day good, and I don't even like fantasy stuff unless you count Wizard of Earthsea, and that was when I was like 12.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, Child of Fire, Game of Cages and Circle of Enemies are like A Wizard of Earthsea for grownups, and if you're a fan of Buffy or really anything where a dude gets in over his head in a world where people spontaneously combust and shit, this is the series for you.

I am often reluctant to try modern literature. The librarian at school had to talk me into allowing the kids to use living writers for their American authors projects; I am reluctant to read anything that wasn't written a century ago. Except Harry Potter, I guess, because I dove right into those things. But I included Harry's first book, Child of Fire, on the list, and the kid who chose that book devoured it and asked about the next one.

The point is, you should read Harry's books because they're really good and I want to share them with you.

Looking for reading suggestions

Unfortunately my vacation nears its end this week. Next week I have to go back to school. That means today, instead of writing, I worked on a pacing plan for the school year. It's actually shaping into a beautiful pacing plan.

As I went through our American lit book to determine which stories I want to cover this year, I noticed we are seriously lacking in two things: Civil War and Slavery. I checked our novel list - same thing. It's like we're intentionally ignoring stuff that makes us uncomfortable. How can you read about American lit and ignore the Civil War?

Yet last year I'm pretty sure I did exactly that. I usually don't do chronological order when planning, but this year we're linking English classes to science and history classes. In other words, I will have the same set of 11th graders as a specific history teacher and a specific science teacher. It's called a Cohort, and I am soooo happy we are doing this.

But history teachers usually work in chronological order, so I decided to plan my readings the same way this year.

So long story short, I need some recommendations. I can't teach Roots - way too long. I have a selection from Frederick Douglass and one brief and somewhat boring slave narrative in the book, but that's it. I'm looking for some good slave stories. The kids need to learn about this and they never really do. A lot of you guys are really well read. Anybody got any good suggestions?

And then there's the Civil War. I may anger some people with this confession, but I am not a fan of Stephen Crane. I'm already reading The Things They Carried for a war novel, so I'm looking more for short stories and poems and non-boring essays about The Civil War. Any suggestions for that?

This all needs to be 11th grade appropriate, so nothing as complex as something like a Lolita or a Catch 22.

I figured it can't hurt to get some input from the group.

How not to write a query letter

As almost a part two of yesterday's post, I bring you a query letter so horrible I did not believe it was real even though the poster of said letter swears it is.

Gaze upon its glory and be amazed. I bring you the query letter for Violet Thunder.

How to make yourself look like an ass on the Internet

Yearbook is slowly making me insane. Our deadline was Monday, then Wednesday, now it will be a miracle if we finish it this week. The kids are busting their little butts, but there's only so much time. Personally I'm really working on an ulcer. On the upside, I figured out how to do something new in Photoshop today. I cheered so much, you'd think I won the Nicholl.

So I will share with you this while I still have my higher brain functions intact.

You may have already seen it because it's gone viral, but in case you haven't, here's a perfect example of how not to take criticism. Read the comments on this woman's book review:

Big Al's review of The Greek Seaman

And if that's not enough schadenfreude for you, check out her Amazon page.

On the one hand, she's gotten a lot of publicity about this, which has probably translated into sales to the curious. On the other hand, damn lady.

Talk to me. I will recommend you something.

One of the great joys of my job is introducing kids to new stories. The major assignment for my juniors this semester was to read a novel of their choosing by an American author and write an essay then do a presentation about a book by that author.

One of my kids really really wanted I Am Legend but another kid got to it first. He was all pouty about it, so I had to quickly come up with another book he would love even more. I thought and decided to recommend Ender's Game.

At first he was all "I don't like sci-fi. This book looks stupid." Then he read the first chapter. He was still kind of grumpy. Then a day later he started telling me how much he enjoyed reading about Ender beating the crap out of his bully. We talked about how Ender's experience has some similarities to the way Einstein's theory of relativity led to the atomic bomb and he jumped on that. He was fascinated by the idea of that, as if he'd never realized books could be compared to real life issues.

But when he was done with Ender's Game he read I Am Legend for fun. Then he got so used to reading every day that he went back to the library and checked out something else. He's a total book worm now, always asking me if I've read whatever book he's into now. The other day he got all mad because there is not yet a sequel to the last book he enjoyed.

Every now and then I'll talk about a book or a movie and kids will ask me to write the title down. I look around and there are kids copying it so they can go get it somewhere. These kids NEVER take notes, so I'm just glad they heard something I said and cared enough to copy it. That's how I introduced these kids to films with subtitles.

I consider that whole recommendation thing a key part of my job. It's up to me to convince some of these kids they like to read when they think they don't. "You need a book, eh? Well let's see. What do you like?" Then I have to figure out how to give them a book they love so much they'll want to try reading something else when they're done.

It's pretty cool.

Homework

I like the research part of writing. I'm currently working on a historical project again, but this time the story totally writes itself. As I'm reading a biography I'm highlighting like gangbusters because the character I've chosen to write about just happens to be naturally PERFECT for the story I want to tell.

I'm going to have to devote a lot of time to reading over the next few weeks because aside from reading two biographies of this person, I also now have given myself job-related homework.

I just assigned my 11th graders to choose a novel from a list of American authors, and by the time they were done selecting they had all convinced me to do the assignment with them, and somehow they convinced me to do a different book in the two classes, and of course I had to choose books I haven't read before, since I'm making them do the same.

So now I will be reading Their Eyes Were Watching God AND Gone With the Wind and doing presentations on both authors in January.

I tried to be all "But that's two books" and they all held up their copies of A Tale of Two Cities they've been assigned in history class and said they also have to read two books.

It's hard to argue with that logic.

Interview with Harry Connolly, writer of Child of Fire

For the next few weeks I'm going to interview writers at various stages in their careers. Who are these people, you may ask? People I know and have brow-beaten into letting me pester them with questions. Today's guest is Harry Connolly, the writer of Child of Fire: A Twenty Palaces Novel.

Child of Fire is about Ray, an average every day petty criminal who finds himself working for Annalise, a badass magic-wielding chick who hates him but has enlisted his assistance in hunting down evil magical predators. It's an easy read; I don't really read fantasy novels but I quite enjoyed this one because it reads more like a modern story with contemporary problems, sort of the way Buffy always played it. The book is the first in a series about the Twenty Palaces Society of magical people or something. The second book, Game of Cages, hasn't come out yet so I'm a little vague on what the future holds. Something awesome, I'm sure.

Child of Fire was also named one of Publisher's Weekly's 100 best books of 2009. And right now on Amazon it is available for the amazing price of $7.99. You cannot beat that with a fucking stick.

So now here's Harry to give us a little incite on his experience publishing his first big fancy novel.


What writer's career path would you most like to copy?

I guess I would like to be the Donald Westlake of fantasy. He wrote great books in a variety of styles and tones, had a readership that extends beyond the traditional genre boundaries, enjoyed critical respect, and made truckloads of money.

I don't think I'll ever be as prolific as he was, though.


How does the relationship with your agent work?

My agent is a former editor at Penguin Putnam. When I finish a draft, she sees it before anyone, even before my wife. Just recently I was working on a new project--something unrelated to the Twenty Palaces series--so I sent her the first 40+ pages and some notes on the plot and setting.

She saw right through it to all the problems it had. It's on the back burner now until I come up with a new take.

Not every writer has that sort of relationship with their agent, and some don't want it. Some agents out there see their job as selling, not editing. Me, I'm happy to have her input. She's smart and she knows story.


Child of Fire as a movie - thoughts?

Dear Hollywood, please write me a fat check at your earliest convenience.

In all seriousness, there is a film agent trying to sell film rights, but I'm not involved in that at all. The only thing I asked is that the deal, if it should ever happen, would be one that drove sales of the book. I wanted something that would look impressive in a press release and possibly convince people to give the book a read.

I'm keeping my focus on the book. I tried filmmaking and it's not for me.

However, if people were to ask me (and they wouldn't) I'd say TV would be a better option for these books than movies. The novels are human-centered rather than aimed at big events, and there's an ongoing story of the Twenty Palace Society that would be much stronger if it played out over a season-long arc.


You made an interesting choice creating a male protagonist that is physically weaker than his female counterpart.

Just to be clear, Annalise is supernaturally strong while Ray is a regular guy (mostly). I've written about physically unimposing guys before, but not in this story.

Annalise is Ray's boss and one of the antagonists in the story. Since antagonists are a lot of fun if they are more powerful than the protagonists, she is. I think it works. They maintain an uneasy truce, such as it is, and they have a job to do. He works for and with her, and tries to earn her respect. As the series continues, their relationship is going to grow and change.


Was it a conscious choice to make the woman the more imposing figure? It's something of a flip on conventional gender roles.

Actually, very powerful female characters is a standard of modern urban fantasy and has been for years. All those young women on UF book covers, katana in hand and big ol' tattoo peeping out of the top of their leather pants? Most of them are super-strong and/or have elite demon-killing powers. Buffies, every one (pretty much). So, in the genre, it's not that unusual.

It's a little more unusual to make the low-powered henchling the protagonist, definitely. But the truth is that I didn't plan it. I sorta backed into it.

The first Twenty Palaces story had Annalise as a straight antagonist. She wanted to kill Ray's friend (for good reasons) and Ray tried to prevent it. Enemies! At the end of the book, (in first draft) Ray had done the job for her, and she kills him. Once I realized that readers hate downer endings and publishers love a series, I changed "kills him" to "They Fight Crime!"

But no one wanted that book, for good reasons. So I did the stupid thing and wrote a stand-alone sequel in which Ray was forced to work for a woman could pinch his head off with one hand and who hated his guts. And he's doing work he hated (vigilante murder) but if he tried to ditch her, she'd kill him.

I wish I could say I planned it. Truthfully, like most of my creative choices, I backed into it accidentally.


How did you feel the first time you held a copy of your novel?

Weird. Incredulous. Utterly certain I was going to screw something up.

I know some writers jump around, shout, dance, celebrate, the whole deal. Me, I just felt a tremendous sense of relief. I'd sacrificed so much to pursue my writing--I'd spent so many years getting up early, buying stamps, reading writing advice, the whole thing, all while I had a wife and kid. I'd started to think that I'd wasted the best part of my life.

Being published isn't a vindication, of course. Not really. Things could still go terribly wrong: maybe no one will buy the book. Maybe no one will recommend it to their friends. Maybe something in my personal life will force me to give it all up.

But I know I'm on the right path, at least. That's a huge relief. Now I just have to be careful not to fuck things up.


How has your approach to your material changed since you became a published novelist?

Deadlines change everything. If something doesn't work in a novel, I have to keep working the problem until it's fixed. I can't set things aside and work on another project anymore.

Aside from that, I'll admit to enjoying some extra confidence. I used to approach plot problems with "How would a professional write this scene?" Now I don't have to pretend any more. At the same time, I'm aiming at a very high standard, so I have to be extra hard on myself.

If anyone else has a question about the process of publishing my novel, leave a question in comments. I'll get to them as quickly as I can.

The Bible tells me so

I've always had a complete fascination with religion. People get so worked up over it and kill each other and have long, ridiculous debates and not a single person has any proof they're right. And each option is so interesting and so filled with history and logic and then anti-logic, I love them all.

In college I took a couple of Bible as philosophy classes with one Calvin Mercer, pretty much the best professor ever because he would never tell us what his religion was and we could never figure it out. That's a good religion teacher. I learned a lot about the Bible that year, made doubly interesting by the fact that my roommate was obsessed with being Christian but had never actually read anything other than Revelation. That taught me quite a bit about people who believe something just because it's what they're told to believe. I've never been that kind of person.

Right now I'm working on this zombie script and I have a character who only speaks in quotes from the Bible. It's been a while since I've been thoroughly through this book, although I do reference it a lot in class since much of English literature is based on its teachings. Last night I was going through Leviticus because if you know your Bible you know Leviticus is where the party's at, and I discovered the following things I didn't know.

I am unclean. Because of my vitiligo I am considered to have an infectious (it is not actually infectious, ancient biblical dudes) skin disease and as a result I must do the following:

"The person with such and infectious disease must wear torn clothes, let his hair be unkempt, cover the lower part of his face and cry out, 'Unclean! Unclean!' as long as the infection remains unclean. He must live alone; he must live outside the camp."

Well, crap.

I also learned that you are not to have sex with the following people:
a close relative
your mother
your father's wife
sister
your son's daughter
your daughter's daughter
the daughter of your father's wife
your father's sister
your mother's sister
your father's brother's wife
your daughter-in-law
your brother's wife
both a woman and her daughter
both a woman and her granddaughter
your wife's sister, but only while your wife is alive
any woman while she's on her period
your neighbor's wife
a man, if you're a man

It doesn't say anything about sleeping with your brother-in-law, so I'm in the clear on that one.

Just kidding. My former brother-in-law is revolting.

Have you heard about that new book by AJ Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically? The guy spends an entire year living by the rules of the Bible, most of which can be found in Leviticus. So he couldn't touch pig skin and he couldn't sit where his wife sat when she was on her period or sleep in the sheets where she slept while she was on her period until they'd been washed. He said that bit pissed her off so much she sat in every single chair in the house just so he'd have to stand up all week. I'm definitely getting that book.

That Bible. I tell you, it's some interesting stuff.

I can has boring cheezburger

A few years ago a friend gave me a copy of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and I didn't eat at a fast food restaurant for two years. It's an important book, one I think everyone should read, sort of a modern rendition of The Jungle.

Then Richard Linklater turned it into a film with a fantastic cast that includes Greg Kinnear, Bruce Willis, Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette and Luis Guzman among others. It came out and it disappeared into box office oblivion even though it got some decent reviews. It's a shame because this could have been a very important movie that changed the way we eat the way Supersize Me help affect fast food menus around the nation.

But it didn't, and I think I know why. The film is boring.

Remember that "show, don't tell" thing we all learned early in our writing lessons? Somebody forgot that rule here.

Here's the story: Some college kids did some independent tests on burgers from Mickey's fast food chain and found large levels of poop. So Greg Kinnear goes to the plant where the burgers are made and investigates the situation. In the meantime we watch Paul Dano bitch about working as a teenager in a Mickey's restaurant that could easily be robbed and a handful of illegal immigrants who work at the dangerous plant.

That's it. Rumor has it our food is dangerous but nobody dies from it. Rumor has it our plant is dangerous but nobody dies from working there, although one character does finally get injured about 75 minutes into the movie in a scene that should have been the beginning of the film.

All the things people talk about happening are more interesting than anything that actually happens.

Case in point: The "quirky" ranch owner. A fast food manager described a crazy ranch hand as quite a character, a real crazy guy, a nutjob - you'll see what I mean when you meet him. But the ranch owner, played by Kris Kristofferson, acted just like you'd expect an old ranch owner to act. I kept waiting for him to do something nutty but he never did.

That's the problem with the whole film. They talk about the killing floor where cows get butchered and you walk in pools of blood but they don't show it until almost the last frame. They talk about people losing limbs on the job but never show it. They talk about the Mickey's getting robbed but never show it. So there's no sense of real urgency ever, especially since Greg Kinnear's character works for the company so he's not really driven to find out the truth since it would negatively affect his corporate profits. Then, when he doesn't find anything out, he disappears completely from the film.

Fast Food Nation would be much improved if it started with something more important. What if we opened on a worker getting killed by accident in the plant but the supervisors cover it up and mix the body into the meat. Maybe the worker's girlfriend decides to investigate what happened. Maybe somebody finds a finger in the food and they have to investigate where it comes from.

Maybe someone in the Health Department tries to investigate but the fast food lobby tries to stop him. Or perhaps a child gets sick from E. Coli. Or a Mickey's gets robbed and an angry employee decides to get revenge on the company by telling the world how disgusting the burgers are. All of these things are based on events described in the book, and all of them would be more interesting than what is actually presented in this exposition-happy film.

There's a scene toward the end of the film where a self-righteous teenager says "Action speaks louder. I'm tired of nice people sitting around and complaining..."

Yeah, me too, man. It's too bad we didn't have this discussion at the beginning of the film.

You don't know you like I know you

One of my favorite books in the history of literature is Nabokov's Lolita. It's so filled with subtext, it's brilliant. The story is told from the perspective of a pedophile (Humbert) who basically stalks then repeatedly rapes his girlfriend's 12-year-old daughter. What's so amazing about the novel is how it's told from an unreliable narrator's point of view, so many people completely misunderstand the story and think it's about a young seductress who ruins a man's life.

So I finally got around to watching the 1962 film version of the novel tonight and hated it immediately. The opening scene gives away what was to me one of the great mysteries that kept me turning pages - who did Humbert murder to end up in prison? The girl playing Lolita is about 15 when she's supposed to be 10 at the beginning of the story, and any scenes establishing Humbert's lifelong desire for little girls are completely absent from the picture. And everybody keeps calling her Lolita, when the only person who ever calls her that in the novel is Humbert, because he's trying to take away her identity and make her his possession. And the girl in the film is a total spoiled brat, not the innocent little girl with a childhood crush from the novel.

I thought to myself, man this must have pissed Nabokov off. This film is toothless.

So I IMDB'd it to find out what idiot ruined this fantastic story.

It was Nabokov. He adapted his own novel and Stanley Kubrick directed it.

My brain is imploding.

Did I just completely misunderstand the novel? Did the studio force him to do this? Did Kubrick do away with his balls for the duration of filming?

I don't get it. How does a man destroy his greatest work?

The 1997 version is a little closer to the original text, but still sides with Humbert. Film has yet to do justice to my third favorite novel.

So that's it. I'm going to remake this film one day, the right way, the way Nabokov and Kubrick should have done it. Silly men, not knowing how to tell their own stories.

Unfortunate Adaptations

I know I sad Writing Partner would tell his side of the story today, but he says he needs more time. Apparently starring in pizza commercials is taking up too much of his time.

In the meantime I wanted to talk about the new film opening this weekend, The Dark is Rising: The Seeker.

Remember when Bridge to Terabithia came out and everybody thought it was just a silly Narnia clone? Remember how people were surprised at how good it was? I did hope that's what was going on here.

Bridge to Terabithia was one of my favorite books as a kid.

The Dark is Rising series was more addictive to me than Narnia and Little House on the Prairie combined. And if you actually knew how often I read through those series you understand how intense my love for Susan Cooper's masterpieces is.

I should also mention that the only neighbors my age growing up were fundamentalist Christians and I wasn't allowed to watch TV, which is why I read obsessively and played alone with my dog and my imagination, all things that make me a better writer, but kind of a lonely kid. I want to see my favorite books done justice. Some weeks these characters were my best friends.

Anyway, as soon as I saw the ads for this film I was concerned. I feel like they're making it look like a Harry Potter clone, when the series is much older and darker and more adult than Harry Potter.

It's about a boy who discovers he's one of a handful of people born to stop evil from taking over the world. He does this through collecting talismans and traveling back and forth all over Europe and in and out of time. Good and evil and responsibility and sacrifice and betrayal and all kinds of good stuff.

It's very much in line with the hero's journey as you might expect, but oddly enough it also teaches some cultural and historical awareness along the way. For instance, The Grey King, one of the books in this series, taught me how to pronounce Welsh words properly. The name Lloyd, for instance? In Welsh it's pronounced "yo-ud". I bet you didn't know that.

Unfortunately, Rotten Tomatoes is not giving this film much hope, which is a damn shame. Maybe it's because John Hodge isn't used to writing for a younger audience. Maybe it's because most of David Cunninghams' work had been in television. Maybe the studio asked for stupid changes. I don't know. All I know is I wish I'd had a crack at it, not that I'd do any better than an academy award winning writer, but I do have a love for these books he may not share.

Every time a book I love gets butchered in film form I get so frustrated. And worried. There is one book that keeps flying around Hollywood that nobody seems to be able to get a clear idea about how to adapt. It's my very favorite book in the whole wide world and I want it so bad it's driving me batty. If they fuck it up I am going to be pissed, so I just hope they wait for me. Somebody gimme my book. I know how to adapt it. I could have adapted this one too, dammit.

That should be a rule in this town. If it's a classic story let the adaptation be done by someone who truly loved it. They'll know how to keep its essence pure.