Ripping Good Yarns: Book Before the Horse?

What comes first?  The movie or the book?

Ah, yes, reading, my old friend!  Certainly one of the things that has been difficult for me to fit in.  Normally I have several books to report that I am reading on.  Today, there are only two that I am reading, and those very slowly. there are

One is The Promise by Jonathan Alter, covering Barack Obama's first year in office.  The book is pro-Obama, but not in a fawning or blind to flaws sense.  It has been very illuminating in showing the character of the administration and how policy was shaped.  We are very fortunate to have this calm, rational pragmatist at our helm at this rocky time in our country.  I started the book before the election, and wondered what it would be like to read if the election were decided against him.  Fortunately, that scenario did not occur.

The other book is The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen.  It centers on an agent from the future who is trying to preserve his present.  They prevent others from coming back and changing the past.  But what they preserve are often events of great horror, such as making sure 9/11 DOES happen.  They want the same crisis's to develop that leads to the Great Conflagration that leads to their present time, which they call the Perfect Present.  Only the agent gradually realizes that the present may not be so perfect after all.  I'm early on, but it's one of those kind of books that make you think, "Hay, this might make a great movie!"

So, should you read the book or see the movie first?

It's a dilemma, and I don't know if there is an easy, simple answer.  A book allows you to paint the picture of the words in a way that might be very individual to you.  This may not fit the vision of a particular director or Hollywood studio.  There is invariably disappointment in the way a character looks or how a landscape or city or house look.  There are things from the book left out and other things inexplicably altered.  It can be very frustrating.

On the other hand, I find that if I've read the book, I still want to see the movie.  If I've seen the movie, I often don't go back to read the book.  So, for me, yes, the book comes first, or it often doesn't come at all.

I have read the entire Harry Potter series.  I've only seen the first three movies because that is as far as Benjamin has read, and we didn't want to see the movies until he had read the books that they were based on.  Benjamin is reading more, in fact accelerating very well with Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series.  I may have to rethink this as I have waited a long time to see those movies.

It's discouraging sometimes to see where Hollywood takes things, and sometimes I feel I am too familiar with the story and not able to be taken by surprise, but iIcannot imagine having seen much of what I've seen without the backdrop of the book first.

So, I guess, for me, it's book first.  Or no book at all.  Just the way I roll.