More and more, TV is being adapted from books. But maybe not the best TV.
By John Warner
Bopping around the myriad streaming services, it is clear that we are in a golden age of book to television adaptations.
Emmy-nominated shows “Bridgerton” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” are adapted directly from books, while “Lovecraft Country” utilizes and then upends and transforms the works of H.P. Lovecraft. There’s even the relatively rare appearance of a book-inspired show among the comedy nominees with “The Flight Attendant.”
A trio of academics writing at The Atlantic crunched the numbers and found that for the first time this millennium — and perhaps ever — adaptations of books to television series outnumber adaptations of books to movies.
The reasons for this are fairly apparent. There is more televisual content being produced than ever and it needs to come from somewhere. As the authors of the article point out, a book can serve as a kind of shortcut to an essential element for a compelling series.
It may be compelling characters like “Normal People,” adapted from the Sally Rooney novel, or a fully realized alternative world in “The Handmaid’s Tale” or “Game of Thrones.” Celeste Ng’s “Little Fires Everywhere” provides backdrop, character, and a highly satisfying story reveal that all translated well to the screen.
The authors also note how books can even provide a more subtle element to the translation process, as Colson Whitehead’s evocative descriptions in “The Underground Railroad” were captured so brilliantly by Barry Jenkins in the limited series.
No doubt there are some high-quality series that come from books and there will be many more, but I’m here to lay down a marker that if you want a truly Top 5 all-time great television show, you want to start from scratch.
Granted, what we decide is an all-timer is arbitrary and even personal, but a 2016 Rolling Stone ranking of the best shows of all-time had a consensus of “The Sopranos,” “The Wire,” “Breaking Bad,” and “Mad Men.” Limiting our scope to dramas — which these are, and which are much more likely to be drawn from books than comedies — I would add “Fleabag” to the list, though as I think about it, that show straddles a comedy/drama line.
(This is what makes it so good.) None of these shows is adapted from a book, and we can also notice that while TV shows are by their nature collaborative, each of these shows is famously the product of a singular visionary creator/ showrunner.
In a way, the conceiving and curation of these all-time great shows is more like the work of a novelist creating an original work than what happens when an existing work is adapted.
No matter how much freedom someone adapting an existing work to a new medium is given, it is impossible to escape the influence of that original, which, creates complications not necessarily present when working from scratch.
Example: “Game of Thrones” hugely benefitted from the original and immersive world of George R.R. Martin’s novels, but when the series outran the published story, there were some narrative wobbles in trying to bring the whole thing home. Something similar has happened with
“The Handmaid’s Tale” in my opinion.
This isn’t to argue that we should stop adapting books into television shows. For one, it’s a great way to funnel some dough to novelists so they have the time and freedom to write more great books.
For two, becoming an all-time great is not a prerequisite for a show to be worth watching.
But to me, there’s something interesting thinking about what results when a creative person has full freedom to work from scratch.
Towles
Here’s a novel I keep on my “insufficiently appreciated” shelf, that has never failed to satisfy those I recommend it to,
by Paolo
Giordano.
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