A Diplomat’s Unlikely Rise to ‘Slumdog’ Acclaim
By MARK McDONALD in The New York Times
Published: April 1, 2009
By MARK McDONALD in The New York Times
Published: April 1, 2009
HONG KONG — It’s an impossible story, really, how a modest fellow from a family of lawyers becomes a back-office diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service, writes his first novel in a feverish two months, finds a clientless agent over the Internet and has a British director turn his mid-list book into a movie that wins the best-picture Academy award and seven other Oscars.
Vikas Swarup at a book signing session in Hong Kong.
The recent career trajectory of Vikas Swarup is nearly as preposterous as the plot of his novel, “Q & A,” the tale of an uneducated waiter from a Mumbai slum who wins a billion rupees on an Indian quiz show. Mr. Swarup, 47, recently found himself onstage at the Academy Awards, celebrating in the joyous scrum of young Indian actors from “Slumdog Millionaire.”
“Quite amazing,” he said in an interview here. “This kind of thing happens to Tom Cruise, not to authors. But I console myself that this too shall pass and life will return to normal.”
An
y return to normal for Mr. Swarup, if that’s even possible now, could begin in Osaka, Japan, where this summer he will take over as consul general. His wife, Aparna, a painter, and their two sons will soon start packing for the move from their current posting in South Africa.Mr. Swarup, during a brief Hong Kong vacation, was staying at the home of the Indian consul general, a longtime friend from the foreign service. During a long, animated conversation at the official residence on The Peak, an upscale neighborhood, the writer seemed genuinely amazed by his good fortune — with the film, with a renewed interest in his novel, at his luck in even being published at all.
And it’s luck that animates his novel, which is substantially different from the film. Mr. Swarup allows himself the occasional grimace in talking about the numerous changes in the script. But, ever the diplomat, he says the screenwriter, Simon Beaufoy, and the director, Danny Boyle, stayed “faithful to the central narrative structure.”
The full story can be read at NYT online.
3 comments:
Moments before watching the movie, my friend got a message on her iphone in response to a blogpost about the movie we were about to see. The message ruined Slumdog for me. It brought to light that the screenplay severely discredited the lead female character, who, in the book, becomes a strong lawyer who helps her friend in trouble instead of being the one who fails to help him by not knowing the names of the Three Muskateers.
Several friends who hace read the book and seen the movie reckon that you have to treat them as two separate works and then you will be able to enjoy both.While the author may or may not be disappointed at changes to his script I'll bet he is delighted with the resultant sales that have followed the success of the movie.
In my publishing days we always made it clear top authors that when film rights are sold what the moviemaker is buying is the right to use the book as a movie in some way - it may be that all they want is the title, or perhaps part of the story or perhaps all of the story. They have bought the film rights and generally speaking what they then do with them is their business. That is why, again speaking generally, I am usually disappointed with movie versions of books I have loved. One notable excpetion that comes to mind as I write was The English Patient.
I read Q&A long before the movie was made. It was wonderfully witty and cheeky, and I loved it. What an amazing novel debut! I enjoyed the movie for its own sake, and didn't compare.
As movies are so often aspects of a novel (think Captain Corelli's Mandolin, for example where only a fraction of that vast story was brought to the screen), comparisons are best set aside.
The first Harry Potter film was a plodding, faithful adaptation that failed to fire.
I agree The English Patient was a fabulous exception to the rule.
And if authors are making good money out of movie rights, they should stop moaning. Making money out of writing is notoriously difficult. The advance I received for my first book was great, but in the end it only covered my lost wages as I had to work part-time to finish it.
Royalties are always a nice, annual surprise, though
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