Robyn's luxuriate book montage

The Book of Lost Things
Water for Elephants
A Game of Thrones
The Master and Margarita
David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn, The Courilof Affair
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
1984
Born Free: A Lioness of Two Worlds
Ishmael
Coraline
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
The Historian
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith
Edgar Allan Poe: Selected Works, Deluxe Edition
Animal Farm
Girl, Interrupted


Robyn's favorite books »

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Just for Fun: War of the Worlds

Violent sparkly monsters from Mars come to England.  They bomb the heck out of London and the suburbs with a mysterious black cloud.  And the bacteria killed them.  The End.  Or is it?

As you may know, I spend most of my Wednesday nights at a local pub called the Old Spot.   A small group of us get together to show off our awesome knowledge of all things trivial.  Several weeks ago, H.G. Wells' classic, War of the Worlds was part of one of the questions.  It took me several moments to realize (GASP), I had never read it!  How could that have been?

I loaded it onto my Nook and began reading.  What struck me most- right from the start - was how curious the characters were.  They learned that dreadful monsters from a planet that is not our own landed in a ditch.  Instead of running for the hills, they went to that ditch to check out what was happening.  Expectations that the military could destroy whatever terrible force the martians used overcame the people's sanity, causing them to become lunch for these atrocious creatures.   Soon, they learned that our most deadly weapons were no match for the Martians.  Fortunately, bacteria is practically non-destructible and killed off these demons - but only after they killed most of the population of England.

Wells' world was so different from ours.  We are surrounded by aliens, monsters, spaceships, "black clouds" - at least on TV.  How frightened Wells' readers must have been!  I wonder whether a novel such as this would have the same following in today's entertainment world.   I understand a movie was created a few years back, but that it was all about a dysfunctional family - a radical change from Wells' main character whose fight to survive was due to his hope to find his missing wife.

Could a movie about human relationships during a national disaster survive?



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