A post based on an email by Peggy's Steve

Guest writer Peggy's Steve sends in this...

On the subway yesterday I saw someone reading the novel "Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire".  Not someone reading "Push" by Sapphire, mind you.  They were reading a movie tie-in called "Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire".

Now, I'm assuming that the text they were reading was indeed the novel "Push" by Sapphire.  Because if it were a novelization of the film, the cover would have read "Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire" -- by (Someone Else).

But it didn't, so I can only assume the novel "Push" by Sapphire was retitled to match the clunky title of the film, which means that the front cover should have read: "Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire" by Sapphire.  
That's not a great compromise either, because the title implies that what you're reading is only "based" on the novel that you're actually reading.  Unless Sapphire did change the novel "Push" to match the movie more, in which case maybe the title should read: "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire based on the Movie Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire."

I sincerely hope that Sapphire didn't change a word, firstly because it would save literary scholars the headache of debating the relative merits of the novel Push by Sapphire, and the novel "Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire" (which itself is based partly on the movie "Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire").  But more importantly, the absence of any new material would prevent the truly horrifying possibility of selling movie rights to this new work, which could be called "Precious: Based on the novel Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire"

(Peggy's Steve is a hot shot editor, great piano player and wears the hell out of his glasses.)