the BBC taught me to read

Sometimes, in their own way, a film or TV show of a novel can be really good. You can never expect it though. After the first few times of being excited to see a movie version of Frankenstein and Wuthering Heights, only to be utterly disappointed, I realized that novels can't be translated directly to the screen. 

But there were two good film versions that made me want to read the books. One was The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. The film was really good and then I read the book and it was also good. The other one was the BBC miniseries of Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. I'd actually started reading it before, and didn't finish it. I got frustrated, because an interesting character is introduced at the start and then doesn't come back for at least half of the book. I was pushing through chapter after chapter as a kind of chore, to get to the good part, and it was taking so long that I just thought, it's not worth it, so I stopped reading. 

Then I watched the miniseries and it was so interesting and compelling. So then I read the book. The TV show focused on the main character: Daniel Deronda, so it taught me how to read the book. That first part AND the second part were really all about the main character and about issues relating to his life. Somehow, reading it this time around, I was content to read through the first part and I wasn't holding out for the novel to say something good because I knew from the TV series that the novel did say something good.