From: Ishan Tarunesh <ishantarunesh@gmail.com>
What amazes me is that Ted Chiang, one of the most respected contemporary sci-fi authors, has only written 18 short stories and amassed four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, and six Locus awards collectively. To give you the context, Isaac Asimov received two Nebula awards, five Hugo awards, and seven Locus awards, but he also wrote (or edited) 500 books! Anyway.
After writing the previous email, a slight feeling of dissatisfaction brewed inside me. That I have not given proper justice to the discussion, although I don’t think my stance is changing with this email too, but at least I would have given some nuanced things the light they deserve.
There are two possibilities the debate reduces to
My last email ended with possible refutations for (i) and briefly touched on (ii). In this email, I want to delve more into (ii), but I wanted to know your view on the below.
Let’s say a new book was written based on a previous book. Would you argue this passionately about the original book as well? Did the second book completely butcher the first? And what about movies made from another movie? Did you know the movie “A Star Is Born” has been made four times with THE EXACT SAME NAME, let alone the copies with different names/languages (Aashiqui 2, for example, is a copy). So, did no version live up to the 1937 one?
Alright, no more putting you on the spot.
Books and movies are not isolated, disjoint classes of art. There are forms in between, and the line gets blurred very quickly. If books are clearly a better form of art than movies because they let people make the stories personal, what about books that occasionally contain pictures? Are you also saying that books with pictures are worse than those without them because they reduce your ability to imagine things on their own?
And why just look at forms in between? I was reading a book that talks about the superiority of games over books (I understand how ironic it sounds, but whatever). To quote -
Yet games are also stories that we can explore with our friends. As shared experiences, they have some advantages over the solitary disappearance into a book. They are more active, giving the players agency in the way the story evolves. A novel can move you to tears, but a game can make you feel guilty for your actions.
The point was worth pondering. Has a book ever made you feel guilty? Happy? Yes. Sad? Definitely. But I don’t recall feeling guilty. The debate for the superiority of forms has no end. And games have been made into movies and books. So ardent supporters of games would say the same about the book (or movie). It doesn’t live up to the original.
What about the interactive movies they are making these days? Bandersnatch. Don’t you think such an interaction where you can choose how the movie evolves puts you at the center of the art and makes it more personal? Is there a chance that if they decide to remake Harry Potter movies in an interactive way, it could be more enjoyable than the books you so dearly hold to your heart? Or are all my efforts in vain?
Why should books be held in such high regard? Isn’t long-form prose a dying art? Nobody has the patience to read. Is your stance then a stance of superiority of old vs new? Isn’t this similar to how our parents proclaim that things were different during their time with a sense of pride? Are the upcoming writers of today writing books? Or are they writing on substack? It’s the same with movies. Are the upcoming creators making movies? Or are they making short videos?
If a book was converted to an article, would you consider it a definite degradation? Many people would strongly agree that most self-help books should be an article, back to the same point that some forms are more suitable for certain expressions.
And when we compare the effectiveness of different art forms, should we completely ignore the merit of the creator? Wouldn’t Friedrik Backman add the narrator’s comments to any ordinary Netflix movie and make it successful? And wouldn’t Christopher Nolan take up the book How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and do it the justice it deserves? It comes down to better storytelling. A better storyteller would tell the story better whatever the medium.
Are F1 races better to watch compared to Drive To Survive? What did Netflix do? Instead of showing you highlights on a race-to-race basis, they instead sliced the F1 tour across the team axis. And in my opinion it does create a better viewing experience. It’s because F1 is not a fair competition because different teams have different resources.
Hopefully, this is the last email.
Bye!