Magicians Are Like Lying Wizards

This is not another attempt to talk crap about Christopher Nolan, I swear. I actually really liked his movie “The Prestige” when I saw it back in 2006. What was there not to like about this movie? Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale play two finely sculpted magicians in Victorian England AND David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla!!! Seriously, more famous musicians need to play famous inventors or scientists. I would now like to write the film where Tom Waits and Eddie Vedder play the Wright Brothers.

My point is, I liked “The Prestige.” It’s great. You should totally go rent it, or Netflix it, or however it is that people watch movies these days. “The Prestige” is an enjoyable movie. But do you know what was even MORE ENJOYABLE? The book.

Yup, it’s based off of a book, like almost every other movie in Hollywood right now. A fabulous book actually, written by a fellow named Christopher Priest. It reads sort of like if Jane Austen wrote a book about magicians trying to kill each other.

This is one of those stories that talking about it in too much detail kind of ruins the whole party, so I’ll try not to let slip too many spoilers. I think it’s safe to say that the book is a lot clearer on what the heck is happening than the movie. The movie is all mysterious and suspenseful, but the book relies more on possibly untrustworthy narratives and misinformation to hide its secret plot points. Still, I felt at the end I had reached a satisfactory conclusion, which is something Mr. Nolan seems hesitant to offer up in any of his films.

Wait, I promised not to talk crap about Christopher Nolan. Okay, back on topic. The book.

Priest’s “The Prestige” is far creepier than the movie. Again, it’s a matter of carefully revealing enough about… certain events… to make readers wonder what these characters are talking about, but never fully coming out or showing you until the very, very end.

Okay, enough of the vagueness. Now I’m just going to throw a bunch of buzz words at you so as not to ruin the experience but at least give you a little taste of what the story holds:

Racks of dead bodies.
Insane foreign inventors.
A ghost with a knife.
Dark family secrets.
Childhood electrocution.

If my memory serves me correctly, the movie only had two out of five, so my sheer math, the book should be better, right?

The book version also throws in a whole present day sub-story where the descendants of each magician meet up again to uncover their ancestors’ torrid past. At first it seemed like an annoying stutter step to the real action. But just when we think the magicians’ demises will never be explained, Priest snaps us back to the present, into a darkened cellar, for one final chapter. This chapter turns out to be one of the most intense, terrifying, parts of the whole book. Everything up to that is a character study, a mystery, but that last chapter is like a shot of adrenaline mixed with hillbilly moonshine: intense and crazy.

So this is why I like the book better, not because the director did a poor job, but simply because there wasn’t enough time to tell the full story. Nolan’s film runs two hours and ten minutes even after cutting out huge chunks of the book. But if you read it, you’ll see how readers are left with an entirely different feeling at the end of the book than at the end of the movie. The book is darker, more haunting, but in my opinion more satisfying in the end.