2nd Journal Entry for Rocket Boys:

Having just finished this book, and having also just seen the movie adaptation of it a few hours earlier, called October Sky, I simply must comment on how reading a book can really ruin watching the movie. The movie was decent enough, but because I had been reading the book, I had a very set way in my head the movie was supposed to go. The way the characters were supposed to look, the town, the "shots" I had set up. (I don’t know how most people visualize a story when reading, but I see them like a movie with every type of movie shot one can think of.) Also firmly implanted was the chronological order of the events. Well, the movie broke each of these things at least alitle, especially the order of events (and the events themselves). So watching this movie, every time something went the way other than what I thought it should, it just kind of bothered me. Perhaps every one that reads a book and then sees the movie always says "the book was better." (Which seems to almost be a cliché comment by now) not necessarily because the book actually was better, but because the reader/viewer had a image of exactly how the book was supposed to go in their head. And to that person, their version of the story is for that particular person: perfect. Thus the movie cannot exceed the book. Of course movies also have a harder time expressing thoughts than do a book. So there’s my philosophic ideas on that, which I simply had to get out of my system. Just think; If I hadn’t just seen the movie that entire paragraph would’ve never come into existence. Wouldn’t that be a pity?

Anyhow, returning to the strictly literary version of this story I liked the ending half quite a bit, more perhaps than the first half. While it never did reach any symbolic level, it was well balanced, meaning not overly "happy" nor too dark, which works for some stories, but certainly not this one. The thing that I liked most was that it stayed fairly true to real life the entire thing through. Sure, the occasional corny line was still in there, but a good deal of it brought forth that "Gee, I think that way, or Gee I’ve thought that, done that, have friends like that, felt that etc." type thing. I like stories that do that, as they make it all more real. No matter how "deep" a character is, or how sophisticated, it just doesn’t work if the reader can’t relate in some little way. (Although I suppose that that could work with a purposefully mysterious character.) But these people can be related to allot. Of course this can probably be much attributed to two things: First, the characters actually are real, and second, they are the same age as I. Nonetheless, I have read some stories in which both of these things are true, but the characters just don’t feel authentic, like the author is trying to hard to write like a teenager.

The story does have it’s fair share of drama however, every now and then bordering on "dark"(I realize I am radically changing topics here on and off, but heck, this is a free-write.) Between his problems with his father, the ugly side of working in a mine (deaths aren’t exactly rare.), the death of a man who was put in the mine as a result of something he did for Homer, (trying to not give away the entire thing here) and the fact that every time something gets killed Homer thinks it is his fault, along with a few other things, the story most definitely has a serious side. But in the end it is a lesson teacher book, one that once again says "If you try hard enough, you can do anything." I realize this is by no means a new book topic, but it works, and it definitely worked in this book, as far as I am concerned.

I have said all that I wish to say, and I’ll simply end with the comment that I liked this book.