Nightmare Alley (1947)
[#70 in The All-New 100 Films in a Year Challenge 2023]
"What Do You Mean You Haven't Seen...?" 2023 #8
Sunday 24 September 2023
Fiction
Doctor Who: Marco Polo by John Lucarotti
Chapters 9–14
I really enjoy Marco Polo as a narrative. It's such a shame the TV version is lost. It's probably still #1 on my personal list of "ones I wish they'd find". But the novelisation...
Well, it doesn’t get off to the greatest of starts. In the early chapters especially (and to an extent throughout) it almost reads like a screenplay, so reliant is it on dialogue, with the barest description of anything else. Even when you do get a line of action or other description, sometimes it adds nothing beyond reflecting the onscreen blocking (presumably, that is — with the episodes missing, it’s hard to know for sure. But, for example, there are moments when characters are described moving around the room in a way that has no impact on what's happening). The prose begins to open up more as the book goes on, but by that point the script-like literalness is so embedded that any section not dense in dialogue comes across as abridgement. That is to say, it feels like there were too many scenes to fit in a short Target novelisation, so parts have instead been summarised.
That’s not to mention that Lucarotti is clearly writing a book “for children”, with a use of language and overall style clearly aimed at a young age group. In fairness, I suppose these books were that at the time, and maybe the entire range is guilty of it. I don’t remember feeling that way about any of them before, but it’s a good long while since I’ve read a Target novelisation — probably not since my own childhood, in fact, when obviously I wouldn’t have noticed as much; plus, I’ve done a lot more studying of literature since then, so I'm more attuned to that kind of thing.
So, not the greatest novel overall, then — but, like I said, at least it's a cracking story.
Chapters 9–14
I really enjoy Marco Polo as a narrative. It's such a shame the TV version is lost. It's probably still #1 on my personal list of "ones I wish they'd find". But the novelisation...
Well, it doesn’t get off to the greatest of starts. In the early chapters especially (and to an extent throughout) it almost reads like a screenplay, so reliant is it on dialogue, with the barest description of anything else. Even when you do get a line of action or other description, sometimes it adds nothing beyond reflecting the onscreen blocking (presumably, that is — with the episodes missing, it’s hard to know for sure. But, for example, there are moments when characters are described moving around the room in a way that has no impact on what's happening). The prose begins to open up more as the book goes on, but by that point the script-like literalness is so embedded that any section not dense in dialogue comes across as abridgement. That is to say, it feels like there were too many scenes to fit in a short Target novelisation, so parts have instead been summarised.
That’s not to mention that Lucarotti is clearly writing a book “for children”, with a use of language and overall style clearly aimed at a young age group. In fairness, I suppose these books were that at the time, and maybe the entire range is guilty of it. I don’t remember feeling that way about any of them before, but it’s a good long while since I’ve read a Target novelisation — probably not since my own childhood, in fact, when obviously I wouldn’t have noticed as much; plus, I’ve done a lot more studying of literature since then, so I'm more attuned to that kind of thing.
So, not the greatest novel overall, then — but, like I said, at least it's a cracking story.
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