When a GREAT book is made into a movie

I have always been a fan of espionage writer Ken Follett. Although he’s written a few books I didn’t care for, like the Modigliani Scandal, which is a horrible book in my opinion, he’s also written some of the greatest thrillers of our time, like Eye of the Needle and Key to Rebecca. But a few years back, after a hiatus where we didn’t see much from Follett, he came out with an unassuming book called Pillars of the Earth. Unlike any of his previous work, this was an historical novel that follows the adventures of a mason who has the solitary desire of building a cathedral in medieval England. The characters he creates in that story are brilliant, and the long-reaching arc he employs in the craft of the story is masterful. It has easily become one of the t0p books on my list of books to recommend ovre the years. Recently, he released a sequel to the book, World Without End, and it, too, was a wonderful book.

Well, they’ve finally come around to making a TV movie out of the first book, and I’ve been torn about this. Some books I’m fine with being turned into a movie because they were okay books, and I was curious to see what they would do with it. But when a masterpiece is turned into a movie, I’m very apprehensive about watching it, because no amount of casting, screenwriting and cinematography can do justice to a masterpiece.

Now, I’ve been wrong with this a few times, like with the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Great movies, and they complemented the great books and didn’t diminish them in any way. Other than Excaliber, which isn’t really a movie about a book but of an entire concept, I’m torn on finding another one that was as successful an adaptation as Lord of the Rings was. I don’t think there’s a single movie out there based on a book where I haven’t been disappointed. Okay, maybe Star Wars, but the book was more based on the movie (even though I know the book was written first), so it didn’t really have that sort of problem.

On the other hand, I know there are so many people out there who will never take the time to read a book that is over 1000 pages long, no matter how good it is. So this might be the only chance for them to ever experience the world that Follett created. But it leaves me thinking that so many people will come away from the experience thinking they read the book, or managed to do enough, that the book is no longer necessary to read. It reminds me of the dorks in school who would be assigned to read a book in a literature class and then at the last minute watch the movie, thinking they got the whole experience of the book. And they would write their report on the movie, pretending they read the book. And it was so obvious they got a limited interpretation of the book (the screenwriter’s interpretation). It used to really bug me because they’d think they “got away with it” when they really missed the reason the book was assigned in the first place.

So, I’m torn as to whether or not I’ll watch the movie. But secretly I want to see what they did with it, but internally I keep feeling that if I see it, and I hate it, then it might forever taint my enjoyment of the book that I once had. Probably not, but it’s always something to think about.