there is something perfectly intentional in the way flike managan does his adaptations. it's not like he's careless or stupid or just wants to cash in on name brand recognition. shirley jackson does not have name brand recognition, at least not among his target demographic. he's genuinely in conversation with the texts he adapts, and is making very specific choices, except these choices all live in service of redeeming the name of the nuclear biological family and making sad little tut tut noises at the big mean bigots.

anyway this is why it pisses me off when people say "it's good if you watch his shows divorced from the original book!" because. well because they're still soppy, spineless, and only good for the vfx artists to flex their skills. but also it's not just an unrelated story. his adaptation work is bad because he specifically set out to remedy the paranoia of the source material with the power of church weddings and group therapy.

despite my flapathy i am forced to acknowledge his new ventures once a year whenever this post picks up a modest few notes. anyway this year i'd like to recommend 'Turning the Screw of Interpretation' by Shoshana Felman, an incredible essay about the relevance of psychoanalysis to literary criticism. I recall the show making allusions to ideas touched on in this essay, but don't ask me where or how. I've since deleted all memory of his work.