5 books that are UNADAPTABLE!

Some books can just not be made into anything else.

00:00 – Intro
01:26 – Honorable mention
02:19 – Number 5
04:33 – Number 4
08:42 – Number 3
11:46 – Number 2
15:12 – Number 1

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[simontheewok]

The thing about House of Leaves is that it's impossible to even adapt it into an audiobook. You HAVE to physically read it and jumble it back and forth as you jump from various sections of the book to solve the insanity presented in the footnotes. Read it for the first time this year and absolutely love it.

[Thepopcornator]

They used to say The Lord of the Rings was unadaptable.

[coyoteartist]

I would kill for an animated Dark Tower. As to the -last entry. Just conceptually, I could see a set changing as the elements of what he's actually living in is revealed. You start out with a white tower that looks like a tower and as the elements are revealed, the visual shifts. That sounds to me more like something that would work better in animation too. But it's an interesting concept anyway.

[waltwright]

I loved your House Of Leaves video, both stylistically and content-wise. I admit I only watched it because I loved the author's sister's companion album (2000's album "Haunted" by Poe) which I had commented on. The book is next in my queue to read because your video was so convincing, and I've been listening to Haunted a lot recently. It still holds up 24 years later! Keep up the great work.

[alexandertracy]

I definitely want an animated Dark Tower series. I remember they actually made a film with Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. I was good, but not great, but my dad said it was all the books put into a 90 minute film. So u could definitely see it as an animated series

[baronvonyossi]

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov - the book is structured as a delusional self-obsessed editor providing line-by-line commentary on the final unfinished poem by a famous poet, but he’s convinced that the poem was actually written about his own (possibly imagined) backstory. The reading experience involves constantly flipping back and forth between the poem and the commentary and cross-referencing the various footnotes, and would be absolutely impossible to recreate in any other medium

Mark Lawrence’s Library Trilogy, for similar reasons to Book Of The New Sun - there are certain major twists that would be impossible to conceal in any visual medium.

[Ldunk]

I am so glad that you picked "The Book of the New Sun". I love this series. It's so true about it being unadaptable. One of my favorites of all time.

[nathanielvalla]

Several of these sound like they could be adapted into video games. I could definitely see avenues for Dark Tower and House of Leaves to be done that way.

[darrenbent]

They already tried to adapt the "The Dark Tower" first book into a movie, it starred Idris Elba as the Gunslinger. And I totally agree with you about it being animated. Look at the Simpsons, 30+ years and they haven't aged.

[wolfgangoschmann]

I heard that Mike Flanagan (who is a huge Dark Tower fan) wants to make a Dark Tower tv series where each season covers each book. He also mentioned that there is one specific scene from one of the books that he knows exactly how he would film and is excited to film it if given the chance.
Edit: I did not watch your full explanation to Dark Tower when I wrote this. So I did not know that you already knew this.

[gnarwhal]

The only medium I could possibly see House of Leaves being adapted into properly would be video games. Tons of survival horror titles like Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Clock Tower, etc. deal with puzzle solving and backtracking, so I could maybe see it working there. Maybe

[SeekerOfSand]

House of Leaves was actually tried to be adapted back in 2017 with the author's involvement for a TV Series, it didn't go through but you can actually see some screenplays online. It did not copy the book in the sense that you are reading someone else's writing, but adapted the medium: in the show, the issue was about video tapes and actual films. I found it pretty fitting overall.

[nikkort]

I first read House of Leaves a few years ago, and to this day it lives rent-free in my head. It's absolutely unadaptable! I don't even think an audiobook would do this book justice. There's power in the experience of having to heft the book around, flip it over, turn pages band and forth to crack codes...there's NO WAY an audiobook could capture the visceral exhaustion and exhilaration I experienced reading the book.

A movie adaptation would be impossible. You're telling 3 stories at the same time, each one linked to and dependent upon the other.

I knew as soon as I saw the title of this video that HoL would be on it--I'd have been VERY disappointed if it wasn't!

[richarddeese]

"Lord Foul's Bane" & "Nine Princes in Amber" are both unadaptable. I'd love to see an animated version of Zelazney's Amber Chronicles. tavi.

[eddiejc]

I would nominate "The Wild" by Whitley Strieber. It is a werewolf book, but not the kind you are used to. The protagonist doesn't get bitten by an animal and change into a two-legged furred "wolf man" every month on the night of the full moon. He changes into an actual wolf, and the change is permanent. The reason I believe this is unadaptable is not the special effects, but rather how to show that this wolf has human intelligence without seeming to be a ridiculous variant of "The Shaggy Dog" films.

[bobsteele]

3 more unadaptable books I would add are "Finnegan's Wake" by James Joyce, "The Atrocity Exhibition" by J.G Ballard and "Barefoot in the Head" by Brian Aldiss. Three books that are difficult enough to read, let alone adapt.
"The Book of the New Sun" series is among my all time favourites btw. Totally agree with what you had to say about it. Very very rewarding series of books to read. Honestly Wolfe's prose is a pleasure to read in itself, even if you disregard the fantastic story.

[strangebeer]

Dhalgren by Samuel Delany...utterly a book that is beyond adaptation.

[ken.droid-the-unique]

I would suggest that the book "S" (or The Ship of Theseus) by J. J. Abrams would be challenging to adapt. Similar to your description of House of Leaves, the experience of reading the text, the conversation between two people in marginal notes in two timelines, and reading the postcards/materials tucked into the pages make it a great experience.

[booties]

i knew house of leaves would be on here, there are some books that are too much about being a book to be able to adapt. i always thought that invisible monsters by palahniuk would be extremely difficult if not impossible to adapt, but then we did get fight club so... maybe?? great video, definitely gave me a few new titles to check out.

[TheHortoncrow]

I saw the title, and was immediately like, "If House of Leaves isn't on