Category Archives: Margaret Graton

The Hobbit meets Film Adaptation Theory

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Margaret Graton | 20 Feb 2017

For literature lovers, the news that a treasured book will soon become a film is always a double-edged sword. We’re simultaneously thrilled to experience the book’s setting, plot, and characters onscreen while afraid that the film won’t meet our expectations. Fantasy and YA fans might fearfully recall “bad” adaptations like the Eragon movie, where the plot underwent so many edits that adaptations of the following books became impossible. However, for every “bad” adaptation, there are plenty of movies that fans defend loyally, even in cases where the adaptation strays from the book.

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The Problem of the Alive Author

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14th November 2016 | Margaret Graton.

The reader can only exist once the author dies – this is an idea famously explained by Roland Barthes. Traditionally, once a book was published, it seemed complete, reprints and subsequent editions aside; it was out of the author’s hands and straight into the reader’s. Authors today simultaneously have more and less control over their works than ever thanks to the utilization of digital spaces like blogs, news outlets, and social media. As an example, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter universe has grown in many ways, and Rowling has faced both support and backlash from fans due to the frequent and very public additions and changes she’s made. Meanwhile, J.R.R. Tolkien’s texts, published both as books and letters, have quietly become canon with approving readers. This leads me to wonder…is there a problem with the alive author?

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