La Dolce Vita

After yesterday's musings on Anna Karenina I kept thinking about why it is that people always try to turn great books into films (usually with limited success), but not the other way around. There is no record of Mr Joyce having seen Charlie Chaplin's The Tramp and thinking - I could make a great novel out of that, better than that idea I have for a book about an aul fella spending the day wandering around Dublin. Or did Mr Beckett see Citizen Kane and think - its so so, but I could work with this and turn it into a really good play maybe calling it Waiting for Rosebud.

We went out tonight to the local Italian restaurant, where they have posters of Italy (in French - what is that all about). It is a long way from being the Via Vento swarming with paparazzi, but here in hicksville Hampshire is is as close as we get to experiencing La Dolce Vita. Now there is a great film which has no need of being turned into a novel.