jexjthomas's review
4.0
This book was a lot of fun, very fast-paced and tightly written with a compelling look inside the head of the protagonist. (Also a number of wtf "problematic" moments that wouldn't fly today and definitely had me feeling some kind of way.)
Since I can't help but feel like it's impossible to discuss this book without also looking at it's (much more famous) adaptation, John McTiernan's 1988 Die Hard (a Perfect Film), I'm going to discuss a couple of things. I'll try to keep it brief since there are plenty of "how was it different?" type lists out there and I'm not interested in cataloging all those things. Instead, I'd like to look at what the book did better vs. what the film did better. This will by necessity contain some spoilers. I think they're fairly minor, but watch out if you're concerned about being at all spoiled on plot points or thematic content.
Book:
* Probably the biggest difference, and something I liked overall, was how much access we had to Joe Leland's inner life. That's something that we get far less of in the film, which of course makes sense since they're different mediums. Bruce Willis does a great job at telegraphing a lot of that stuff, but John McClane is a very different character from Joe Leland in many ways, and he doesn't have the baggage that Leland has (explored in Thorp's earlier work, The Detective, which I have not read but would consider reading). I liked having the space to spend some time in Leland's head, understand his worldview, and get treated with some seriously wonderful hardboiled similies, like:
> At its worst, you came away with the conclusion that, if the billboards were removed, the power lines buried, and the business signs restricted to a modest size, the city would look like a shaved cat.
and
> He could scrape grease and dried blood out of his hair like cream cheese from a slice of bread.
Unfortunately, access to Leland's thoughts also means we get crap like "It was a young, black voice, deep, with no trace of ghetto" that may have flown in '79 but it doesn't now. (The book actually seems fairly progressive on representation and issues of race relations, but it's still tainted by Thorp's own perspectives and the way people talked about race 40 years ago.)
* This access to Leland's thoughts also helps build tension and suspense, since we're often moving back and forth between the action and what he's thinking, including musings on his previous life as a husband and police officer.
* The book has far, far more moral ambiguity, which is interesting, to say the very least. The terrorists here are not thieves pretending to be terrorists, but actual terrorists. More than this, they *have a point* and Thorp doesn't shy away from letting us see that. I won't go any further into spoiler territory, but I will say that some parts of the climax are legitimately shocking due to this, including some of Leland's actions.
Film:
* As lean as the book is, the film is a masterclass in tight storytelling, distilling the story to its purest essence. Everything that feels even minorly superfluous is excised in the interest of staying focused on the action and themes. As a movie, Die Hard runs like clockwork. All the pieces matter and affect all the other pieces.
* Most of the changes from the source material are inspired. While the moral complexity of the book was *interesting*, it was the right move to chop it, as well as replacing the protagonist's daughter with his semi-estranged wife and refusing to make her complicit in the events that cause the terrorists to conspire against the corporation. Also, if Holly Genero's fate were the same as Stephanie's, I'm not sure the film would have worked.
* Bruce Willis injects a charm into John McClane that's largely absent from the book's hero of Joe Leland. He's also considerably younger than Leland, which I think probably played better for a film audience. I kept picturing Leland as Robert Forster, which I think would be a great casting choice, but it's a very different story.
* On that note, McClane is so much more likable than Leland is, and choosing to pare down his backstory helped make him more relatable. He still has some baggage, but it's clearly not as involved or complex as Leland's history.
Those are the big things, I think. Other thoughts on the book would be that as action-packed as it was, I actually found some of it hard to follow, particularly the bits dealing with the geometry and spatial awareness of the building. It's clear that Thorp had a very clear image in his mind of how the building was laid out, but I almost feel like the reader could have benefitted from a map or floorplans. Additonally, there are points where Leland's thinking is meant to be self-evident, but it isn't always. Sometimes this is to build tension and allow for cool reveals, but other times something that is meant to feel obvious and able to be intuited by the reader is abstruse.
On the whole, I enjoyed Nothing Lasts Forever, and it was a good read for sleepless nights with our newborn (this is why it took me four months to finish, though really I read the bulk of the novel over the past week). I do think it's a case of the film adaptation surpassing the original, but that's okay, and doesn't mean the book doesn't have its own redeeming qualities. It has many.
Since I can't help but feel like it's impossible to discuss this book without also looking at it's (much more famous) adaptation, John McTiernan's 1988 Die Hard (a Perfect Film), I'm going to discuss a couple of things. I'll try to keep it brief since there are plenty of "how was it different?" type lists out there and I'm not interested in cataloging all those things. Instead, I'd like to look at what the book did better vs. what the film did better. This will by necessity contain some spoilers. I think they're fairly minor, but watch out if you're concerned about being at all spoiled on plot points or thematic content.
Book:
* Probably the biggest difference, and something I liked overall, was how much access we had to Joe Leland's inner life. That's something that we get far less of in the film, which of course makes sense since they're different mediums. Bruce Willis does a great job at telegraphing a lot of that stuff, but John McClane is a very different character from Joe Leland in many ways, and he doesn't have the baggage that Leland has (explored in Thorp's earlier work, The Detective, which I have not read but would consider reading). I liked having the space to spend some time in Leland's head, understand his worldview, and get treated with some seriously wonderful hardboiled similies, like:
> At its worst, you came away with the conclusion that, if the billboards were removed, the power lines buried, and the business signs restricted to a modest size, the city would look like a shaved cat.
and
> He could scrape grease and dried blood out of his hair like cream cheese from a slice of bread.
Unfortunately, access to Leland's thoughts also means we get crap like "It was a young, black voice, deep, with no trace of ghetto" that may have flown in '79 but it doesn't now. (The book actually seems fairly progressive on representation and issues of race relations, but it's still tainted by Thorp's own perspectives and the way people talked about race 40 years ago.)
* This access to Leland's thoughts also helps build tension and suspense, since we're often moving back and forth between the action and what he's thinking, including musings on his previous life as a husband and police officer.
* The book has far, far more moral ambiguity, which is interesting, to say the very least. The terrorists here are not thieves pretending to be terrorists, but actual terrorists. More than this, they *have a point* and Thorp doesn't shy away from letting us see that. I won't go any further into spoiler territory, but I will say that some parts of the climax are legitimately shocking due to this, including some of Leland's actions.
Film:
* As lean as the book is, the film is a masterclass in tight storytelling, distilling the story to its purest essence. Everything that feels even minorly superfluous is excised in the interest of staying focused on the action and themes. As a movie, Die Hard runs like clockwork. All the pieces matter and affect all the other pieces.
* Most of the changes from the source material are inspired. While the moral complexity of the book was *interesting*, it was the right move to chop it, as well as replacing the protagonist's daughter with his semi-estranged wife and refusing to make her complicit in the events that cause the terrorists to conspire against the corporation. Also, if Holly Genero's fate were the same as Stephanie's, I'm not sure the film would have worked.
* Bruce Willis injects a charm into John McClane that's largely absent from the book's hero of Joe Leland. He's also considerably younger than Leland, which I think probably played better for a film audience. I kept picturing Leland as Robert Forster, which I think would be a great casting choice, but it's a very different story.
* On that note, McClane is so much more likable than Leland is, and choosing to pare down his backstory helped make him more relatable. He still has some baggage, but it's clearly not as involved or complex as Leland's history.
Those are the big things, I think. Other thoughts on the book would be that as action-packed as it was, I actually found some of it hard to follow, particularly the bits dealing with the geometry and spatial awareness of the building. It's clear that Thorp had a very clear image in his mind of how the building was laid out, but I almost feel like the reader could have benefitted from a map or floorplans. Additonally, there are points where Leland's thinking is meant to be self-evident, but it isn't always. Sometimes this is to build tension and allow for cool reveals, but other times something that is meant to feel obvious and able to be intuited by the reader is abstruse.
On the whole, I enjoyed Nothing Lasts Forever, and it was a good read for sleepless nights with our newborn (this is why it took me four months to finish, though really I read the bulk of the novel over the past week). I do think it's a case of the film adaptation surpassing the original, but that's okay, and doesn't mean the book doesn't have its own redeeming qualities. It has many.
weheartgames's review against another edition
4.0
Never knew Die Hard was based on a book till Graeme mentioned it on Twitter. Liked it a lot; fun read. Much grittier than the movie, and not such a clear-cut moral good-side/bad-side.
buffaloarms's review
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
dinkireads's review
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
librarybrooke's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
sbaylouny's review
3.0
Are you kidding?! How did I not know that my favorite movie of all time was based off a book?? Well, it's safe to say I devoured this. But, this was one time where I would argue that the movie is better than the book (I'm extremely biased here though). This was Die Hard almost exactly but with less action hero sounding names and with less incredible one liners. The characters were weaker and the differences in their storylines made them less entertaining. I did think the writing was a little outdated, but I can't say I'm surprised for a book of this age. Despite all of that, this was still an enjoyable, new way to re-experience Die Hard.
kratositaly's review
3.0
The novel on which the original DIE HARD is based, NOTHING LASTS FOREVER is a generally entertaining action-thriller from the late '70s. Very mean and brutal, full of tense moments, but also lacking anything particularly compelling in its themes: the stronghold of terrorism in a capitalist world, the trauma of war and killing, and the corruption inherently rooted in major corporations has potential, but never goes beyond the pulpy nature of the novel. When compared to the 1988 cinematic classic, this pales, but still manages to deliver unexpected meanness and a lot of procedural elements that ground it in reality and make the action feel weighty and with bloody consequences.
avispa_nightriver's review
adventurous
challenging
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25