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“Shawshank” and “The Body”
By Matt Margolis | August 7, 2007
I’ve finished the two novellas from Stephen King’s Different Seasons I set out to finish: “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” and “The Body.” Both were entertaining and hold their own next to their movie adaptations. The interesting thing about reading these two stories is that I pretty know the story and ultimately how it ends and key things that happen along the way.
Reading the original novel (or novella) after seeing the movie is different than vice versa. When you read the book first, you accept that the movie version will be watered down, and you know ahead of time that the depth of the characters won’t fully be realized in the movie version, even if they use narration from the point of view of the main character. Which in fact, both these stories/movies do. In “Shawshank” the novella, you are told the story from the point of view of ‘Red’ Redding. The movie incorporates this with off-screen narration from the character as well, but obviously the novella connects you more with Red, while the movie connects you more with Andy Dufresne, who is, in both the novella and the movie, the subject of Red’s story.
“The Body” is written as a memoir of the Gordon LaChance, who is penning the story of an adventure from his childhood with three of his friend who are all trying to find the body of a local kid who was missing. The movie version, Stand By Me, tells the story the same way, with the occasional off-screen narration of The Writer. The story is largely the same, only in the novella The Writer will occasionally take us closer to his present time, putting the events of his past into perspective.
Anyway… Both were good. If you’re a fan of the movies, you should read the novellas they came from.
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