I always heard that a book is 100 times better than a movie based on the book. After reading Memoirs of a Geisha and Interview with a Vampire I came to the same conclusion.

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

I first read the book then I saw the movie. Arthur Golden describes the poor house, the village, Chiyo’s mother in a dramatic way and her sister a bit older. When I read the book I imagined a house that’s one second away from falling apart, a sick woman that looks more like a skeleton and Chiyo’s eyes lighter. In the movie the house doesn’t look at all that poor and the girl’s eyes are not Blue-Grey as Arthur described. Also the thing I hated about the movie was the fact that they gave little attention to the tea ritual and the art of make up and kimono.

There were also misinterpretations of mizuage, the ceremony which Arthur Golden said in his book that consists in deflowering the geisha. In fact the truth is that this ceremony means that the geisha has come to adulthood which consists in changing her hairstyle and clothing.

Anyway, I liked the book better.

Interview with the Vampire - Anne Rice

I read the book after I watched the movie. When I first saw Interview with a Vampire it gave me the chills. The room was dark, everybody was asleep, outside a storm was messing with the town and I was watching Brad Pitt as Louis and Tom Cruise as Lestat sucking blood out of young ladies. Yes, the movie is great but there are things in the book that are much better described and some interesting scenes were cut out of the movie. I guess the movie is just too long and they had to cut something out to make it shorter.

Yes, the book is way much better than the movie. That if you still read books!