![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I got the book in the mail that I'd ordered last week from Amazon, Escape to Witch Mountain. For those who only know the movie, it's very different. It's much darker for one thing--the kids are older, around 12 and 14, and their odd physical appearance is stressed more ("...their pale hair and olive skins, their slenderness, and their dark-blue eyes that were almost black") so they're not quite so cinematically cute as Ike Eisenmann and Kim Richards were. Also, Tia cannot talk (audibly). And it's got a very late '60s feel to it, with its portrayal of the burnt out inner city and gangs with switchblades. Another thing I noticed just now is how even though Tony and Tia are not practitioners of any sort of organized religion, Christianity (well, Roman Catholicism) is portrayed quite sympathetically in the book. The nun tells them about the letter, and Father O'Day is of enormous assistance, aiding their escape to the mountains and giving them a sympathetic name, and even following them down there. I love his thundering speech to the baddies at the end--"Don't ever confuse your master with mine!...Do you think the Lord on high is so frail that this little planet, with its greedy little people, is all that he [sic--should be capitalized] can do? Bah!...Get out of my sight! Go tell the rest of your kind there are marvels in Creation far beyond their narrow dreamings." More things on Heaven and earth, Horatio...Humility in Creation. Something fundamentalists should ponder.
One false step is that Tia can open locks "if it's right"--that strikes me as odd. A moral force is interceding there that would be inconsistent with true abilities--any other aptitude or ability (athleticism, strength, intelligence) is outside a moral structure--it's up to the person who has the ability to use it for right, as it were.
The movie's good but the book, as always, is so much better.
One false step is that Tia can open locks "if it's right"--that strikes me as odd. A moral force is interceding there that would be inconsistent with true abilities--any other aptitude or ability (athleticism, strength, intelligence) is outside a moral structure--it's up to the person who has the ability to use it for right, as it were.
The movie's good but the book, as always, is so much better.
