Fiction into film

While on the subject of adaptation, here’s a recommendation that most of my friends are already painfully familiar with: if you love books and films, and often ponder the nuances of translation from one medium to the other, please try to get hold of Joy Gould Boyum’s wonderful book Double Exposure: Fiction Into Film. After examining at great length the differences between the two art forms, Boyum goes on to illuminate these differences (and how they can be dealt with in adaptation) through a series of excellent essays on films like Apocalypse Now, Under the Volcano and A Clockwork Orange. It’s one of my favourite books, written by someone who clearly has equal regard for literature and cinema. And though Boyum is a Professor of English and Communication Arts, her writing never degenerates into unreadable academia of the sort that makes you want to give up reading and watching movies and living altogether.