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A review by kirstiecat
Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
3.0
I have to be clear about this-I read this book when I was really sick. I started out having a really horrible sore throat when I went to see the 70mm print showing of Jacques Tati's Playtime at the Music Box Theater in Chicago on Friday and by Sunday afternoon I was pretty much confined to bed until Wed. morning.
People, it's reassuring that when you're miserable and can't regulate your own body temperature, and your throat feels like some rat clawed its way out of you, and your head is so congested you can't breathe out of your nose, and the sinus pressure feels like there's a balloon behind your forehead you can't pop that it always could be worse. I mean, you could be dead. That's why I like reading zombie books when I'm ill. It's a nice little way of appreciating the health I have left.
The film version of this novel is a far cry from Jacques Tati's Playtime in any format but I still found it clever and OH MY GOD GASP heartwarming. Crap, people, I'm opening up myself to criticism here but save it. Some people go to arenas to hear bad pop music and see sports players make millions of dollars because they are so adept at playing with their balls. Me, I occasionally go see a mainstream zombie flick to help relate to my fellow humans on this Earth. It may not be the best way I have of spending $11.25 and a couple of hours of my time but it felt ok at the end, like I could live with my decision (or die with it, considering the topic at hand).
What makes the film and the novel slightly more clever is the fact that the narrator or protagonist IS a zombie..and he's quite intellectual for one too. I mean, he talks about how it's difficult to formulate sentences anymore outside of his own thought patterns but his inner dialogue is definitely quite amusing and engaging. One finds her/himself rooting for the zombie in this book and film because it's the zombie that shows us what it is about humanity that is so worth saving in the first place. I also really liked the idea that by eating human brains they inherited all that human's memory processes and the fact that this took place in an airport.
R is sarcastic and funny and lives in an abandoned plane hanger. The film's music is pretty cheese and in the book it sticks mainly with Sinatra and the Beatles (also a little cheesy but better than listening to "Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart" and I don't really care if it's on vinyl or not). I like that R collects vinyl as I collect vinyl. I like that he's insecure about his relations with women. I like that he wants to be human and that (in the book version) learns to read again.
Some differences between the film and the book:
-In the book version, R actually has a zombie wife who is really just some chick he may hook up with if the parts were still working. The boneys (zombies too far gone to even become human again) proclaim them married and give them two of the wandering zombie children who would have nothing better to do than roam the airport anyway.)
-In the book version, there is a very bizarre failed intimacy scene R witnesses with his zombie wife and another zombie. It seems very sad.
-In the book, R even sings a little bit of the Sinatra to Julie
-In the book, R sleeps in the same bed with Julie when they come to the abandoned house, not on the floor. Nothing intimate happens but it's the thought that counts.
-There are more pseudo memories and zombie dreams in the book
-In the book, Julie eats frozen airport pad thai vs. fruit cocktail. I thought this was pretty important and had no idea why they would have changed that.
-In the book, when R goes to find Julie, they make him up and all that as in the film but there's a scene when he gets drunk in a bar, and maims some jocks that trash talk Julie to her back. Then, he sort of eats a security guard. You know, zombie life is complicated. There may be some relapses from time to time after all.
(SPOILERS)
-In the book, Julie's crazy military dad actually dies and gets eaten by zombies, which is sort of ok, because he's not a very likable character anyway even if he was played by John Malkovich in the film.
That's about it. Read and see this film if you like bittersweet zombie romances where you leave or finish reading thinking life's not really all that bad. Because even when you're sick and in pain, at least you're still alive.
Favorite Quote:
pg. 26 "I just miss airplanes. That muffled thunder in the distance, those white lines...the way they sliced across the sky and made designs in the blue? My mom used to say it looked like Etch a Sketch. It was so beautiful."
People, it's reassuring that when you're miserable and can't regulate your own body temperature, and your throat feels like some rat clawed its way out of you, and your head is so congested you can't breathe out of your nose, and the sinus pressure feels like there's a balloon behind your forehead you can't pop that it always could be worse. I mean, you could be dead. That's why I like reading zombie books when I'm ill. It's a nice little way of appreciating the health I have left.
The film version of this novel is a far cry from Jacques Tati's Playtime in any format but I still found it clever and OH MY GOD GASP heartwarming. Crap, people, I'm opening up myself to criticism here but save it. Some people go to arenas to hear bad pop music and see sports players make millions of dollars because they are so adept at playing with their balls. Me, I occasionally go see a mainstream zombie flick to help relate to my fellow humans on this Earth. It may not be the best way I have of spending $11.25 and a couple of hours of my time but it felt ok at the end, like I could live with my decision (or die with it, considering the topic at hand).
What makes the film and the novel slightly more clever is the fact that the narrator or protagonist IS a zombie..and he's quite intellectual for one too. I mean, he talks about how it's difficult to formulate sentences anymore outside of his own thought patterns but his inner dialogue is definitely quite amusing and engaging. One finds her/himself rooting for the zombie in this book and film because it's the zombie that shows us what it is about humanity that is so worth saving in the first place. I also really liked the idea that by eating human brains they inherited all that human's memory processes and the fact that this took place in an airport.
R is sarcastic and funny and lives in an abandoned plane hanger. The film's music is pretty cheese and in the book it sticks mainly with Sinatra and the Beatles (also a little cheesy but better than listening to "Everybody's Got a Hungry Heart" and I don't really care if it's on vinyl or not). I like that R collects vinyl as I collect vinyl. I like that he's insecure about his relations with women. I like that he wants to be human and that (in the book version) learns to read again.
Some differences between the film and the book:
-In the book version, R actually has a zombie wife who is really just some chick he may hook up with if the parts were still working. The boneys (zombies too far gone to even become human again) proclaim them married and give them two of the wandering zombie children who would have nothing better to do than roam the airport anyway.)
-In the book version, there is a very bizarre failed intimacy scene R witnesses with his zombie wife and another zombie. It seems very sad.
-In the book, R even sings a little bit of the Sinatra to Julie
-In the book, R sleeps in the same bed with Julie when they come to the abandoned house, not on the floor. Nothing intimate happens but it's the thought that counts.
-There are more pseudo memories and zombie dreams in the book
-In the book, Julie eats frozen airport pad thai vs. fruit cocktail. I thought this was pretty important and had no idea why they would have changed that.
-In the book, when R goes to find Julie, they make him up and all that as in the film but there's a scene when he gets drunk in a bar, and maims some jocks that trash talk Julie to her back. Then, he sort of eats a security guard. You know, zombie life is complicated. There may be some relapses from time to time after all.
(SPOILERS)
-In the book, Julie's crazy military dad actually dies and gets eaten by zombies, which is sort of ok, because he's not a very likable character anyway even if he was played by John Malkovich in the film.
That's about it. Read and see this film if you like bittersweet zombie romances where you leave or finish reading thinking life's not really all that bad. Because even when you're sick and in pain, at least you're still alive.
Favorite Quote:
pg. 26 "I just miss airplanes. That muffled thunder in the distance, those white lines...the way they sliced across the sky and made designs in the blue? My mom used to say it looked like Etch a Sketch. It was so beautiful."