-- a side quest --
Tideland by Mitch Cullin
I decided to venture from the main quest too, and do some side quests for the loot and glory. I got into my hands an ancient manuscript foretelling the events shown in my nomination and was astounded by the clarity of this ancient prophet's vision.
After reading the novel, it's easy to believe that Gilliam loves it. His film is one of the most faithful adaptations I know. The differences between the two works are mainly cosmetic: the movie tells the story in chronological order while in the book, the events preceding the farmhouse are shown as flashbacks, there's a little difference in the order things happen, and we get little more character details (especially for Jeliza-Rose). Other than those, it's very much the same story.
The way the book is written takes some getting used to. It's sparse and hectic first-person narration, like a mixture of childish thinking and competent prose. I didn't like it at first, but it did grow on me. Maybe (probably) because I've seen the film first, I did find the voices of the characters to perfectly fit with Gilliam's film (to a degree, that I was reading Dickens' lines in his movie-voice). The two versions of the story are inseparable.
And about Alice in Wonderland? All the references are from the book (I think it actually has little more of them than the film). I wouldn't call it a retelling of Alice (any more than a retelling of Psycho), but it certainly has affected the book, and therefore the movie as well. The sexual themes in the book are slightly more profound than in the film, so if they bothered you in Gilliam's vision, you may want to skip the book.
Just like the movie, I found the novel Tideland to be good. I don't know if it would work as well without the film, but it's a great companion piece to that (in a way, the film brings the book's slightly flat characters to life).
Tideland by Mitch Cullin
I decided to venture from the main quest too, and do some side quests for the loot and glory. I got into my hands an ancient manuscript foretelling the events shown in my nomination and was astounded by the clarity of this ancient prophet's vision.
After reading the novel, it's easy to believe that Gilliam loves it. His film is one of the most faithful adaptations I know. The differences between the two works are mainly cosmetic: the movie tells the story in chronological order while in the book, the events preceding the farmhouse are shown as flashbacks, there's a little difference in the order things happen, and we get little more character details (especially for Jeliza-Rose). Other than those, it's very much the same story.
The way the book is written takes some getting used to. It's sparse and hectic first-person narration, like a mixture of childish thinking and competent prose. I didn't like it at first, but it did grow on me. Maybe (probably) because I've seen the film first, I did find the voices of the characters to perfectly fit with Gilliam's film (to a degree, that I was reading Dickens' lines in his movie-voice). The two versions of the story are inseparable.
And about Alice in Wonderland? All the references are from the book (I think it actually has little more of them than the film). I wouldn't call it a retelling of Alice (any more than a retelling of Psycho), but it certainly has affected the book, and therefore the movie as well. The sexual themes in the book are slightly more profound than in the film, so if they bothered you in Gilliam's vision, you may want to skip the book.
Just like the movie, I found the novel Tideland to be good. I don't know if it would work as well without the film, but it's a great companion piece to that (in a way, the film brings the book's slightly flat characters to life).