Theatrical Thrusday – The Color Purple

I’ve been really excited to start this feature since I first came up with the idea. I hope that you enjoy it too.

I find that a novel is rarely duplicated and not when it changes medium something about it falls short. When it comes to The Color Purple, Alice Walker’s masterpiece I’ve enjoyed it in all of it’s entities. Unfortunately, I’m not really impressed that the talk show queen (Oprah) has taken such a large role in spreading the word of the novel. In fact, if I’m wanting to read a novel I will not even consider the book if it has her book club seal on, I’ll find one without it.

There some aspects of the book that stick out and make you very happy when you see it in its other forms. Take the moment that Celie decides to leave Mister, the musical did a great job but so did movie:

I really enjoy the film and it’s because of scenes like that one that make it truly thrilling. And being a huge fan of live theatre I was thrilled to hear that this novel was also made into a musical. And as per the rant above I was disappointed that Oprah took a large producing role but I wanted to really see it when came to Toronto and wasn’t going to let that stop me.

When I saw the presentation during the Tony awards it made me want to see it even more.

After seeing that how could anyone want to pass the opportunity to see the stage production? The soulful tunes that are in the production bring Alice Walker’s novel to life in a whole new way. I would strongly suggest seeing it if you ever get the opportunity. The novel and film are also an experience to participate in.

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Booking Through Thursday #27

How about, “What’s the worst ‘best’ book you’ve ever read — the one everyone says is so great, but you can’t figure out why?”

I think this is perhaps the easiest question to answer in recent history.  I read this particular novel last year and promptly wrote the review for it because I just needed to get off my chest how much I didn’t like this particular novel.  And as I stated back then it is a little embarrassing to say that I don’t like the book because so many people have said that they love it so much.

The book I’m talking about it Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  I found the the novel to be difficult to get into and really didn’t care about any of the characters. There were actually times I almost gave up on reading it.  But I persisted in hopes that it would get better and that I may end up liking it in the end.  No suck luck.

I guess you cannot like them all can you?  I’m really interested to see what everyone else had to say on the subject.  I recall reading reading a review this week (and sorry but I don’t recall who it was that wrote it) of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and they really didn’t like it.  I must say that I enjoyed most of the novel, except for one part in which the narrator has an experience in another persons body.  It was truly bizzar and almost enough to completely ruin the whole novel for me to.  But it seems like a novel most people loved.

I’m looking forward to see what others have to say.  Happy reading everyone.