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| Photo from Buzzle |
So the question is, with books as movies and online book summary sites, do people really need to 'read' anymore?
One of my close friends once suggested that I read the book called "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", saying it was a great book, I responded with, "Oh, I was going to watch that movie..." This conversation got me to wondering...does anyone really 'read' anymore, or are we just accustomed to getting the classics and new stories from movies, cliff notes and YouTube clips?
I will admit that I am an avid reader and 'book collector' myself but I do tend to vote on 'watching' a book rather than reading it sometimes. But I also can't wait to see a movie that is based on a favorite read; though I always worry that the film industry will mess up the story, which often happens as in "My Sister's Keeper", where the ending of the book and movie are complete opposites.
Changing books into movies is one of the most common things these days that media arts is doing as per the public demand. People have started liking this idea of watching the movie which is based on a particular book they have already read before. They love to compare it, and always wait for some climax scene to take place so that they can compare their visual imagination with that particular scene in the movie. Some people like it while some don't, and this is because all the aspects and some important points cannot be covered in a movie which is based on a book of about 1000 or more pages.
--As Buzzle.com explains.I would agree that it's fun to be able to 'watch' a book, but I still think that reading a book allows the reader to fully enter the books' story, mostly because not all details of a book can be put into a movie. In fact, some people may go to a movie and have no idea that there was a book that came first. Lets do an experiment, watch the video below from YouTube and try to see how many books you can identify from the film clips they show. I was able to identify about 5, though I think there are 8 or so in the video.
Another medium that seems to deter individuals from actually reading books is Cliff Notes, a wildly used online database that basically sum up an 800 page novel, or any novel, in just a few pages.
I personally have never used Cliff Notes, but know of many who have. The Digital Nation film that was shown in my Digital Media and Society class explained that "...many students never actually read a novel or any of the classics anymore, and some haven't even read an entire book by the time they graduate from high school...", partially due to the availability of Cliff Notes, and other technological conveniences or distractions; depends how you look at it. It's sad to think that so many are missing out on such great adventures.
Cliff Notes isn't the only site that provides short and simple book reviews however, there are several others; including: freebooknotes.com, sparknotes, bookwolf, and many more.
Sites like the ones I just listed encourage individuals to simply settle with a brief summary rather than the entire publication, and they aren't afraid to say it, as a quote from the bookwolf website shows:
What ever happened to the long nights spent reading a good book cuddled on the couch with a loyal pet or favorite blanket? They have become filled with hours on updating photos to facebook, playing video games, or downloading the latest hits from iTunes. The publishing world as a whole is being 'digitalized', 'summarized', 'profitized' and many other types of 'ized'. Back to "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", I have bought my own copy and will be beginning my full book experience soon. Though an article in a blog on culturemob.com had this to say about the movie: If you haven’t already seen them, it’s also worth checking out the movies of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest. They may never quite live up to the books, but all three are good films in their own right.I plan to try to read all three books, then see the subtitled films to get the entire experience. |
This was an interesting read, and something that I found very relevant
ReplyDeleteI think that you make some great points about how technology lessens reading, but I think you should have more differentiation between pleasure reading and academic reading.
Sparknotes and the like are mostly for people who don't want to or can't read a book for class. Most of the books covered at Sparknotes are frequently taught in High Schools or College lit classes. There are a few popular books on the site, but most of the selection focuses on literary works.
For the aspects of pleasure reading, some statistics on how many people read for pleasure would help re-enforce your post.
The comparison between books being adapted into movies was good (thanks for avoiding spoilers), but when movies based on books are released, publishers often release tie-in editions of the books to promote the movie. I believe these sell well, so how would that change your argument?
Finally, is there a way to integrate the links at the end of your post into the main text? They are sort of distracting where they are.
Again, this was a very interesting post, and I'm excited to see more.
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ReplyDeleteI like this blog topic because it is something everyone can relate to. I feel like almost every movie I see is based on a novel! I found it intriguing that you mentioned "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" because I have recently moved that into my "Instant Queue" on Netflix.
ReplyDeleteThe design of your blog does a great job of aligning with your topic (the books on the side). It is visually appealing. The only thing I would change about this post is the location of your video. I find it to be cleaner when the text is wrapped around the video.
For future blogging ideas, I think it would be interesting to see if new technologies such as the Nook are effecting how writers/journalists do their work.
Nice blog thus far, keep up the good work!