Fuse #8

Thursday, November 09, 2006

Handler In the Movie Biz

Looks like Daniel Handler, he of the Snicketed Lemony, has actually up and sold the film rights to his recent adult novel Adverbs. No one's saying how much he's getting for the deal. I'm sure he really needs the money though. Poor penniless Daniel Handler.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but Handler has never successfully wowed the adult literature market like has the children's, right? He gets the occasional starred review in Publisher's Weekly, but no one has ever given him the praise he (justly) receives when he sits down to write for small fry. Has anyone actually read one of his adult novels? Was it worthwhile?

5 Comments:

At 2:07 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have not actually ready Adverbs but saw it performed by Word for Word.
(www.zspace.org/wordforword.htm) Entertaining.

Did you see the Lorrie Moore story in this week's edition of the New Yorker? One can't help but be amused (in fact one might laugh outloud) at the part where Kit (the main character) describes her "wiry old American pothead gone to seed" masseuse with a nametag reading "Daniel Handler".

I do believe that there is a genuine love and respect between these two authors and that they are playing together while we watch.

KT

 
At 4:04 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

I've read both The Basic Eight and Watch Your Mouth. I really enjoyed the former. I expected to spend the whole time searching for telltale Snicketisms, but not only did I forget that he had written it, I also forgot it was written by a man at all. Strong, well-written female characters and a fun plot.

I was less crazy about Watch Your Mouth. I didn't dislike it, but I could take it or leave it. Towards the end it got a little bizarre in a way that might have been symbolic and slipping past my head or might have just been bizarre.

-Rachael

 
At 9:31 AM , Blogger EM said...

I tried and failed to read ADVERBS. I don't know if I just wasn't in the right frame of mind, but it felt too precious and forced for my taste -- too much of the "look how deliciously clever I am!" persona that, though it works for the Baudelaires, fell flat here.

 
At 4:36 PM , Blogger web said...

I simply could not deal with _Watch Your Mouth_ but I did enjoy _The Basic Eight_. I'm a sucker for that kind of thing... but I can't tell you what kind of thing, because that would be a spoiler.

 
At 5:11 PM , Blogger Saints and Spinners said...

The Basic Eight was quite good, though there was one particularly violent passage that I had to skim over because I simply could not take it. I'd recommend The Basic Eight to some young adults. Watch Your Mouth, a comedy about incest, was flat and dull. I stopped trying to read it after a few chapters.

 

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