This week we read Psycho by Robert Bloch. I'm not going to lie my first experience with Psycho was the 1960 movie of the same name. I happen to really love the film, it's sequels (II, III, & IV the last one being my favorite), and even the tv show inspired by it (Bates Motel)...the remake...not so much. But today I want to talk about the movie. But I can't say some comparisons from the book to the film will be forthcoming. That said going into this I pretty much knew what I was getting into. So there were no real surprises.
The infamous shower scene.
I guess the best place to start for me is how different it was from the film in one key way. And that difference is all in the description. For example how they describe Norman Bates. The author uses terms like ample, plump-faced (Bloch, 4) fat man (Bloch, 19), and multiple other ways to describe how portly Norman is. It stuck me as weird. But mostly because I was more familiar with Anthony Perkins as Norman...and he's closer to willowy than portly.
Another thing that struck me was how well written it was. For example, the voice totally shifts and sounds completely different when it goes from Norman's POV to someone else's. My favorite shift is to the Private Investigator Arbogast. The way he's written reminds me so much of the typical cops in the films that came out of 1940's. The best example I can think of is the film Double Indemnity. There's also a pretty funny Famil Guy cutaway that pokes fun at this type of character. And the whole time I read anything about or from the POV of Arbogast I was there and I could see that type of character. It was pretty brilliantly done. He was distinct and different fully developed, and his own character. Norman was well written too. I just only wanted to mention Arbogast because it stood out so much to me.
Fast Talking High Trousers from Family Guy.
There were a few issues that I had with this book. And honestly it's nitpicky stuff, I'm not going to really touch on word doubles and use of the so-called "forbidden words" because they were aplenty in this text. I only bring it up because as a writing student I'm told to look for them. But as a person and an avid reader...I just can't be moved to care about such trivialities. they weren't enough to make me not like the book. And they surely were not enough to even bother with in my opinion.
The things that I noticed as possibly problematic were lines that could have been better written. The main line I'm talking about is this one: "...all of us go a little crazy at times," (Bloch, 24). In the film it was handled much better with better effect: "We all go a little mad sometimes," (Hitchcock). For me I just think it's less wordy and more...I don't creepy, and ominous in the film. It kept the idea and lost the odd phrasing. Which goes to show how important.
There was also the issue of how dated it feels...and I'm not just talking about Norman's house. I realize that his house was supposed to be time warped. And I dug that. I'm talking about the prices of things. Let's take the motel room prices, Seven dollars for a single and twelve for a double. Do I even have to say how old it makes this book sound for me? the last time I looked at cheap motel/hotel rooms they were about forty bucks a night...and that was for a real craphole. It would have been better if that bit had been left out and wouldn't have as obviously that it was that old.
Those few flaws picked out. And there really were just a few and I really had to stretch to find something, anything that I didn't like about the book. Becuase I really enjoyed this book. I read it all in one sitting over three hours. I tore through it not wanting to put it down. I found it to have a great voice, flow, and character development. I really enjoyed this book as much if not more than the film.
Works Cited
Bloch, Robert. Psycho. New York: The Overlook Press, 2010. eBook.
Psycho. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Perf. Anthony Perkins. 1960. DVD.
As I didn't see the film (don't kill me), I found it interesting to read your comparison. I did think the description of Norman Bates in th ebook didn't match what I remember of the actor Anthony Perkins from the film snippets I've seen.
ReplyDeleteI actually liked the description from the book. It gave me a vivid image of Norman, and I even thought that he sounded like any ordinary, forgettable guy we could all meet every day and never think twice about. That made his behavior so reprehensible. It clashed with what he should have been - a nobody with a nobody life that doesn't do anything shocking or memorable. Ha!
I enjoyed the noirish feel of the writing. I thought Bloch's word choice fit well with the period, and I also enjoyed the investigator character a bit, although all of the characters annoyed me because I found them too unrealistic.
Overall, your comments about the film and book brought to mind all the adaptations of novels, games, TV shows, etc. Most never live up to the book version, or they take only a touch from the original material and become something better. Of course, now I need to se the movie version of PSYCHO.
It was weird for me too at first to read the descriptions of Norman in the book because I was so used to the film version, but the more we got inside Norman's head, the more easily I could visualize Bloch's character. I agree with your point about how masterfully Bloch switches POVs. We absolutely know when we are in the head of a different character. Bloch has a knack for shifting the entire mood to that of the character's perspective he's writing from, and I had a lot of admiration for how smoothly he pulled those transitions off. Even at the end when Norman becomes Mother, Bloch pulls the twisted last lines off perfectly. There's definitely a lot that can be learned from this novel from a writer's perspective.
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