I read Wonder Boys over this past week. I’ve been dying to read something by Michael Chabon since I saw that wonderful cover for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and seen the movie ‘Wonder Boys’, which despite a cast of actors I usually do not like, absolutely adored.
The book, as it so often turns out, is so much more wonderful than the movie. So much darker, slightly more off-kilter and definitely more disturbing. Michael Chabon has wonderful turnings of phrases throughout the book that really subtly, but succinctly build up the characters’ identities. Even the minor players feel slightly more fleshed out. Ironically, these more fleshed out characters’ motivations come across here and there as more mysterious than in the streamlined film, but then – most people are complex enough that you don’t always understand where they’re coming from.
But Wonder Boys comes highly recommended by this narrator.
Wasn’t it a great book?! You might want to check out his website too at home.earthlink.net/~mchabon/ . There are all sorts of interesting odds and ends there, including his unrealized screenplay for X-Men.
Wasn’t it a great book?! You might want to check out his website too at home.earthlink.net/~mchabon/ . There are all sorts of interesting odds and ends there, including his unrealized screenplay for X-Men.
Yeah. I watched Wonderboys ages ago at the cinema on the off chance that it would be an alright way to kill the boredom of an otherwise uneventful evening. I was blown away.
What a totally class film. As you said yourself, I’m not a major fan of folks such as M. Douglas et al, but he was great in it. And Tobey Maguire was superbly casted in that role. What a choice!
Obviously I went out and got the book a couple of months later (in addition to the DVD) and read it in two days. Again, a great book which as per usual, managed to fill all the gaps the film makers couldn’t fill!
The only aspect I disliked was the fact that Grady’s wife was portrayed as a beautiful young blonde girl in the film, when in fact she was a beautiful young Korean girl in the book. But that’s Hollywood for you 😉
Yeah. I watched Wonderboys ages ago at the cinema on the off chance that it would be an alright way to kill the boredom of an otherwise uneventful evening. I was blown away.
What a totally class film. As you said yourself, I’m not a major fan of folks such as M. Douglas et al, but he was great in it. And Tobey Maguire was superbly casted in that role. What a choice!
Obviously I went out and got the book a couple of months later (in addition to the DVD) and read it in two days. Again, a great book which as per usual, managed to fill all the gaps the film makers couldn’t fill!
The only aspect I disliked was the fact that Grady’s wife was portrayed as a beautiful young blonde girl in the film, when in fact she was a beautiful young Korean girl in the book. But that’s Hollywood for you 😉