The most recent edition of BLFJ (65) contained an article about the (inter)relationship that’s developed between novels, films, and their screenplay binding agent. This article is interesting in the context of Dave Eggers’ The Wild Things: a novelization of a movie adapted from a book.

Typical of such things, there’s even an overlooked screenplay-shadow lurking behind this hodgepodge narrative mass … somewhere, the filmscript always a literary and narrative Other.

Beyond reinforcing the thesis that the great narrative genre of the twenty-first century is three-headed, the Sendak-Jonze-Eggers Ghidorah further illustrates that we’re living in a new aesthetic age fueled by the adaptation imperative, wherein almost every genre finds itself involved in an on-going, partner-swapping, swing-dance session that shows no signs of abating.

If anything, it’s intensifying.

Thank God Linda Hutcheon gave us a roadmap!

Eggers discusses his novel and the experience of working with Spike Jonze on the 15 October edition of NPR’s “All Things Considered.”