Thursday, June 05, 2014

Six famous books with extremely faithful film adaptations

At The Barnes & Noble Book Blog Matt Kraus tagged six famous books with extremely faithful film adaptations, including:
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding

There have been two adaptations of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies: a black-and-white British version made in 1963 and a second, American version made in 1990. The former remains the definitive adaptation of the book, and part of that is its relative adherence to Golding’s material. (The 1990 version changes a great deal, and is not particularly respected by film fans.) It doesn’t outright copy its source, since many of the scenes were improvised on the fly by the child actors, but director Peter Brook stuck closely to the novel’s plot, which allowed him to keep its cynical themes intact.
Read about another entry on the list.

Lord of the Flies is on Michael Hogan's list of the ten best fictional evil children, Danny Wallace's six best books list, Gemma Malley's top ten list of dystopian novels for teenagers, AbeBooks' list of 20 books of shattered childhoods and is one of the top ten works of literature according to Stephen King. It appears on John Mullan's lists of ten of the best pigs in literature, ten of the best pairs of glasses in literature, and ten of the best horrid children in literature, Katharine Quarmby's top ten list of disability stories, and William Skidelsky's list of ten of the best accounts of being marooned in literature. It is a book that made a difference to Isla Fisher and is one of Suzi Quatro's six best books.

--Marshal Zeringue