I just started reading Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the updated title for Jack Finney’s 1955 serialized novel, The Body Snatchers. I decided to read this more than sixty-year-old horror/scifi novel because I’m reading another old book, Stephen King’s Danse Macabre (1982). I was about two thirds of the way through DM, when King began discussing Body Snatchers as one of the classics in the genre. Well, since I’ve seen this movie a hundred times (at least), but never read the classic from which it sprung, I decided to avoid King’s spoilers and first read the Finney novel. The retitled paperback was available for cheap on Amazon (the original was much more expensive), so I plunked down my two bucks (plus $3.99 shipping) and had it in a few days. I’m just fifteen pages in, and almost wish I hadn’t bothered.
It’s not that I dislike the writing, Finney’s writing is pretty good. It’s also fun to revisit Dr. Miles Bennell, Becky Driscoll, and crew, after seeing them so many times on screen. The problem is that the title was updated in 1978, to coincide with the release of the remake. Unfortunately, an attempt was made to revise the text to fit within 1978 as well. Evidently, we poor, dumb readers couldn’t deal with ancient writing from twenty years ago (dum dum dee doh, Shazam! Golly Sgt. Carter!).
The problem with such revision is that fiction is a creature of the period in which it is written. There are hundreds of phrases, idioms, and historical aspects that flavor the writing, which is part of the fun. For each one you change, you miss a bunch. So you end up with dozens of anachronisms that pull the reader out of the narrative. It’s like seeing that fictional 555 area code they used to use in movies. You cease suspended disbelief and say, “Jeez!”
For example, Miles describes the life of a young (he’s 28) doctor. But this description is for a mid-1950s doctor, not one in 1978. He talks about house calls and all-night answering services to wake him for emergency appendectomies, etc. By the late 1970s, hospitals and emergency rooms had sprung up throughout even rural America, so that the house call was a thing of the past. He describes his training as four years of med school and one year of internship, but by the late 1970s, a general practitioner would have at least a two-year residency in family medicine, with ‘GP’ designating older docs that only had a general internship. Finney seems to realize some of this, so he adds expository narrative such as “Yes, I still make house calls.” But such padding detracts from the flow, waking the reader from the nightmare Finney’s weaving. After a while, you find yourself looking for these “Jeez!” moments, instead of immersed in the tale.
Well, enough bitching. Time for me to go back to reading Body Snatchers, hoping that the story is strong enough to withstand a revisionist flogging. At least it should be a nice walk down memory lane. Jeez!