Based On A Novel By..

I like watching movies.

A constant worry for those of us who love reading books AND watching movies is that our favorite novels are being eaten alive by a bad transition to the so-called big screen. I could list a lot of examples of such books, but you could probably name as many yourself.

There is only one way to work around this problem, if you want to keep watching movies. You see I got "burned" on Lord of the Rings. I read the books and expected the movies to be much the same. It wasn't.

The movies fleshed out the books in some aspects, but in other parts I missed a lot of important plot and character details.

After that I learned to look upon the book and its movie adaption as two separate stories with characters and places that happened to have the same names. And above all; read the book first!

Local Jury: Douglas Adams Is Funniest Man Ever!

Pardon me for my very theonion.com'ish headline, but thinking of all the books I've read, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" (HGTTG from now) was the one that pulled the most laughs out of me. HGTTG fans would have expected a headline with something like "Don't panic". Well, I'm putting that off until the end. For now, I will just share my experiences (yes, as with other books, I had to read this more than once).

Opening the book and reading the first few pages was enough for me to settle in and not letting go. Actually, I laughed so much that my girlfriend talked me into reading aloud from it.

HGTTG is the only five book trilogy in existence and it makes fun of today's society in a very Sci-fi-ish way. The introduction gets that point going quite well; first Arthur Dent (the main protagonist) is about to get his house destroyed in order to make way to highway bypass. The next minute, the earth is scheduled for destruction in order to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

The whole book is good, but if I was forced to pick a favorite part of the book, I would have to admit the last 200 pages weren't all that funny. As a friend of mine said; reading too much HGTTG at a time is actually not that healthy. On the other hand, reading bits and pieces can be confusing in Adams' universe.

Then again, no matter how you read this book, you're bound to get confused. You must be willing to let go of parts of your sanity to enjoy this book to its full extent. But don't panic! It's highly probable that you'll enjoy it!

Meeting professor Tolkien

I will tell you of my meeting with the author J.R.R. Tolkien and his influence and impact on my life. For that we need to go back to that blessed year of 1998. Before talk about bringing Tolkien's works to the big screen was in the papers.

Hunger. I was hungry. Hungry for something to fill my life with aside from school/military/work. There was an empty space in my cultural life and watching moves just didn't do it.

So I went to the library with no particular goal. I just browsed the shelves. Suddenly, I came to a section called fantasy. In that section there were three books on display and they all had a common title; Lord of the Rings. I had heard that name before. I guy from school had blurted out that title once, when refering to what litterature he thought would fit me.

I borrowed the first and opened it at home on page 1. Page 1 was a map. A huge map with cities, oceans, lakes and woods. Wow, I thought. This had to be something for me. That fictive map sucked me straight into that world.

Reading the first 50 pages was.. cozy, if not very exciting. Suddenly I sensed a build-up. After 100 pages the story exploded and it kept getting better the more I read. Suddenly, at 3 AM one night I had finished the first book and screamed inside myself, wishing for the library to open ASAP.

The two next books were borrowed in one go, but I did the mistake of handing in the first one; the only with the map! That lead to a lot of misplacement, hehe.

After sweating myself through the final book of Lord of the Rings, I was done for. I took a break and then bought the books and read them all twice more over a period of time. I was thrilled and the my reading interest had returned after lingering in no-mans-land for some years.

I read through the Hobbit and twice the Silmarillion. I also started reading other books, too, but for a long time, Lord of the Rings was closest to my heart. That changed at some point, but that's another story.

Thank you, professor Tolkien

Oh, by the way, The Lord of
the Rings movies will be the theme of a blog entry at later stage, where I will discuss book>movie transitions in general.

Science fiction - What I love and hate about this genre

I grew up with movies like Star Wars, Abyss, Star Trek and Terminator, so diving into science fiction litterature seemed like a natural choice to me. I read some of Iain M. Banks' "Culture" novels, i read "Singularity sky" and I read all 4 novels in Arthur C.Clarke's "Rama" series. I even read a Star Wars novel once. Furthermore I read Clarke's "2010; Second Odessey" and Neal Stephenson's hyped "Snow Crash". I was going to learn the hard way.

Why does Science fiction appeal to me?
I like the science fiction genre for several reasons. First of all, I enjoy escaping this world entirely when I read. The mere idea of a world where everything is different. Second, science fiction is a genre that often discusses overpopulation and a lot of other current/future problems coming our way.

Of the novels I read, the "Culture" novels were the ones that were furthest away from our world as we know it. Iain M. Banks dissappointed me. It was too far away, and there was too much focus on these out of world topics. The same was the problem with "Singularity sky" as well. "Snow crash" was just plain silly. I tried and I tried, but never got more than halfway.

The books of Arthur C. Clarke were all a stroke of genius, though. Extremely powerful narration and very lively descriptions. While I was reading, I really got into the emotions of the characters and the atmosphere of the places. My girlfriend also read them and truly enjoyed them. And the Rama series is a 1800 page package, not for beginners (I will analyze the Rama series at a later stage in this blog).

Science fiction roams a lot of books.

Danny the Champion of the World

The day I learned that semi-Viking Roald Dahl had passed away was a day I mourned. Dahl had basically served my childhood literature on a plate, with books like Matilda, The Witches, Fantastic Mr.Fox, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory etc. In addition, the first book I ever read in English, was James and the Giant Peach (although a very confusing session, I might add).

The greatest one of them all was Danny the Champion of the World. The Norwegian translation of the title was more accurate as to the plot of the book; "Danny and the Great Pheasant Hunt". My father read it to me and it was just one of those unforgettable experiences. It was also the time I decided that the story was just too interesting to wait for my father to read through it aloud. One day when he came to read for me, I had simply finished it on my own.

The movie (featuring Jeremy Irons) was brutally dissappointing, though. It was the first time I learned that making a movie based on a book isn't always a good idea for The Reading Nerd. Unfortunately, during the course of the years, I forgot and had to learn this anew.

Anyway, this book is a fantastic story to share with children and I know that my future children will have to listen to me reading from this book. Whether they want to or not. I think they'll want to.

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Here is a quick plot summary, no spoilers (from Wikipedia):
"Danny's mother died when he was four months old and from then on he lived with his father in an old caravan at the back of a filling station where his father also fixed cars. By the time Danny was five years old, he was able to maintain motor vehicles with his father and had been playing with car parts when he was less than a year old. He did not start school until the age of seven, because his father wanted him to be able to dismantle a motor engine and put it together again."

Language of origin or translated version?

Being Norwegian there is a problem I face ever so often; should I read the book in it's language of origin or should I read the translated version? In recent years, I have concluded that if the book is written in English, I read it in English.

However, that does not mean that the Norwegian translations are poor. I read the Lord of the Rings in Norwegian the very first time, and it was wondorous. Reading it in English many years later really distanced me from the warmth of that first time I read it.

It was the same case with The Da Vinci Code. And Wilbur Smith's River God. Never read those in English, but they were brilliant.

The Reading Nerd's first entry

Hi

I'm Martin, the Reading Nerd. I read a lot of books and now I want to share my reading experiences with anyone who listens. Maybe you need a suggestion for a book? Maybe you just want to think what I thought of a book.

My blog is not for those who have not read the books in question. I will unravel plot details and the spoiler load will be too heavy to carry even for the strongest of you if you haven't read the book.

Also, I must remind my reader; I am practicing my written English. Don't be too mindful of it, just use it to my advantage when you must.

Thanks for visiting!