Novels or Movies
Suppose you are at a cinema restaurant using some time with a friend before your mutually anticipated movie time checks, just then a brisk suited young man carrying a slim case comes along in quick gaits and asks “how much time does one take before one understands a movie?” Oh yeah, I know it.
You possibly will make a surprised face to meet your friends who would also have the same for you and might reply, “this isn’t for you man, maybe you should go get some work done!” For some grateful lover of entertainment who savor a dose of literary pleasantness, here is what I recommend.
Delightsome, the question asked by the supposed young man above would have been met with some sincere responses if it was directed toward understanding a book, a document or some written form – certainly not a movie! The choice as to whether movies better explore interests than novels do, or vice versa, is not reached just yet.
It is settled that both novels and movies have stories to tell, either severally or succinctly, this is one characteristic which holds bond between them. And I think it is what makes it harder for anyone who enjoys these storylines to make a choice about which genre is of a better interest.
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Movies involve motion images, characters with predetermined scripts, and of course, a storyline. While one can settle with a movie and get a grasp of the whole show within a few hours (applicable to elongated seasonal movies too, especially when followed through from one episode to another), reading a novel requires a lot more time. So much so that a calculated eighteen hours of read for a novel could culminate in some three hours only, when acted on stage.
It is not wrong to mention that movies possess a tenacious sustain of focus and often retain the attention of the audience. Watchers tend to watch from start to finish before they leave to do other things. But why is this? It is because the images become consistent in their minds as they watch. That is, they are focused on the images, faces and gestures of characters, sometimes the costumes also, thereby, have little or no time to spare to allow their minds wander off the screen.
As it appears, when people do not seem to understand what is being spoken, they are inclined to depend on the actions (what is seen) in order to make out meanings. Examples of popular movies include, Black Panther, Empire, The Greatest Showman, Aladdin and so on.
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Novels. These are simply spontaneous. A good prose work hinges upon the ability of the author to portray his/her imagination so that his/her readers are able to see it the way he/she intends. Reading a prose work requires the need for imagination since there is usually no image represented or made available by the author except the mental images which have been created in the mind of the reader by the author’s language. While movies involve watching visible characters as they act, novels have to do with imagination – seeing with the mind’s eye.
The popular writer, Chimamda Ngozi Adichie, comments in her speech at inbound 2018 about “how wonderful books are at making our imaginations soar.” This she said when she recalled her experience as a seven-year-old, of how she had thought that a beagle which she had read in a book and at that time didn’t know its meaning, was an exotic confection and so desperately craved for, was no more than a dancing donut! Some examples of novels are Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Adichie, Animal Farm by George Orwell.
Personally, I consider novels as satisfying. The luxury of reading and returning to read, once more or severally, as the case may be, feels like having numerous chances to see (imagine) something new. Although we see or imagine in mental pictures when we think, it has been proved that human beings learn much more by having to read than by visuals.
The process of collecting information from texts and forming images in the mind with them enhances a longer retention of such knowledge, as you now own the knowledge. Usually, whatever is appropriately understood during a reading session usually stick over time.
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Unlike when I see movies in cinemas or on gadgets, I am able to pause to check a new word and then continue. This is not so with the movies. As an avid reader and a language student, I derive great pleasure in checking up new words as I read and this is pretty easy with a novel in hand rather than when watching movies. I am able to commence reading, pause to reflect, discontinue or continue at will and at my particular reading pace whenever I pick up a novel to read. It’s simply brilliant.
And movies? I think they serve as a better help in promoting relationships between and among people much more than novels do. People get to talk, have random chats and discuss ad they watch together; it fosters relationships. Once I was out to see a movie without the company of a friend whom we had planned to be there together. Upon my return that day, he had asked, “whom did you seat next to?”
Right then I noticed how much chitty chatty I had been with an unfamiliar seat mate who sat right next to me at the cinema that evening; there was the obstinate character who had no clue what could have befallen him, then we both noticed an aside which would let hell loose if the villain had got a whimper of it, and on and on it went. I bet this seatmate of mine in turn wouldn’t have realized how much we bonded as we saw the movies, unless of course, he reflects.
Seeing a movie is what I accrue to my entertainment. I could read a novel to fulfil leisure or for knowledge of some kind, but when I watch a movie, I watch entirely for the purpose of getting entertained. A good novel will not bore me either but, with so much of a time to dedicate to its completion, a fine movie might just be a quick resort.
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So, the next time such pleasure-sapping moments race toward you whereby it is necessary to make a choice between a novel and a movie, a generous consideration of the time you have at hand and your purpose for the moment might just be some indecisiveness killer!
Wait up!!! Whoever said you had to make do with either anyway? Novels and movies, sounds ecstatic right?
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