Friday, June 08, 2007

Paper Mill: The Books That I Read

Getting re-acquainted with J.R.R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy by reading the books that I purchased in the previous sales at Borders, makes the movies feel like a travesty. Sure, they are brilliant examples of cinema, but are they brilliant adaptations? No.

If you worship the movies as a definitive guide to all things regarding the trilogy, I'll advise you to go read the books. What you are watching on screen is a water-downed, butchered, diced and cooked (add in a healthy dash of very nice special effects) "re-imagining" of the author's brilliant work. Sure, you may argue that the books are too long to be adapted in the first place. Hence: "re-imaginations".

Now I've said my piece, I'm actually quite pleased with the 3-tier BILLY book shelf I bought from IKEA and yes, I assembled it single-handedly. Nothing does the male ego better than DIY furniture projects eh? However, the book shelf is way easier when compared to the IKEA workstation that I assembled last year.

Fiction occupies the first row, with it being dominated by the LOTR trilogy along side the almost complete collection of Frank Herbert's Dune saga. There's also the almost complete works of Thomas Harris. While I'm still missing Black Sunday and Hannibal Rising, the latter doesn't seem to be a good buy, having read it at the local bookstore.

An attempt to reduce probably the most evil fictional sociopath of all time to a "set of influences"? Thomas Harris, you are being a bit contradictory, shame on you. The movie "adaption" was atrocious as well, so much unlike Silence of the Lambs.

The rest of the shelves are used to store games (both PC and Nintendo DS, boxes, folded bags, so on and so forth). No pictures this time, but I might take pictures of some things sitting on top of the book shelf. Hint: Star Trek.