Turning novels into TV shows is a practice as old as the visual medium itself. But it is relatively rare for filmmakers to tackle award-winning or short-listed works of literature, which makes Max’s adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen’s 2015 novel “The Sympathizer” a gamble. As opposed to more plot-driven genre writing, prestigious literature depends on dynamic prose and careful characterizations that can often be difficult to translate to the screen. But when great novels meet great television, the results are memorable. These are five of the best TV literary adaptations of the last five years.
‘Normal People’ (2020)
Hulu’s take on Irish novelist Sally Rooney’s literary sensation turned not one but both of its leads into stars. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Marianne, a disaffected young woman who falls in and out of love with Connell (Paul Mescal), whose house her mother used to clean, over the course of several years following the Great Recession. In Rooney’s novel, Connell is popular and charming, whereas Marianne is an outcast, a dynamic that gets somewhat lost in the show’s casting of these two supremely attractive actors. Released early in the pandemic, the 12-episode adaptation was almost universally praised. “Normal People” is a “triumph in every way,” said The Guardian’s Lucy Mangan.
‘Foundation’ (2021)
Isaac Asimov’s Hugo Award-winning trilogy, which spans thousands of years, was long regarded as unfilmable until Apple TV+ came along. The series follows Harry Seldon (Jared Harris), a mathematician whose “Psychohistory” predicts the eventual fall of an interplanetary empire. Exiled by Emperor Cleon XII (a magnificent Lee Pace) to the remote planet of Terminus, Seldon plans to establish a Foundation dedicated to shortening the coming dark age with his disciples, including Gaal Dornick (Lou Llobell). Some critics were left cold, but the show’s “world building is always impressive with its grandeur that’s both practical and also created with IMAX-worthy special effects,” said Roger Ebert’s Nick Allen in a review of season 1. Season 2 aired in 2023.
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‘Station Eleven’ (2021)
HBO Max began filming its take on Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel, a finalist for the National Book Award, but had to take a long pause due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The series follows Kirsten, played as a child by Matilda Lawler, who ends up in the care of the directionless Jeevan (Himesh Patel) the night that a deadly flu pandemic begins wiping out most of humanity. 20 years in the future, MacKenzie Davis plays grown-up Kirsten, who has joined a troupe of Shakespearean actors who tour the post-apocalyptic ruins of the Upper Midwest and who are menaced by radicals inspired by a graphic novel from which the book takes its name. Despite the untimely subject matter, “Station Eleven” is “an uplifting reaffirmation of the value of life and human connection,” said Vulture’s Jen Chaney.
‘Fleishman Is In Trouble’ (2022)
Divorced Manhattan doctor Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg) suddenly finds himself caring for his two children full-time after his ex-wife Rachel (Claire Danes) vanishes. Toby’s inept navigation of the dating scene and efforts to find Rachel are narrated in voice-over by his best friend Libby (Lizzy Caplan), whose life is unsettled by Toby’s newfound freedom. The gut-punch episode where Rachel’s disappearance is finally explained is well-worth the slow burn. FX’s meditation on early-middle-age ennui was based on Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s National Book Award-longlisted 2019 novel of the same name. The show is “sharp, fierce, and funny,” said Annie Berk for The AV Club. It is a “series about understanding instead of indicting in a way that’s poignant and probing at once,” said Daniel Fienberg for The Hollywood Reporter.
‘Pachinko’ (2022)
Min Jin Lee’s novel was a National Book Award finalist in 2017, and in theory, quite an undertaking. The action traverses more than a century, from 1883 to 1989, and follows a Korean family that migrates to Japan. The series shaves some years from the novel’s narrative, beginning in 1915 in Japanese-occupied Korea, where we meet Yangjin (Jeong In-ji ), asking a shaman to lift the curse from her family after her three previous children died. The soon-born child becomes Sunja (Youh Yuh-jung), the show’s protagonist. The era-spanning drama is rendered lushly by directors Kogonada and Justin Chon. Pachinko is “so good” that it “makes the competition look obvious, overwrought, unworthy,” said Robert Lloyd of the Los Angeles Times.
