Facebook Reading Challenge – February choice

It’s been a busy old start to the month – paid work has kept me Zooming pretty continuously such that sitting in front of the screen has not been top of my list of priorities. I’ve also set myself the goal of finishing the seventh (and, hopefully, final!) draft of the book I have been working for what must be three years now, and that means locking the door of the study for two hours a day and bashing away. Interruptions have abounded, of course, with home-schooling children and a WFH partner sharing my space, but I’m doing okay and feel on course for finishing the revisions by half term at the end of next week. Sometimes you just have to set a goal and go hell for leather for it. I am telling myself I must not let perfection be the enemy of the good and all that, so after this set of revisions, I really am going to draw that line and say enough, and actually do something with it.

So, that is why I am here, a few days later than planned, to my monthly reading challenge post. I LOVED last month’s book, The Color Purple, by Alice Walker – HOW, had I not read this already?!?!? I have not even seen the film – that is definitely going on my lockdown watch-list. Absolutely gripping, did not go at all in the direction I expected, brilliantly conceived and written. Totally un-put-down-able. It’s made me feel that my own creative efforts look a bit rubbish, but hey, you can’t compare apples and tractors – this book did win the Pulitzer prize after all. More on The Color Purple later in the week.

This month’s theme is “Something that was adapted for screen” – The Color Purple could have worked for that too. Last weekend, we watched the film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy starring Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Toby Jones, Tom Hardy and Colin Firth among others. It was on the BBC iPlayer (only for the rest of this week). I have got quite into spy stories in the last few years – I have now watched all the seasons of The Americans twice over, love them and will probably watch them again, plus we watched the French series Le Bureau de Legendes recently, and I loved that too. John Le Carre died in December last year and I have been intending to read some of his work for a while now, so I thought that would be a good option. I started the book last Sunday, and I’m afraid to say, it’s quite hard work. Maybe the film was just a bit too good? My husband fell asleep during the film, and says the book is better, but I keep falling asleep reading the book, so I’m not sure I agree! The handsome Gary Oldman version of George Smiley from the film, does not concur with the short, plump, tired and ageing Smiley of the book, which jars a bit, and I’m afraid I’d rather be thinking of Gary Oldman! This novel was also adapted for the small screen of course, in 1974, starring Alec Guinness as Smiley. It would be good to watch that too.

I will persevere a little longer, but if I don’t get on with it, I may just abandon it and go for my second option, which is Rebecca, the 1938 Gothic classic by Daphne Du Maurier. There is a new film version out, starring Lily James (who seems to be in just about every other thing I watch at the moment), Kristin Scott Thomas, Anne Dowd and Armie Hammer (wow, what a cast!). There is also of course, the famous Hitchcock version, made in 1940, not long after the publication of the book, and reviews I have read suggest that the new film does not better the old one.

So, a choice of two! Two books, four film and television adaptations, a late start and a short month – quite a challenge! Let’s see if I’m up to it.

I’d be delighted if you would join me.