In reply to Pursued by a bear:
We had the book with us in on a trip to S America in the 70s, there wasn't much else to read but despite reading it many times it truly was ...cr*p.
I think there was quite a spate of films being much better than the books - 2001, Godfather, Clockwork Orange... there's others I can't remember now where the film was fantastic and the book just terrible. Not sure it happens nowadays though, are there *any* good films around?