Day 09 - A book you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving

Oh dear I forgot to do this yesterday. Welp, just gonna have to post twice today.

The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver


This book, like many of the books assigned through the school system, seemed like it was going to be a drag. But it was wonderful. I got to read it over the summer, so that may have helped some, but it was so absorbing and so heartbreaking and fascinating, and it struck several chords with me. In particular, though the circumstances were HELLA different, it reminded me a little of the year I spent living abroad in Estonia.

I remember that this was one of the first books I thought about adapting to a movie, not because I could (especially not at age 16) but because it was an interesting exercise trying to figure out how I'd do it. I remember I had a lot pretty innovative ideas, particularly for how to handle the varying POVs and also how to translate Adah's endless internal snarkmonologue into something that would work on screen. Well, not to mention everyone's internal monologues. I think I had a different technique for each one of them? All I remember is that one such technique was the thing Woody Allen does in Annie Hall, where he steps right out of the scene to editorialize at the camera. I remember seeing that around that time in my life and thinking holy shit that is awesome, and how it was one of the first times I realized you could really do some crazy creative shit in movies. For Adah I think I wanted subtitles corresponding to various facial expressions. It probably wouldn't have worked at all, but it was fun to think about.

Like many of these books, I gotta reread it sometime.