Foiled By Illness

An idea for a blog post started percolating in my head when I finished Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot last week, but it requires a bit of research. Unfortunately, I came down with a cold on Friday and spent the past five days on my couch watching baseball and movies. I finally started to get my energy back today, but there were too many pressing items on my to do list to allow me to spend time researching for a blog post.

That was just a very long-winded way to say that I don't have anything to write about this week (but at least I'm actually getting this posted on Wednesday). I will make the time to do the research, though, and I will have something to write about next week.

Movie Adaptations

I learned last night that The Fault in Our Stars is being adapted into a movie. (My source was none other than John Green himself, too, so I think it's legit. When you stop to think about it, Twitter is amazing.) Green was pretty positive on Twitter and Tumblr, so I'm hopeful that they'll make a movie that lives up to the book.

The news got me thinking about other movie adaptations, especially adaptations of books I read last year (Stephenie Meyer's The Host and Shannon Hale's Austenland). Both The Host and Austenland are set to hit theaters this year, although I don't believe Austenland has a firm release date yet. I adore both of those novels and have been eagerly anticipating the movies from the moment I learned about them. (In fact, news of each film sent me running to my bookshelves so I could re-read the book in question.)

There are differences between them, though. I immediately agreed with the major casting decisions for Austenland because I love Keri Russell and JJ Feild. And who doesn't love Jane Seymour and Jennifer Coolidge? I was less thrilled with the casting of Saoirse Ronan as The Host's protagonists, Wanderer and Melanie. (Yep, one actor is playing two characters. It's intriguing, right?) In her defense, though, I've only ever seen her in Atonement and I strongly dislike her character in that film, so I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt.

The Host is coming out in just over a month and I am conflicted about it. I'll probably see it because I love the book, but I'm afraid I'm going to dislike the movie. The first and third trailers make it look like an action movie and it really shouldn't be. In particular, the third trailer (which was just released) features an alarming number of car stunts; I don't remember reading anything about a car crash or a high-speed chase in the book (and I've read the book five or six times). So, yeah, I'm worried I won't like the movie but I'll probably see it anyway.

In a way, it's funny that I'm so worried about The Host movie not being faithful to the novel because my favorite Jane Austen adaptations aren't the most faithful. Case in point, I adore the 2005 Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley and don't really like the 1995 BBC miniseries with Colin Firth. The miniseries taught me that there is such a thing as a movie adaptation that is too faithful to the original novel. (I know that a Janeite slamming the miniseries simply isn't done, but I have to be honest. The thing dragged at times and we need to acknowledge that.) I have always felt that the 2005 film captured the essence of the novel and hit all the high points even if the clothes were from the wrong period and the last scene was kind of dumb. And that's my concern with The Host; the trailers make me worry that they didn't capture the essence of the novel at all.

I will be sure to share my thoughts on the film version of The Host if when I see it.

Literary Crushes

I saw a post at HelloGiggles this week about literary crushes that struck a nerve. I've always been one to develop crushes on fictional characters. So not only do I have that in common with the writer, but she and I have crushes on several of the same characters. We even discovered the Lizzie Bennet Diaries at about the same time. Clearly, we should be friends. Before we become friends, though, I thought I would discuss a few of my literary crushes.

• Fitzwilliam Darcy, Pride and Prejudice - I've hinted at this but I love Mr. Darcy. He's not perfect, but he loves Lizzie so much that he goes above and beyond to save her sister's reputation. I can't say enough wonderful things about Mr. Darcy.
• Captain Frederick Wentworth, Persuasion - The letter he writes Anne at the end of the novel is one of the most swoon-worthy things I have ever read.
• Mr. Rochester, Jane Eyre - He's so dark and brooding and tortured. (Those three words are like catnip to me when it comes to fictional characters.)
• Sirius Black, the Harry Potter series - I didn't even realize I had a crush on Sirius until I found myself bawling my eyes out at the end of Order of the Phoenix when he died. I knew I liked Sirius, but it took his death for me to realize it was a crush. He shares the dark, brooding, and tortured thing with Mr. Rochester, although with fewer crazy first wives locked in the attic.
• Joe Willard, the Betsy-Tacy series - Joe Willard was probably my first literary crush. I received a set of the first six Betsy-Tacy books as a kid and my desire to find out what happened with Betsy and Joe largely fueled my decade-long quest to find the rest of the books.
• Peeta Mellark, the Hunger Games series - I know that people have strong opinions on the issue of Peeta versus Gale, but I'm not one of those people. I am, however, Team Peeta. There's something so romantic about his unwavering devotion to Katniss and his selfless desire to give his life for hers.

I could keep going, but you get the idea. Literary crushes are fun.

There's A Wednesday Every Week

And they really sneak up on you sometimes. Like today, for instance, when I realized I needed to write a blog post and I had nothing to write about. I need to do a better job of looking out for potential blog post topics. One would think it wouldn't be that hard considering I only do this once a week. But it appears that it was beyond me this week.

Or it was.

I was watching tonight's episode of The Americans (which I am really enjoying thus far) and Keri Russell's character called Ronald Reagan insane or a madman or something like that. I instantly agreed with her. And then I started wondering how much of that was due to Drift. Admittedly, I've never been a fan of Reagan, but I didn't start thinking of him as crazy until I read Maddow's book. It was interesting to find my opinion of Ronald Reagan (or at least my opinion of his Cold War rhetoric) agree with that of a (fictional) KGB spy.