Book (vs Movie) Review: CAROL (by Patricia Highsmith)

FACTS ABOUT THE BOOK

Title: CAROL (The Price of Salt)
Author: Patricia Highsmith
Publisher: Norton & Company; Movie Tie-In
Price: 11,99€ (Amazon)

Pages: 304
Genre: LGBTQ*
Year: 2015 (first published 1952)

BACK OF THE BOOK / WHAT'S IT ABOUT?

Patricia Highsmith's story of romantic obsession may be one of the most important, but still largely unrecognized, novels of the twentieth century. First published in 1952 and touted as "the novel of a love that society forbids," the book soon became a cult classic.

Based on a true story plucked from Highsmith's own life, Carol tells the riveting drama of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, whose routine is forever shattered by a gorgeous epiphany—the appearance of Carol Aird, a customer who comes in to buy her daughter a Christmas toy. Therese begins to gravitate toward the alluring suburban housewife, who is trapped in a marriage as stultifying as Therese's job. They fall in love and set out across the United States, ensnared by society's confines and the imminent disapproval of others, yet propelled by their infatuation. Carol is a brilliantly written story that may surprise Highsmith fans and will delight those discovering her work.

This authorized edition includes an afterword by Patricia Highsmith. Previously titled The Price of Salt.

Now a major motion picture with Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE BOOK AND THE MOVIE

Since I am generally very interested in LGBTQ* books, I had CAROL/The Price of Salt on my wishlist for a long time but was always quite overwhelmed by the enormity of different editions that there are of this book. And I also was a bit wary of it because it is so old - from 1952.

I was also aware of the movie with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara but thought that I could read the book before watching the movie and wasn't even too keen on the movie because I never really liked Rooney Mara and also felt very distant towards Cate Blanchett because she always seemed so cold in her acting. But that was before I saw her in OCEAN'S 8 and fell completely in love with her. I couldn't take my eyes off of any of the amazing women in that movie but Cate Blanchett was just such a gay icon in it that I just had to worship her.

So CAROL had been in the back of my mind for a while but I just needed that push to make me read and watch it. And surprisingly I got that push from a German LGBTQ* book by a youtuber (click here for my review). Although I had quite mixed feelings on that book I am still thankful that it gave me that push towards CAROL. In that book the main character read CAROL and spoilered the ending of the book. And since I had wanted to experience CAROL myself, I just had to watch or read it before I finished that book. And so I did.

Normally, I would always choose to read the book first (if it interests me and) if there is a movie adaption that I plan to see. But although I also wanted to read CAROL I decided to watch the movie first because I didn't want to squeeze the book into that other book and because the book edition that I had finally settled on would have arrived when I would have already finished the spoiler book.

So I experienced the story of CAROL for the first time with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara and had a lot of thoughts on that movie.

First of all, I just hated the colouring of the movie. The movie is set in the 50s when the book was written but I really don't understand why that has to mean that everything has to get an ugly colouring. I paused the movie several times just to try to change the colouring into anything more pleasant and even debated to turn the colour completely off and watch it in black and white. I also felt sorry for the story because a book can never have an ugly colouring because you just make the visuals up in your head and you can paint it any way you like.

It took me about 20 minutes to really get into the movie and I can definitely understand when people would turn the movie off in those first minutes because it felt quite slow, wasn't nice to look at and the only interesting characters in it were Carol and Therese.

Fortunately, the story also mainly focuses on these two women and whenever they appeared on screen together it was fascinating to watch them. They had a lot of chemistry and Cate Blanchett seemed like the perfect choice for Carol because she just has this special aura. My crush on her also intensified throughout that movie. She definitely stole everyone the show.

Although I liked Therese and thought Rooney did a nice job, I felt very distanced from her because she seemed so shallow. Therese was also the main reason why I definitely still wanted to read the book even after I watched the movie. I felt like Therese's character had lacked so much depth in the movie because she was quiet an introverted person and probably thought a lot and you can't really portray thoughts that well in a movie.

Now that I've read the book I can definitely confirm this. I felt a lot closer to Carol in the movie and a lot closer to Therese in the book. This reminded me a bit on CALL ME BY YOUR NAME because the book also lives from Elio's thoughts and Oliver in the book is quite hard to grasp for the reader because he seems almost unreal since one can only see him through Elio's obsessive lense. And it was quite similar with Therese and Carol. The book is about Therese and her thoughts and about her falling in love with Carol and as a reader you see Carol through Therese's eyes which makes Carol a bit harder to see as a flawed human being. And in the movie Therese seems very hard to grasp because she doesn't share much with the audience while Carol is this shining light and Cate Blanchett just mesmerizes the viewer.

So as with CMBYN, I would really recommend both the book and the movie of CAROL to get to know both characters individually and in more depth.

Still, I must say that I prefered the book of CAROL. That was also the case with CMBYN but while the CMBYN movie is amongst my absolute favourite movies and I completely adore it, both the movie and the book of CAROL don't rank that high for me.

In the book, Therese is a very interesting and layered character with a lot of depth. I could sympathise a lot with her. She felt quite different to other characters that I've read about so far and therefore rather unique which will probably make her stick in my mind for a longer while.

The story of CAROL is set in New York and during Christmas time (at least the beginning of it) and since I have a great affection towards NY since I visited it last year and am just obsessed with Christmas all year round, I really enjoyed both the setting and the timing of CAROL a lot.

The book seemed to feature even more New York than the movie and that just felt like a nice bonus for me.

As I said, the movie CAROL just lived from Therese & Carol's chemistry and conversations but I enjoyed the book conversations a lot more because they seemed to have more depth and were very refreshing, especially when you consider that this book was written 66 years ago.

I was a bit worried before I read the book that its writing style might be too old-fashioned or just too hard to read. But I was very pleasantly surprised by the writing of the book. It definitely felt more demanding than other books that I've recently read but it had quite a nice flow to it and was rather enjoyable to read. Its long sentences also positively reminded me of CMBYN.

Although I had watched the movie beforehand I didn't really have the actors of the movie in my head for the characters when I read the book. I think that was mainly because the characters did feel quite different in the book than they had felt like in the movie. The book characters broke out of their movie characters and created their own versions of themselves as I read on, just because they all had more story and more depth in the book. Even such awkward characters as Richard.

Since I didn't feel the connection to Carol in the book that I had with Cate Blanchett's portrayal of her in the movie, I also didn't really know whether book-Carol was in love with Therese or not. It was obvious in every page that Therese was in love with Carol but not so much the other way round. I would have preferred a bit more display of affection from Carol's side in the book.

And the relationship between the two in the book also seemed a lot more platonic than the one in the movie. That is obviously, because their was a sex scene in the movie while there were only vague hints at one in the book. But since this book was written in 1952 I think the whole book is more daring than a lot of books from today.

The whole book really took its time but felt a bit rushed in the end. Therese also didn't really seem to know herself and her feelings anymore towards the end and that made her feel a bit distanced and I couldn't relate as much as before to her at the end.

My book edition features an afterword from 1989 of the author, Patricia Highsmith, who has first published this book under a pseudonym, which I found very interesting. It also gave a nice ending to the book and put the whole story into a greater perspective and also showed its impact on LGBTQ* culture.

CONCLUSION

I am very glad that I have now both watched and read the story of CAROL/The Price of Salt and prefer different aspects in both versions. I prefer the book because it had a lot more depth and its protagonist, Therese, was a lot more layered and interesting than she came across in the movie.

Although the book was written in 1952 it felt very fresh and modern in its characters and conversations and definitely makes you double check its first publishing date because it's just really hard to get one's head around the fact that this was written 66 years ago.

I would definitely recommend this story to anyone who is interested in LGBTQ* books and especially in one of the first books featuring a lesbian romance.

It's probably better to read the book first because that way one can maybe still relate to Therese in the movie because one has book Therese in the back of one's head - as I do with Elio in CMBYN.

I think the book deserved a better movie adaption because the movie left a lot of plot out of the story, changed some things and had this ugly, appalling colouring - but I still really enjoyed the sexual tension and chemistry that Therese and Carol had in the movie.

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