The Penelopiad or The Ballad of the Dead Maids Source: Wandering Mirages #fiction #adaptation #screenwriting “This has been my introduction to Atwood and I have to admit that I feel slightly underwhelmed. I went in with high expectations, wondering how Atwood will take the ‘waiting widow’ of The Odyssey and transform it into a full length novel. Turns out that she mostly indulges in recapitulating the bulk of the original with a few wild theories and speculations thrown in as supposed rumors that Penelope has gleaned in the after-life. Which brings me to how the story is constructed and this happens to be the high water mark for this novel. Atwood starts with Penelope addressing us from the other side of River Styx, reaching us through the mysterious sounds of the night and the barks and hoots of unseen animals. Penelope has grown bold since her death and is no longer the meek woman we saw in the original but a bold one who doesn’t mind speaking her mind and spilling a few uncomfortable beans…..”
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The Penelopiad or The Ballad of the Dead Maids

Source: Wandering Mirages

#fiction #adaptation #screenwriting

“This has been my introduction to Atwood and I have to admit that I feel slightly underwhelmed. I went in with high expectations, wondering how Atwood will take the ‘waiting widow’ of The Odyssey and transform it into a full length novel. Turns out that she mostly indulges in recapitulating the bulk of the original with a few wild theories and speculations thrown in as supposed rumors that Penelope has gleaned in the after-life.

Which brings me to how the story is constructed and this happens to be the high water mark for this novel. Atwood starts with Penelope addressing us from the other side of River Styx, reaching us through the mysterious sounds of the night and the barks and hoots of unseen animals. Penelope has grown bold since her death and is no longer the meek woman we saw in the original but a bold one who doesn’t mind speaking her mind and spilling a few uncomfortable beans…..”

Atwood adaptation proved “nerve-wracking’ for Baichwal Source: @chronicalherald #adaptation #screenwriting #film “Seasoned documentary filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal says she had a quick answer when asked if she would adapt a Margaret Atwood book for the big screen: No. Despite being a longtime fan of the legendary novelist, Baichwal says she couldn’t imagine how to wrestle Atwood’s non-fiction Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth into a film when approached by a National Film Board of Canada producer. Part of the problem, she admits, was that she hadn’t read the collection of essays and assumed it was all about the financial collapse. She soon learned it was far from that, delving instead into a broad rumination on the concept of debt itself and the various ways in which notions of obligation and reward play out in history, literature, law and religion. “Of course I should have known — because I’ve read everything Atwood has ever written — that it would not be what I expected,” Baichwal says in a recent interview at a Toronto hotel…..”
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Atwood adaptation proved “nerve-wracking’ for Baichwal

Source: @chronicalherald

#adaptation #screenwriting #film

“Seasoned documentary filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal says she had a quick answer when asked if she would adapt a Margaret Atwood book for the big screen: No.

Despite being a longtime fan of the legendary novelist, Baichwal says she couldn’t imagine how to wrestle Atwood’s non-fiction Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth into a film when approached by a National Film Board of Canada producer.

Part of the problem, she admits, was that she hadn’t read the collection of essays and assumed it was all about the financial collapse.

She soon learned it was far from that, delving instead into a broad rumination on the concept of debt itself and the various ways in which notions of obligation and reward play out in history, literature, law and religion.

“Of course I should have known — because I’ve read everything Atwood has ever written — that it would not be what I expected,” Baichwal says in a recent interview at a Toronto hotel…..”