Michael Punke’s novel (of revenge!) The Revenant is being adapted into an upcoming Iñárritu film, and consequently getting the hardback reissue treatment. The Wikipedia entry:
The Revenant is an upcoming American westernthriller film produced and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu. The screenplay, adapted from Michael Punke’s 2003 novel of the same name, was written by González Iñárritu and Mark L. Smith and is partially based in the life of frontiersman Hugh Glass. The film is set to star Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Will Poulter, and Domhnall Gleeson.
Development of the film began in August 2001 when Akiva Goldsman purchased Punke’s manuscript with the intent of producing the film. The film was originally set to be directed by Park Chan-wook with Samuel L. Jackson in mind to star, and later by John Hillcoat with Christian Bale in negotiations to star. Both directors left the project, and González Iñárritu signed on to direct in August 2011. In April 2014, after several delays in production due to other projects, González Iñárritu confirmed that he was beginning work on The Revenantand that DiCaprio would play the lead role. Principal photography began in October 2014, and is scheduled to last 80 days.
I still haven’t seen Birdman.
The problem of the novelist who wishes to write about a man’s encounter with this God is how he shall make the experience—which is both natural and supernatural—understandable, and credible, to his reader. In any age this would be a problem, but in our own, it is a well-nigh insurmountable one. Today’s audience is one in which religious feeling has become, if not atrophied, at least vaporous and sentimental. When Emerson decided, in 1832, that he could no longer celebrate the Lord’s Supper unless the bread and wine were removed, an important step in the vaporization of religion in America was taken, and the spirit of that step has continued apace. When the physical fact is separated from the spiritual reality, the dissolution of belief is eventually inevitable.
The novelist doesn’t write to express himself, he doesn’t write simply to render a vision he believes true, rather he renders his vision so that it can be transferred, as nearly whole as possible, to his reader. You can safely ignore the reader’s taste, but you can’t ignore his nature, you can’t ignore his limited patience. Your problem is going to be difficult in direct proportion as your beliefs depart from his.
When I write a novel in which the central action is a baptism, I am very well aware that for a majority of my readers, baptism is a meaningless rite, and so in my novel I have to see that this baptism carries enough awe and mystery to jar the reader into some kind of emotional recognition of its significance. To this end I have to bend the whole novel—its language, its structure, its action. I have to make the reader feel, in his bones if nowhere else, that something is going on here that counts. Distortion in this case is an instrument; exaggeration has a purpose, and the whole structure of the story ‘or novel has been made what it is because of belief. This is not the kind of distortion that destroys; it is the kind that reveals, or should reveal.
Husband and wife’s children finally grown, starting their own families, etc. Out of the house at long last.
Life is all good.
Husband returns to his home improvement projects, etc., wife returns to her writing, etc.
Finally socializing again, etc.
Life is pretty good.
Life becoming less good.
Life worsening with each passing week. Husband and wife grow bored.
With each other? With monogamy? Maybe.
Go see a marriage counselor, like they did way back when. Same counselor, now older, wiser, or, at least, more confident.
Marriage counselor insists on vacuum created by kids’ absence, etc. Makes silly suggestions re how to fill vacuum. Gives them worksheets, etc.
Husband and wife diligently follow suggestions, complete worksheets. Obviously in love, or, at least, obviously committed to the idea of being in love, they try their best to make it work.
Go on vacation? A cruise? Yes.
Still bored.
Have a threeway? Maybe? No.
Still bored, etc.
Read the rest of Evan Lavender-Smith’s “Short Story Idea (The Macaque)” at BOMB.
Biblioklept 