Poor old soul, blimey what a joke

[venta]

Public Service Announcement, in case anyone else has been suffering vague confusion when reading film reviews of late:

The Arthur Kipps who features in The Woman In Black bears absolutely no relation to the Arthur Kipps who features in the HG Wells novel (subsequently adapated as Half a Sixpence).

I did wonder how I'd managed to watch a stage production of The Woman In Black without realising that the protagonist was a character I'd met in a book before. I didn't. He's a completely different character, written by a different author, 80 years later. He just has the same name.

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

There's a little more to it than "just" having the same name. Susan Hill knew what she did. :)

(I'll spare you the litcrit explanation unless you're desperately interested.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I did think it was something of a co-incidence (though not implausible, see Mr Artemus Jones for details). I've only seen the stage version, which I feel doesn't make it obvious (in fact, I don't recall noticing the name). Would it become apparent it I read the novel?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Not hugely: it's more about the aims and method of writing the book than the process of reading it, IYSWIM - homage and reference for the author (and litcrit students), not necessarily glaringly apparent to the reader. But I recommend the novel anyway!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah. I am notoriously brick-like in matters of litcrit-related perception. So I might manage to miss it anyway :) But actually, until my 'tec work today I didn't know the stage play was based on a novel, so I might well hunt it out and give it a shot.

[venta.livejournal.com]

... notoriously and faintly deliberately. I'm never sure whether dissection increases enjoyment ;)

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

Probably not. Anybody ever carried a set book into later life as one of its pleasures?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Well, yes (several, including The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen and The French Lieutenant's Woman - GCSE and A level respectively). But I am probably - and happily - an exception.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I was set Farenheit 451 and Brave New World. Neither of which I dislike, although I'm not in love with either and I don't think I've re-read Farenheit 451. I did not like Far From The Madding Crowd, and the analysis just made it take longer. Not sure I even remember what else I was set, so it can't have helped much.

I probably did better with set plays than books: I remember An Inspector Calls, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar and Marlowe's Faust.

I think that unless you have at least some inclination towards being an English academic, then performing formal criticism on a work will enhance enjoyment of it to approximately the extent reading the source code would enhance your enjoyment of Pong, if you had no inclination towards programming.