More to This Story | LOH #234

I don't think it's necessarily a question of what's better - the book or the movie, in this case - more of how you want a story to be told to you. This week, the Ladies of Hive community wants to know if we're a "book person" or a "movie person".

Me, I'd say I'm a story person. If we're talking about books being turned into movies, as is typically the case with that question, I'll take the book over the film where I can. I used to make it a point of reading the book before I saw the adaptation, though I find that's not always easy. There's few stories I want to savor twice over in close succession, so reading a book will inevitably delay seeing the adaptation. You're always being asked to choose, aren't you?

I try to read the book, still, though I'm bot a snob. I think stories, as long as they're consumed faithfully and on a regular basis provide much the same benefits, regardless of how you consume them. Obviously, there's differences, but it's mostly differences of nuance, of shade. Book stories can leave more to interpretation, can invite you to imagine more than the visual will, of course. They might be more detailed, pepper the plot with mentions and side-characters that might get lost in the film. But if a movie cuts certain things out to make it more palatable for that medium, it's usually to help you better absorb a story through the visuals.

We are, at our core, story-driven entities. We rely heavily on fictive heroes to unwind the path before us, and be brave where we can't be. And as long as movies and books both achieve that, why choose? We live, often, in a world of either/or, but not when it comes to story. The only answer to the question "How best can I tell this story?" is whichever way is easiest for it to sink in.

I'm trying to think what was the last movie/book combo that I took in, and Small Things Like These comes to mind. In that case, I made sure to read the book before the movie came out, though to be fair, I was by then so in awe of Claire Keegan's writing that I didn't have much choice. It's a very short book and the adaptation stayed very faithful to it. It worked superbly as both because at its core, it was a fantastic, dark, ultimately human story of compassion and futility.

And that's what we're hungering for, increasingly. We're so busy stripping our world of symbols and heroes, and then turn to the rise of entertainment and blame it for illiteracy and idiocy. I think it's just a natural manifestation of our hunger for powerful myth.

Share why you prefer the one you choose. If neither, what person are you for your entertainment time?

I spend a fair amount of time watching TV shows. Lately, I've been watching a lot of theatre. I read a lot. Much like a gym rat amping up his protein intake, I'm always taking in stories whichever way I can find them, and part of it is, presumably, to do with my chosen metier. But it's also, I think, a way of staying human.

We watch trending TV shows like Squid Game and snarl in disdain at the herd mentality of all watching the same show. Except maybe it's more than. Maybe by all turning on the TV to see the latest season of Black Mirror just because "everyone else is", we're answering a more profound call to share in a fairytale together, be changed by it, made fearful by it, or curious, or in awe.

It's a valuable thing, this sharing in awe and bravery. So f-k the medium, consume stories whichever way you can.