Are books always better than their movies?

Although most people tend to prefer the book over the movie, still there are some examples where the movie was much better than the book it is based on. Take The Hours for example, the book by Michael Cunningham was published in 1998 and it won the Pulitzer prize for literature in 1999. The film appeared in 2002 starring Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf and granted her an Academy Award, Julianne Moore and Meryl Streep were nominated for the best co actress. The story is about three women in three different generations all affected by Virginia Woolf's master piece "Mrs Dalloway", the first woman is Virginia Woolf herself writing the novel (England 1923), the second is Laura Brown (LA 1949) who is reading the novel and preparing a party for her husband, and the third is Clarissa Vaughn (NY 2001) giving a party to her friend and former lover who won a prize for his book and who is also dying of AIDS. Although the book and the movie have more or less the same plot, watching the movie is a much more enjoyable experience than reading the book. The movie provided a better indulgence into each era, with carefuly chosen scenes, make up, film material, costumes and definitely in this case seeing would be much deeper than reading words and imagining how the word "drive" would involve this old car and how the word "kitchen" will be that illustrated in the three different houses, each carrying the legacy of its country and age. Philip Glass' music played a pivotal role in creating the perfect atomosphere for the themes of the film, as all characters share unhappiness, confusion, identity crisis and homosexuality, it is really one of the best soundtracks you can ever listen to, something the book could not provide. The movie was also the first to depict Virginia Woolf in person, Kidman's make up and acting was stunning and she really deserved the Oscar. The book is written in the stream of consciousness technique which, given its depth and huge psychoanalysis focusing on the characters rather than the events, is one of the most difficult styles to be converted into movie, but still the movie wins over the film big time. Could we conclude that whenever we are in front of a work that deals with past eras or famous figures, the movie with its ability to provide this visual experience would win over the book? Well, this is definitely a difficult question, but sometimes yes, the movie could provide the full picture and fill in the gaps that the book could not fill with words. Another example that fits with the above assumption is "Girl with a Pearl Earring", starring Scarlet Johansson and Colin Firth, based on the book by Tracy Chevalier. The story takes place in Delft, Holland in the 17th century when the great Dutch painter Jan Vermeer was working on his master piece Girl with a Pearl Earring that symbolises the Baroque era in painting. Again the movie with its scenes, costumes, music and facial expressions of the characters takes you really there, way more than the book does. Again, a book or a movie? The question remains and an absolute answer is not easy to be found.

KG2 Graduation in the Opera House!

It all started when my sister invited me to the graduation party of her son (KG2!!!) and I had the shock of my life when I asked her where it will be held, the answer was " The small hall, Cairo Opera House" I had to ask her several times and I even made her double check with the school that the party will be there and there it was. I went -extremely biased against the whole idea- and the evening was really disastrous. First of all, the parents were not allowed free entry, they had to buy tickets for 50 LE each! Then the entering scene was horrible, parents coming with children and babies who were fighting with the Staff as the Opera House regulations state that no children below 7 years old are allowed to enter (actually the oldest kid in the graduation party would never be more than 6!!!) After a lot of fighting, the parents forced themselves in, with no tickets or seats reserved, fights started among parents and with the Opera House staff, the performance started 45 minutes late, the theatre was not prepared at all, babies were crying all the time, Cameras were smuggled into the theatre against the approval of the staff as it is also against the Opera House regulations, most of the people were standing and taking photos of their children while waving and screaming... I think I have to stop myself as I can be going for the next 3 hours. Now and to add to all of this, the school headmistress expressed her deep happiness for having the graduation ceremony in the small hall and promised the audience to have it next year in the main hall. Now my question, should the opera house be a place for such events? Should regulations be that flexible that they can be deviated in such a vulgar way? Is it all about making money? Would the Opera House -a gift from Japan that the Egyptian government did not pay a single penny to establish- be added to the endless list of falling icons, losing its meaning and be a source of money? I was really so furious with what happened that I had to leave before the end of the show (I really don't know what to call it) feeling very sorry for what is happening to one of my very few favorite places in this suffocating town. They can't build an Opera House and even when they have one as a gift they can't keep it, the first was burned down and the second is turning into club, I wonder what's next... But there is always a silver lining to the cloud, guys, why don't we add the Opera House theatres to the list of places where we can have Birthdays and proms, if they host KG2 graduation ceremony they definitely wouldn't mind any other sort of events, as long as you pay the money ! The country is moving!!!

Folktales from Europe/ Hans Christian Andersen

From Germany to Denmark, following folk tales in Europe. Can we talk about folk tales without mentioning The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid, and The Emperor's New Clothes? These and many others of such fairy tales that enchanted us as children and lived across centuries, were written by the greatest fairy tale writer, Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) Andersen was born in Odense, Denmark. As a young boy, he had great intelligence, imagination a passionate love for literature. He made himself a small theatre and some wooden puppets, where he spent hours making clothes for then and using them in performing plays, mostly of Shakespeare. At the age of 11, his father died and he had to work in a cigarette factory where he was humiliated by his fellows for being of soft and sensitive nature, that they always called him a girl. After working as an actor and singer in Copenhagen, and there his talent as a writer and poet start to be noticed till his collection of fairy tales was published in 1836. His collection gained him instant success and love by children, soon it was translated to English and they are still being sold in millions of copies each year. Andersen fell ill in 1872, shortly before his death in August 1875, he consulted a composer about the music for his funeral, saying: "Most of the people who will walk after me will be children, so make the beat keep time with little steps." Unlike most of the fairy tales, Andersen's have a great deal of emotions and sadness within the plot. Not all of them have happy endings and some are really very melancholic. This could be attributed to his miserable childhood and unhappy personal life. His ugly physique and being humiliated by his companions as a child followed by dazzling success and fame when he grew up is closely linked to his masterpiece, The Ugly Duckling, which is believed to be Andersen's own biography. Below is a link for the enchanting tales in perfect English translation, I strongly recommend The Little Mermaid and The Ugly Duckling, I know we have heard them or have seen them as cartoons, but trust me, reading them from their original source is something else. http://hca.gilead.org.il/

Folktales from Europe/ The brothers Grimm

Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Tom Thumb and many other children's tales that are linked in our mind to Walt Disney are originally German. They first appeared in a collection of German folk tales published in 1812 as Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children and household tales), now known as Grimm's Fairy Tales. The tales come from a legacy of German folk tales that were transferred by word of mouth through generations, the collection represent the first work to collect them in a book. And soon it was translated to English The Brothers Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Karl (1786–1859), were born in Hanau in Germany, the inseparable brothers attended school in Kassel, and studied law at the University of Marburg. They were both fascinated with the German legacy of traditions and folk tales as well as the German language. They had received their stories from peasants and villagers, where Jacob did the research, while Wilhelm put it into literary form in childlike style. Their fascination with their own language was the main cause behind their huge work, the first dictionary of German language, Deutsches Wörterbuch that was completed years after their death and now is compared to the Oxford dictionary of English language. But what is the reason behind their passion for the German history and language that made such university professors work on collecting fairy tales for children. This can be explained if we notice their life in this era when Napoleon invaded Europe and was re-organizing Germany. At that time, the nation of Germany did not exist and the only thing that could unite the Germans into one nation was a common language, so the brothers Grimm used the German language and its legacy and history to create and keep a German identity. In 1937 Walt Disney produced the Disney's version of snow white as Snow White and the seven Dwarfs, without any notification that the story is originally from German folktales and specifically from the Grimm's collection. That was just the start for many of these tales to be taken by Disney and produced under his name, even the castle that Disney uses as its logo is originally a German Castle in Munich…. America, what else can we expect….. Below is a link that takes you into the magical world of Grimm's fairy tales, so hit it and enjoy… http://www.familymanagement.com/literacy/grimms/grimms-toc.html

Folktales from Europe/ Aesop and La Fontaine

One of the oldest collections of folk tales is Aesop's fables. Written by Aesop, a slave who lived in Ancient Greece, the fables represent one of the oldest tales that personify animals. Aesop was mentioned by great Greek figures like the historian Herodotus, the philosophers Plato and Socrates and the dramatist Aristophanes. Historians believe that many of the tales were written to criticize and make fun of authorities and aristocracy, something that caused Aesop to lose his life after being sentenced to death for such act. As children, we were brought up listening to many of these tales like The Boy who cried "wolf!", The Tortoise and the Rabbit, The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, The Ant and the Grasshopper, and many others. Each tale has personified animals that play the roles and although they are mainly regarded as children's tales, the morale from them shows wisdom and philosophy of great depth, something that made Aesop's fables still alive till our time. It is from these tales that we are still attributing some traits to animals like the lion as king of the jungle, the cunning fox…etc One of my favorite tales that –in my point of view- carries a lot of depth is The Fox and the Grapes, where a fox sees a cluster of ripe red grapes hanging on a vine. Seeing the delicious grapes, he desired them a lot but they were too high for his reach. After a lot of trials, the fox walked away telling himself "the grapes are sour anyway". The morale of the story says that it is always easy to despise what you cannot get. But how did Aesop's fables remained alive and reached our lands after all this time? The first translation of the fables into Latin is dated back to the Fourth Century AD, about a hundred years later; they were translated into English from which they were translated to almost all spoken languages including Arabic. One of the most famous collections of fables, the fables of La Fontaine, was mainly influenced by Aesop's tales. Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) was a poet who lived in France and produced a collection of tales very similar to those of Aesop, written in poetical form and are still studied by scholars till our days as a milestone of French literature. The Fables of Aesop and La Fontaine represent some classical forms of folk tales, simple and short as they are, they still carry the depth of ancient Greek and French Philosophy. Below are links to the collections, so start reading and enjoy! http://www.aesopfables.com/ http://www.aesopfables.com/aesopjdlf.html