A Stir of Echoes: Book or Movie?
I read Richard Matheson’s A Stir of Echoes as one of my selections for Bout of Books.
It’s been on my list for a long time, so it felt good to put it behind me, and the Bout of Books read-a-thon provided the perfect opportunity. Finding A Stir of Echoes, however, proved a challenge as I searched one library and three bookstores and finally had to order it.
When a party stunt awakens Tom Wallace’s psychic abilities, he must learn to cope with troubling images of the future and disturbing pleas from the dead, one of which is closer to home than he would like.
A reader asked me which was better, the book or the movie? As I was reading, I kept comparing the two. The good news is that they’re both good and they’re so different that you can enjoy both. In fact, the only real similarity is that Tom’s psychic ability makes its appearance after an amateur hypnosis session. That, and the close-knit, working class neighborhood plays an important role for book and movie alike. In fact, because all action takes place on one street, I could even envision this as a stage play. Everything happens in the neighborhood, and it ain’t Mr. Roger’s neighborhood.
The tone of book and movie differs as well. The book focuses more on the psychological growth of a man and his family dealing for the first time with the supernatural while the movie revels in ectoplasmic chills and gasps. I did gasp once while reading the book, but that was because something surprised me rather than because something went bump. The novel was published in 1958 and is imbued with a sort of noirish quality evocative of that time whereas the movie features a contemporary setting. Both work well as the themes of love, jealousy, rage, are timeless.
One way in which the novel A Stir of Echoes is superior—the endless digging that Kevin Bacon does in the movie grows tedious. Thankfully, the novel does not dwell on this activity. Of course, said digging did provide some satisfying views of a shirtless Kevin Bacon. Can’t put that in a book…
6 thoughts on “A Stir of Echoes: Book or Movie?”
I do love it when the book and the movie are different but both are good. 🙂
Me, too! It’s rare, though. In fact, I can’t think of another one now…
Hmmm…I don’t remember finding the digging tedious in the film, but I’m sure the next time I watch it I’ll be thinking of that a lot, LOL! I do really like the film. Good eerie movie. Even when they don’t follow them faithfully, Matheson’s stories made for good television and film adaptations, I think because he was skilled at writing for those formats.
Ha! Sorry I have now planted that in your mind about the digging. Now that I think about it, maybe it wasn’t tedious so much as it was upsetting since it caused so much unhappiness for his wife and landlord. I’m new to Matheson’s writing. In fact, this is my first though I have seen movies. Maybe I will read Hell House as my next Matheson selection.
I loved the movie Stir of Echoes and also can’t remember the digging being too tedious, but, as Carl said, I will now probably rethink that when I watch it next. I’ve always wanted to read the book though and I’m still curious. It sounds as though the book is much tamer in terms of chills but that seems to be the case with I am Legend as well – and in that particular case I did prefer the book!
Lynn 😀
Hi Lynn,
Yes, I would say the book is tamer in terms of chills. It feels more quietly psychological, focusing a lot on relationships as the basis for the ghostly unrest. I definitely enjoyed his style and will read more of his stuff.