Theory Of Adaptation

Adaptations in all forms have always been held as a great interest of mine. In theory, nothing sounds better than being able to finish a book that was held close to your heart and then have the ability to see the pictures you made of it in your mind he brought to the stage or film theater. In reality, adaptations are not quite this appealing. When Hutcheon explored this area of adaptations, one of her explanations for the seemingly consistent disappointment was rooted in two words; iconophobia and logophilia. Iconophobia can be defined simply as "a suspicion of the visual" while logophilia is defined as "love of the word as sacred". These two words seemed to me like the two root causes for the general feeling of disappointment in adaptations. Suspicion of the visual is obviously going to be at play during any theatrical performances of a piece and even in Hollywood pictures. Even in an era where Hollywood can present blue twelve foot tall aliens with striking realism, iconophobia is still going to be present. Logophilia, or love of the word as sacred, is also bound to present for several reasons. As centuries of academic interpretations of texts can prove, everyone develops a unique picture in their minds while they read. These unique interpretations have a negative effect on adaptations as there's really no right way to represent the text, everyone has their own mental picture which conflicts with it. Along with these two interesting concepts, something else I found quite interesting was how certain adaptations are made with artistic flare, something to distinguish the original creation from the reconstruction. In my opinion distinguishing factors kind of always seem to  simply be detrimental to the core story but perhaps that's simply because no one has put enough effort into it. Regardless of my opinion on artistic flair, I think that adaptations are generally okay. Even if the remake is awful, it doesn't really make the original any worse for me.

1. If the original is always intact, how does the adaptation really harm your memory of it? Can the two not coexist without harming each other?