American holiday literature

So we just went on a 2 week holiday to Italy, and during this holiday, I read 3 American novels. I won't call them 'the great American novel', because none of them were, but it had been an long time since I'd read so much American literature in one go.
First I had to finish The Luminaries, which is such a wonderful book that it deserves its own blog post. Also, it's written by a New Zealander (New Zealandess?).
After finishing The Luminaries and knitting my head together again as it was blown to pieces on the sheer brilliance of the novel, I started with Big Brother by Lionel Shriver. Which is different, veeeery different. Also, I'm not sure if it really constitutes as 'literature', but that's just technicalities. It reminded me a lot of We Need to Talk about Kevin, which I was forced to read for a class and still have slight nightmarish thoughts about every once in a while; sad, deflated, somewhat depressed woman describing events to the reader (in the case of Kevin in letters, in the case of Big Brother it never really becomes clear how she is conveying her message to us). The book is about a woman whose brother comes to live with her for a while, and it turns out he's become incredibly fat. Which disrupts her whole life, and her family's life. But really it's about expectations in life, about becoming 'someone', and the American Dream falling apart. The sad thing is that this message is repeated time and again, by the main character, her husband, and everyone else, so that you get incredibly sick of it. The ending was also really really horrible, one of the worst deus ex machinas I've read in a long time, which made me so disappointed with the whole thing that I quickly went on to the next.
Which was The Easter Parade, by Richard Yates. Which definitely is literature. I loved Revolutionary Road, so I bought The Easter Parade on a whim, and also took it with me on a whim. I knew nothing about this novel before I started reading, but it turned out to be pretty close to Big Brother, in that it's also about siblings, and it's also about life not turning out the way you planned, and about the American Dream falling apart. Only it was written 50 years earlier, before people got properly obese, so there's none of that. Otherwise, it's great. Typical Yates, with his descriptions of people and atmospheres and feelings. It's hard to describe, I think everyone should just read Revolutionary Road (it has better character development) and experience it for themselves.
Finally, I read Rabbit, Run, which is the first of John Updike's brilliant Rabbit-series. It describes life in the fifties for the average American guy, which is to say; another American Dream bursting asunder. Harry (Rabbit) leaves his pregnant wife to go on the great American road trip, which reads like the start of a great young-guy adventure story, but as Updike says himself in the afterword 'things fall apart when a young man leaves his young family behind', which is exactly what happens in the novel. And the main character is just so self-absorbed, so stupid (at first you believe what he says and you also think his wife is a dull witted bore, but you quickly find out that he's a narrator you shouldn't be trusting) that you have to love reading about him. And about America in the fifties, with it's nice little details (his mother refuses to buy a washing machine because washing by hand does the job just as well). It was written in 1959, just like all the following Rabbit novels were also written in the last year of the decade the represent, which makes it a probably pretty accurate account of the times.
Now apart from the American Dream falling apart, which seems to be a theme in many American novels, there is one other connecting element to these novels: New Holland. The narrator of Big Brother lives there, Emily Grimes stays there for a year with one of her lovers, and Rabbit drives through it on his great American road trip. Most readers probably wouldn't have noticed, but as someone from the 'actual' Holland, these things tend to stick (I realise that there must be thousands of 'New Hollands' in the US, and I can only be sure of the first one, which is properly set in Ohio, but still, it's a nice detail). Apart from the first novel, which was good in writing and characters but bad in plot, it was a nice trio of American literature. I've ordered the rest of the Rabbit novels, so I'm sure to get back to the US in due time, but for now I'm busy reading the rest of Roald Dahl's short stories, which are a whole different thing all together. Particularly because there is no American Dream; life has failed for most of his protagonists before it even started.

Original films

I've been watching a lot of films lately, because we got this 'unlimited' cinema card for a generous discount, and that has made me visit the cinema more often than I would usually do (and also watch films in the cinema that I generally wouldn't have paid any money for). One of the things that struck me, both in the story lines of the films themselves and in the trailers, is that there are hardly any original stories left. In film, that is.
The films trending in the Netherlands over the past few months have been: The Book Thief (based on a novel), Divergent (same), The Hundred-Year-Old Man who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (again), X-men: Days of Future Past (comic), Captain America: Winter Soldier (ditto), The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (again), Maleficent (arguably a somewhat original story, but based on Disney's own version of the fairy tale and the fairy tale itself), and the umpteenth Godzilla film. I've also watched The Railway Man (based on true events) and seen trailers for Grace of Monaco, The Fault in our Stars, 22 Jump Street, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and countless other sequels (Transformers, Star Wars, the Hobbit, The Hunger Games, etc).
Why is this? Is it impossible to think of a new, fresh storyline, with new, fresh characters? Also, all the books-made-into-films are based on not-very-literary examples of novels, or generally even popular young adult stuff (not counting The Hobbit, of course). Non-literary, but selling like hot cakes. Must a story prove its worth before a movie can be made out of it? And what's with all the super hero movies? Don't get me wrong, I love watching those, but it's really really hard to come up with any original storyline there (although it was nice to see that someone finally put the Gwen Stacey thing in a Spider-Man film). It's not that I don't like another X-men film, or that I won't go to see them, but I'm lamenting the fact that somehow originality seems to have gone out the window, and only safe, already-proven stories are getting produced.

As I see it, there are two proper exceptions to this rule, one of which I've already seen, and one which is yet to come out: Edge of Tomorrow and The Philosophers (also known as After the Dark). Edge of Tomorrow, even though it is yet another 'super hero will save the day' film, has a great plot, and great characters, and great acting. It is truly original, borrowing some elements from some other films, but never copying outright, and giving them original twists. I haven't seen The Philosophers yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
So I'm hoping that lots of people go to see these films, and will rate them positively, and that film makers (and mostly those giving film makers the money to make films) will realise that there is an audience out there waiting for original stories, not copies of real life, novels, comics, or other films. As I see it, films are an escape into another world, and if that other world is already known, the escape is less powerful. It can be a friendly immersion into familiar waters, but sometimes you just want to be pulled out of your comfort zone into a whole other world. Which is what Edge of Tomorrow will do for you. Go watch it, and spread the word.