Adaptations as imitations

This book traces the history of criticism relating to film adaptation - criticism that generally leads to and follows from George Bluestone's Novels into Film - and then proposes another approach: whereas Bluestone and his followers would emphasize material differences - in the use of language, and senses of time, tense, points of view, and thought - that deductively render "faithful" adaptations as essentially impossible, the author argues that what readers understand and enjoy in a novel goes beyond its materials, and that the thoughts and emotions brought to readers' minds are qualities…