November 6th, 2007
8. Ubik by Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick died in 1982, the same year that Blade Runner, the first adaptation of one of his novels, was released. Since then, his work has been pillaged for cinema successfully (A Scanner Darkly) and abysmally (Paycheck). But 1969's Ubik was the first Dick book considered for the big screen; Dick himself wrote a screenplay for it in 1974 at the behest of New Wave auteur Jean-Pierre Gorin, but the project never materialized. It's a shame, since many of the novel's topics—terrorism, cryogenics, drugs, consumerism run amok—are quintessentially Dickian and as relevant (or more so) today. And while Steven Spielberg spruced up his adaptation of Dick's Minority Report with gobs of Hollywood action, Ubik is already a gripping thriller—in addition to being a time-warped mind-fuck. A Scanner Darkly producer Tommy Pallotta holds Ubik's option, and he's expressed interest in pushing the project forward soon. With Paul Giamatti allegedly playing Dick in an upcoming biopic, the timing couldn't be better.
9. The March by E.L. Doctorow
Doctorow's slim fictionalized account of General Sherman's destructive advance through Georgia pings between dozens of characters, sketching an America in the process of remaking itself in the final year of the Civil War. It'll take a writer and director with a mutually deft touch to capture the book's post-apocalyptic force without losing its occasionally comic side, or its nuanced depiction of how the War widened the divide between rich and poor in a purportedly democratic nation. The trick is to follow Doctorow's structure, shifting the action between a variety of fronts to capture the story's simultaneity and scope. Any filmmaker brave enough not to tinker with the book too much should find the resonant modern themes all lined up: the insanity of war, the inexorability of greed, and the responsibilities that invading armies have to the people they liberate.
10. The Life And Times Of Scrooge McDuck by Don Rosa
When Pixar's John Lasseter took over Disney's animation department, he promised to revive cel-animated features. A great place to start would be with this picaresque biography of Donald Duck's rich uncle—a tale that winds from the Scottish moors in the 1870s through various gold rushes over the next century. Rosa's 12-chapter graphic novel already cleaves nicely into a trilogy, with the end of the every fourth chapter ending on a high, and while each chapter does more or less stand alone, episodic stories are pretty much the norm for classic children's literature, and could be for movies as well. Besides, wouldn't Disney like to have three sure-fire hit features to release in consecutive years, Lord Of The Rings-style? And what a coup for comics and animation fans too, to see a big-screen version of Rosa's funny, action-packed, and profoundly pragmatic portrait of wealth's promise and pitfalls.
11. "The Moosepath League Chronicles" by Van Reid
Since 1998, Reid has penned five Dickensian novels set in late 19th-century Maine, each starring kindly lawyer Tobias Walton, his companion/servant Sundry Moss, and the three businessmen who make up the rest of the do-good Moosepath League. The books typically begin with some congenial fellowship, and then coincidences push the members off in different directions, to rescue kidnapped babies, lady balloonists, or blackmailed magnates. Reid's straightforward recreations of 100-year-old serialized novels—with no tongues or cheeks in sight—may strike some as cloyingly sweet, but the stories are tightly constructed and endlessly surprising, with a lot to say about how social conventions both bind us and restrict us. If Wes Anderson were looking for a change in direction and a crossover hit, his sensibility would be well-suited to Reid's books, which read like juvenile fiction for adults.
12. The Bonehunters' Revenge by David Rains Wallace
The true story of the bitter, career-destroying conflict between 19th-century America's two most prominent dinosaur hunters, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh, seems like a no-brainer for a movie. The so-called "Bone Wars"—decades of vicious infighting, dirty tricks, and self-destructive jealousy that bankrupted both men—also led to some of the most dazzling scientific discoveries of the age, and even drew in people like Ulysses Grant and Buffalo Bill Cody. It was like The Prestige meets Jurassic Park. The story has been told several times in prose form, including The Bonehunter's Revenge, Mark Jaffe's The Gilded Dinosaur, and Jim Ottaviani and Big Time Attic's slightly fictionalized graphic novel Bone Sharps, Cowboys, And Thunder Lizards. But surprisingly, nobody has ever put the story on film. Giant lizards and giant egos clashing in the Old West, both out for blood? Hollywood, drop whatever you're doing and get to work on this.
13. Mister Sandman by Barbara Gowdy
Barbara Gowdy's Mister Sandman is about the Canary family, whose dysfunction is like any other family's, until Doris and Gordon's teenage daughter Sonja gives birth to tiny Joan, dubbed "the reincarnation baby" because at birth she apparently screamed "Oh, no, not again!" right before she was dropped on her head. As Joan develops into a reclusive idiot savant, living mostly in her closet, the story becomes a rumination on the acute observation of children and their way of secretly understanding adults. The Technicolor cartoon suburbia in which the story is set brings to mind the gossipy town Tim Burton devised for Edward Scissorhands. The "musical" project baby Joan reveals over the course of the story could be handled by Danny Elfman. But Joan, described "with those pale green eyes, and the hair on her head… like milkweed tuft," thankfully could not be portrayed by Johnny Depp. Your move, Mr. Burton.
14. Oh Pure And Radiant Heart by Lydia Millet
Lydia Millet's Oh Pure And Radiant Heart takes on humanity's 62-year-old phobia of nuclear devastation and somehow turns it into a science-fiction/love story/black comedy that leads readers to root for J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and Leo Szilard, the scientists and engineers who brought us the damn bomb to begin with. In a plot device that steals generously, though subconsciously, from the television series Quantum Leap, three hero-scientists are transported to the present day after a test flash renders them unconscious. In a particularly funny early scene, Oppenheimer awakes in a motel room and spends the greater portion of his day figuring out what the remote control does, variously typing on it and pointing at objects until he hits the power button and the television comes alive. The three geniuses eventually embark on separate quests, visiting Hiroshima memorials and protest parades for disarmament. Aghast at what their work has done to the world, they reform and become crusaders against themselves. While a director like Robert Zemeckis might be inclined to turn this into his own politically minded Back To The Future, let's hope Terry Gilliam reads this book before he does.
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