Words, words, words, art.

Nesko, Gerry, and I went to see Harry Potter and Not Enough Alan Rickman as Snape yesterday, and I was launched into a frothing rage at Hollywood’s inability to take a good, solid story and not fuck it up and make it dumb as a box of rocks. Retarded rocks. I’m referring, of course, to the movie adaptation of The Dark is Rising, a young adult book by that most excellent author Susan Cooper. The Dark is Rising is both the name of a series, and the title of the second novel in that series. Written in the 60s and 70s, the books deal heavily with pre-Christian, British mythology and influenced me a great deal. In the books, some incredibly ordinary kids (Will Stanton, and Jane, Simon, and Barny Drew) must use their wits, courage, and good nature to stand up to and defy rising powers of Darkness and defend the world in the name of the Light. While doing so they brush shoulders with gods, figures of legend, and creatures of wild magic.

The books are thrilling. They show ordinary people (kids) rising to extraordinary heights simply by trying hard and being clever in the case of the Drews, or by realizing that they aren’t human at all, though they are still afflicted with human weakness (Will). Cooper paints an incredibly mundane world (England, Cornwall, and Wales) and then flips bits of it aside to show giddily wild and dangerous magic and power just beneath it. Every empty lot, every row of tree tops, every place where rock meets wave, every mountain, has the potential to be a gateway to something unimaginable.

And now, in the movie, Will Stanton is American and gets followed around by Mall cops as he shops for his girlfriend, and throws people around Matrix-style. There doesn’t seem to be any grace to it, there doesn’t seem to be any wonder, and I have a sinking feeling that Will will Get The Girl in the end.

I may sound like your average, run of the mill internet troll to lambaste a movie I haven’t even seen, based on what may be piddly little changes. Oh, so Will’s 14 instead of 11, big deal. Oh, so Will’s interested in gurrrrrls now instead of later on. Oh, so they start the series with the second book instead of the first one (alas, poor Jane! I fear you will be treated very shabbily indeed). Oh, so they turn one of Will’s brothers into “a Judas like figure” instead of (in addition to?) The Walker. Oh, so suddenly Will’s family are dickholes to him instead of being loving and supportive and clannish. Oh, so Will’s now American and his family is American and they live in America now which makes the heavily, strongly English mythology and pre-Christian religion that much more wtf. But I am upset. This is a good, solid book and part of a good, solid series and it deserves better than this. It had a very distinct voice and this… thing… has other peoples’ fingerprints all over it and not in a good way.

I hope that Susan Cooper has made a huge pile of money from this venture. She certainly deserves it. She’s a fantastic author and I’ve loved everything of hers that I’ve read. But when a book is made into a crappy movie, then sadly, that means that a good movie based on that book will probably never exist. Cooper deserves the acclaim that J. K. Rowling has received. I do hope that, if nothing else, the movie will attract more readers to her books.

In closing, I’d just like to state that the prophetic poetry in these books was some of the first poetry I ever delighted in, let alone memorized, and twenty or so years after first reading the books I still remember big hunks of it… as do my friends who also read these books as kids. It’s inspiring.

Blog post copyright Brigid Keely Barjaktarevic. Originally posted at Words Words Words Art. If you enjoy this blog, check out my parenting blog at Now Showing!.

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