A rare case in which you should see the film (miniseries) first: Parade's End

Readers of my other blog, elliotsreading, may know that I was both impressed with and frustrated by Ford Madox Ford's Parade's End - finding it really smart and full of complex social issues and at times beautifully written but also extremely challenging, with its fragmented and asynchronous narrative and its willful complete lack of contextual narration - we just find ourselves with character, in a scene of a locale, and only over time do we come to understand who's speaking, what his or her relationship is to other characters, etc. - also we get little or no explanatory passages, which is especially difficult for an American reader not familiar w/ English party politics - particularly of a century ago. HBO miniseries to the rescue - I'm a little scornful of those who see the film and skip the book, and in fact always make a point of reading first if I plan to do both genres - film is so more vivid in its impact that it seems once we've seen the work cinematically it is impossible to envision the characters other than as those who played the parts. But in this case - I recommend seeing the miniseries first - I will now, with greater confidence and more sure bearings, at some point return and read the 2nd through 4th volumes of the quartet. I didn't think this work could translate so well, but the brilliant Tom Stoppard makes a great 5-hour script out of about 1,000 dense pages. The series as all the period details and vivid, rich textures - as well as highly pro acting, that we've come to take for granted from BBC productions. The lead is maybe a little more handsome and "cleaned up" than he ought to be, and the miniseries maybe a little more overtly sexual than the book, which did a lot by implication rather than depiction. But some scenes work way better in the miniseries - trimming extensive dialogue down to a few salient points, for ex the long conversation in Germany w/ the priest handled deftly in one short scene. My only quibble is the casting of Valentine Wannop - the actress in the role is excellent and very winning but she looks far, far too young and innocent for the part, in my view, and I'm constantly thinking that Tietjens is trying to have sex with a teenage girl (she's supposed to be 24 I think). McMaster is suitably unctuous, and Rebecca Hall as Mrs. T. is perfect - every word drips venom. Watched first 3 parts, 2 to go.