Literature and Film as Modern Mythology:

Rating:
Summary: A Disappointment If Not a "Rip-Off."
Review: Ferrell's premise holds great promise for readers and moviegoers who frequently have trouble seeing anything of value in the film adaptation of a great novel. By locating the archetypal pattern in both versions, the reader/spectator should be in a better position to understand how the film adaptation, though frequently lacking the internal world and authorial viewpoint of the literary source, can still be a work of integrity in its own right. Unfortunately, the writing is not only inexact and inefficient but frequently imprecise as well. Repetition, waste, and lumbering sentences weigh down virtually every paragraph. Indefinite pronouns along with excessive and carelessly inserted commas camouflage many of the author's points, which the reader suspects are reductive or repetitious anyway. Unidiomatic expressions, dangling modifiers, unparallel constructions can be found on every page. In short, the book would be a disastrous model in any course where students are expected to write. On second thought, the text's unreadibility would perhaps render it harmless. This project was a good idea, but the final product reads like a taped transcription of an oral discussion, and a superficial and tedious one at that. The publishers sent me a pamphlet touting the book as "an essential text for courses in film and literature." They should be ashamed of themselves.