The Book is Always Better - Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Edition

For a number of years, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society has been one of my favorite books. I've revisited it at least once--often twice--each year. Reading it is like sinking into a comfortable chair among friends who love everything about you, even the weird parts.

So it was with a bit of trepidation that I saw it was going to be a movie. After all, we know the book is always better. And a book written in letter format? That's challenging to translate into a movie wherein one assumes actors and actresses will want to do more than sit at a desk and pretend to write. Still, I was encouraged by one of my favorite movies of all time, 84 Charing Cross Road (and the novel by the same name on whence it was based), and so I held out hope.

The movie (a Netflix original) is delightful. The casting was well done, etc. Were TGLAPPPS not one of my favorite books, I would be wholeheartedly enamored of the film.

And yet, TGLAPPPS is one of my favorite books.

I can get past some of the major inconsistencies between the movie and the book (e.g. Juliet never agreed to marry Mark before heading off to Guernsey, in fact she told him she wanted time to think about it. And of course, Mark didn't propose on the dock, but rather at a restaurant several nights prior.) I can overlook leaving out some of the side plots of the book (where were the Oscar Wilde letters and all the intrigue? And Sydney's trip to Australia? And Remy?) I understand that, for expediency's sake and perhaps to explain why Amelia cared one way or the other about Elizabeth I imagine, they made poor lost Jane the daughter of Amelia instead of Eben, but I don't have to like it.

But the more I think of it, I can't get past the picture the movie paints of Elizabeth herself who, for all she's not really *in* the book is, absolutely, the soul of it.

In the movie, Elizabeth is a bold, devil may care, selfish, in your face woman. She does what she wants and to hell with anyone who wants her to do differently.

In the book, Elizabeth is bold, yes, and does not bow to convention, no, but she does it because her heart is so big, there's simply no other way for her to be. She's one of these rare people who lives every moment of her life to the absolute fullest, and drags everyone around her into the wonder with her.

The book version of Elizabeth is someone you can't help but wish you had in your life.

The movie version of Elizabeth needs a good spanking.

And it's that disconnect that I find hard to overlook, let alone forgive.