On Reading, Adaptations, Optimism, and Unpolished Charm.
How narratives- ours and others’- shape us and make their way into the world.
There’s an unintended little thread in today’s missive of how the narratives we consume come to shape our experiences; suggesting a great power in the stories told to us, and those we tell ourselves.
To Read Or Not To Read: The adaptation dilemma.
Friday Find: The planet deserves optimism.
Glorious Misfit: Another pop star? Here’s to keeping it real.
With: Stuffing hot dogs, an AI music streamer, a slasher film.
1. To Read Or Not To Read.
When it comes to book adaptations, I have generally been in the ‘read before watching’ camp. At least, I like the principle- a story written to be read must be read before it is watched.
Generally speaking, I have had so many wonderful team-ups between an author’s words /ideas and my imagination, that I am hesitant to have them co-opted by a visual adaptation. Some of the best books achieve that special balance of exposition and omission- leaving just enough unsaid. Then the mind steps in, with our tastes and idiosyncrasies. We create a world we inhabit for a few weeks or months and in rare and brilliant cases, for years.
So if I see an adaptation on the horizon for a book I think is worth reading, I’ll try to prioritise the reading before the watching. The flip side? Once a show/film is watched, its source books plummet down any notional reading list, because having already seen it brought to life would take away from the reading experience.
But a general worldview has become a skirmish in the last couple of decades. The sheer flood of adaptations in the peak TV/streaming wars era has made it nearly impossible to uphold this principle. I once naively believed that most people rally to my banner of 'read first, watch later'. But, based on extensive research and deep analytics, I can state that this assumption is unlikely to be true. We know who has the upper hand in the battle between instant gratification and delayed literary pleasure.
Not everyone wants to tackle George R.R. Martin's doorstoppers before diving into 'Game of Thrones'.
Muggle Life.
As a result of this, I’ve often resisted watching adaptations of books I haven’t read, partly because I feared that doing so would forever lock me out of the source material. One of the greatest examples of this was Harry Potter. I (and the eminently better half) essentially missed out on an entire cultural phenomenon because we had not read the books when the first movie came out, nor when the second, or when the third… you get the idea. All the while, we were certain we must read the books first. Spoiler alert: we didn’t*. Muggle life (aka adulting) took over, and when we looked up, the train had left Platform 9 3/4 .
The partial defeat of said principles has been a slow erosion. It went not with a bang but with a soft click of the remote... around the point when studios began mining books for material like it was mithril in Moria.
I think I have divided this into some categories.
The ‘Not Reading Those Anyway’ pile- the likes of Hunger Games, True Blood, Maze Runner, Queen’s Gambit, Witcher.
The ‘Would Have Been Good If I’d Read These First’ stack- looking at Game of Thrones, Shogun, Handmaid’s Tale, Station Eleven, His Dark Materials. This includes those I had pinned to read for years (Shogun), to those I had no idea about (Station Eleven).
The ‘Read And Re-read Before Watching’ collection- to relish again, and in case the adaptation were to forever ‘sully’ one’s experience of the book. Entries include Dune and the Foundation series.
The ‘Don’t Bother With The Adaptation’ pile, notably led by Apple’s adaptation of Shantaram which looked pretty woeful.
And then there's Three-Body Problem, which sits in its own category of "I started reading this now and I might finish it at some point before a photon destroys the solar system.”
Cixin Liu’s trilogy, which put Chinese sci-fi on the global map, made waves with its hard science, complex narrative, and the coveted Hugo Award. I read the first two books many, many months apart, back in ‘22-23. The third part lay pending. When the Netflix trailer came out, I assiduously avoided it, and also heard about an allegedly more ‘authentic’ Chinese adaptation available on Youtube. It took me a while earlier this year, but I did read the final book, and have just dipped into some of the Chinese show. I shall endeavour finishing that, before exploring Netflix’s attempt at bringing it to life.
The Ship To Westeros
The most interesting twist in my character arc though, has been with George R R Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire series. I barely knew about the books when the Game Of Thrones show started in 2011, and along with a few hundred million others, was utterly sucked into the brutal world of intrigue and betrayal, and dragons. My experience of the show was emotional, even visceral. But the books? Nah, I thought- it was hard enough keeping track of who was stabbing whom in the show.
Then one disconnected beach break ago, I found a sand-crusted copy of the first in the series, languishing in a book exchange library off the coast of Malaysia. I picked it up.
Reading Martin's opus after watching the show feels like meeting old batchmates after a long hiatus. As you share goblets of ale and wine, you discover they are exactly as noble, passionate, weirdly charming, condescending and despicable as you remembered them. (I’m looking at you Jon, Arya, Tyrion, Daenaerys and Cersei).
I am mostly unable to separate my visual and emotional connection to the show with the narrative I am reading. Its like the words come filtered through a painted glass of the show, rendering my experience of them through its actors, its settings, its colours. Lines come laced with Peter Dinklage's sardonic delivery, Emilia Clarke's condescending eyebrows, Lena Headey’s abhorrent sneers.
But the bottomline? I'm enjoying it. I can’t know what it might have been like the other way round (and I suspect knowing the plotlines has helped navigate the sprawling narrative), but I do know that this swirling concoction of descriptions, visuals and familiarity has been wonderful.
(There’s an interesting sideline here about the role preconceptions play in how we consume much in our world).
Cognitive Dissonance
This journey is leading me to a strange new world where I could conceivably, simultaneously, hold two contradictory thoughts:
Books are noble and should be read before any adaptation touches them.
Sometimes, it's okay to let studios do the heavy lifting of world-building while you catch up on your reading list.
So here I am, straddling two worlds like Lyra Belacqua at a portal window with a subtle knife. Rich, inviting books in one and lush, inviting worlds in another.
Will I read Wild Robot before the film hits later this year? (I will). Will I read Pachinko before or after I watch it? Will I ever read Shogun? Will I get to Handmaid’s Tale? Who knows! The suspense is killing me (almost as much as the suspense of wondering if George R.R. Martin will ever finish his bloody series).
Footnote.
*So we did finally embark on the Harry Potter book series, when the older offspring did, often in tandem. I have two books left (he has one). At some point the films shall be visited together, despite the complication of the younger offspring not being ‘ready’ for them or having finished his reading of the books.
2. Friday Find:
Here’s a little Game of Thrones continuity. An Optimist's Guide to the Planet captures Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s search for people across the globe who are helping drive humanity toward a brighter, more sustainable future.
The premise of this docu-series is itself heartening, with a belief in humanity central to its journey. And, its brought to life in way that is humane, sincere and very likeable by Nikolaj and the Ill Kippers team (a production outfit he co-founded), directed by Mark Stevenson (its a Bloomberg Original ).
He said in an interview, when Game of Thrones was referenced, “the irony is that the show is about all these houses and countries fighting each other and ignoring that there’s a bigger threat outside. It’s such an obvious metaphor for where we are today.”
Just this first episode traverses the melting ice in Greenland- including some lovely personal interludes at Nikolaj’s wife’s childhood home in Igaliku, coral reefs and cloud creation in Australia, a low-waste village & minimal living in Japan, and more. The series spans the globe.
Watch Part 1 here. If you are short on time right this moment, have a look at the first two mins to give you a sense of the series. Then maybe watch the rest too. Its smilingly heartening, and inspiring.
Who knows, you might even hate Jaime Lannister a bit less after this.
3. Glorious Misfit
"Another pop star? Yawn." That’s usually my reaction.
Maybe not this time. In a world of cookie-cutter pop princesses, here is someone who has found her way to being a glorious misfit.
“Be yourself" and “be authentic” are pieces of advice that many of us are probably tired of seeing float about. Maybe because they often seem to have lost their meaning in highly curated, crafted and managed authenticity. But I am less cynical about the story of Chappell Roan who- whether consciously or otherwise- seems to have taken such advice and run with it... all the way to the top of the charts.
For those of you who've been living under a soundproof rock (no judgment, I sometimes wish I had one!)- Chappell Roan is the 25 year old singer-songwriter who has set the pop world alight in 2024. And when I say alight, I mean on fire.
Back in December 2023, Roan was simmering with a modest 2-3 million streams per week. Fast forward to August 2024, and she exploded to a whopping 68 million weekly streams. That's not just growth; its the kind of explosion that’s made a fire into an inferno. Roan's been busy conquering Coachella, charming Jimmy Fallon, and drawing what might be a record-setting crowd at Lollapalooza. Oh, and at one point last month, she casually had seven songs on the "Hot 100".
Unpolished charm.
So what's her secret sauce? It turns out authenticity isn't always just a buzzword for Instagram captions.
I loved this bit from The Guardian, who called The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess- her debut album- "one of the most over-the-top, gloriously tasteless debuts in recent memory." This was a good thing, couched in the worthy context of, “In a decidedly risk-averse, self-consciously tasteful pop landscape, Chappell Roan stands out.” NPR says Roan's music “has an easy-to-root-for, mouthy, unpolished charm".
These descriptions suggest an artist unafraid to stand out in a crowded field- its made her meteoric recent rise so much fun for fans, because “it feels incredibly earned.”
And that is the compelling bit. It seems that her success isn't just about catchy tunes and wild theatrical performances (both of which clearly play a huge part). It's about her journey. She has been an artist for nine years now- was dropped by a major label a year into her career, moved back home to rural Missouri but didn’t lose the dream, worked on her music between various gigs, sometimes between serving customers at a drive-through coffee shop… only to reemerge as a very different but more ‘real’ Chapelle Roan.
Looking back over the arc of Roan’s career, it becomes clear that her music got really good and her career started to take off once she had a strong sense of who she was as an individual. That sense of self is intertwined with Roan defining herself as a queer woman.
I can’t say I dig her music too much, though parts of her tracks “trading in varying shades of disco, synth-pop and rock” feel 80s skewed, with moments of Tori Amos, Cindi Lauper, Katy Perry, YMCA, and (even) Fleetwood Mac (ok very briefly and no, no Stevie Nicks). But I was nudged to write this because whether or not Chappell Roan's music is your jam, her rise is a glitter-covered reminder that sometimes, the best way to fit in is to stand out. In a world of polished pop princesses, she's the lovable misfit who kept looking for her path – and found a kingdom waiting.
She is the artistic culmination of a long search for self-discovery, and you can hear the joy and celebration of that search in the music.
Here’s to keeping it real. And maybe a little weird.
~ · ~
Reading.
NPR delves deep into what it is about Chapelle Roan · The Guardian on why she is pop’s next big thing · Vox traces the journey of embracing her queer joy and how the era of Chapelle Roan is upon us · Switched On Pop deconstructs some of her tracks ·
4. Peanut Masala
(where I share stories or tidbits I find interesting)
Shrug. Two grown men competed to see who could eat the most hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. The winner took home $100,000 and was crowned the champion. This was “Unfinished Beef,” a live competitive-eating special on Netflix. "Both men excel at something that not only has no practical utility but, if one stops and thinks about it for more than five seconds, is fairly obscene in a world where unquelled hunger exists.” Watch a clip here, if you must.
Read. Chinese technology giant Kunlun Tech has launched what it claims to be “the world’s first AI-powered music streaming platform”. The company says that its new Melodio service features “personalized, AI-generated music streams tailored to users’ moods and scenarios”. How lovely.
Read/Watch. A story about how a slasher film made for $800 and released for free, became a must-watch for horror fans. The filmmaker and comedian Curry Barker directed and starred in the film, also serving as writer, producer, editor, co-cinematographer and composer. He’s now casting for a feature film (with a real budget).
Off to a fabled Valyrian stone road.