Reading - February 2024

The Truth by Terry Pratchett (2000)

My first Discworld book in nearly a year! I think I might be more than half way now. Anyway, this is a satire of the press and, if I remember Terry's back story correctly, more personally informed than most. There's some of the usual trenchant observations and pointed comments, along with a plot that is pretty standard Pratchett fare.

One Day (2024)

Sometimes more is not more

Comparing this new adaptation with the 2011 film is a fascinating example of why, so often, less is more. The temptation to make it a series is obvious: all those great scenes from the novel could be included, there's more time for deep background on the characters, and the very deliberate episodic nature of the novel would seem tailor-made for adaptation to a series. Unfortunately, more time to fill doesn't mean that the story is improved. While the book can explain the characters' inner motives and feelings (even those they don't themselves understand), and the film has to imply them to save time (the first two years occupy less than ten minutes on screen), the series can't have the characters explain why they are acting the way they are, but can't get away with leaving those scenes out.

In the original book (and film, come to that), it was clear that, despite their differences, Emma and Dexter actually liked each other from the beginning. In this version, it's barely implied, let alone demonstrated. Dexter is a charmless, arrogant arse and there's no sense of why anyone, let alone an intelligent woman like Emma, would put up with him for more than about ten minutes. We don't see any times when they enjoyed each other's company because it seems only bad things happened on 15 July in their lives - but we see too much of those, and so without the good times shown, it becomes somewhat unbalanced.

I persevered because I really enjoyed the book (and the film too) and was willing this to improve, but here, the material has been stretched too thinly across too many episodes and I gave up just over half way through. I know that eventually (spoiler alert) they do get together, and that the appeal for many will be the building anticipation, but it needs more than the knowledge that this will happen in episode 12 or whatever to keep me interested. It also reminded me why I don't like series - they take too much time and, in this case, it was too dramatic for my tastes, for not enough emotional return.