Forrest Gump Has More Spunk In Book Version

Forrest Gump shows that sometimes, benevolence is more important than brains.

As the publicity tag goes, “America has gone Gump!” And that statement couldn’t be more true. With a $306.1 million take at the box office and 13 Academy Award nominations under its belt, “Forrest Gump” seems to be the one movie that America just can’t seem to get enough of - and deservedly so.

With its age-old story that innocence and virtue can triumph over all, a rather sanitized, and guileless approach to history and a seemingly unassuming and an intellectually ineffectual central protagonist to boot, “Gump” seems to be directed at the most naive moviegoer this side of Kingston Falls.

And yet, even the most stuffy, insolent, well-educated film critics have reaped nothing but unyielding praise for “Gump.”

But as much praise as the movie deserves (Tom Hanks’ acting and Robert Zemickis’s sensitive direction especially), much of the applause should be directed at author Winston Groom for concocting one of the most cheerful walks down memory lane.

Groom’s “Gump” is a substantially different simpleton than the movie’s version. While Zemickis’s Gump leads a life that’s pretty much a box of chocolates, Winston’s is a less winsome, more ribald persona who is equipped with uncannily perceptive powers of reasoning in the mathematical department (which makes him a prime candidate for attaining a job at NASA as an astronaut).

He also delves into drugs and sex far more than Zemickis’s Gump. And, in the film, Gump is trim, and well groomed. Groom’s Gump, on the other hand, is more from the Mongo school of doltishness, with Forrest perceived as brutish and slovenly.

Despite his boorishness, Gump is still a lovable and engaging individual. He’s sympathetic because of the harsh realities he must face every day and, if he is obnoxious, it’s due to society’s heartlessness.

Such examples of the hypocritical society that sinks its claws into Gump’s wholesome soul are: when he is coaxed by a wrestling promoter to be his number one prospect, or when a group of Vietnam vets, who are proceeding to fling their Congressional medals of honor on the Capitol steps to protest U.S. involvement in the war, ask him to do the same. Being the earnest knucklehead that he is, he agrees and manages to bonk the Clerk of the U.S. Senate on the head. Forrest predictably gets into more trouble than a rat in a nest of vipers.

Groom’s Forrest is by no means a tragic hero. In fact, he’s probably the closest approximation of the American Dream than any other regular do-gooder. He virtually accomplishes more in one day than the old Hollywood studio system could in an entire decade.

What makes this odyssey so remarkably funny and mesmerizing is that Forrest doesn’t so much as live these incidents as simply drift in and out of them.

Gump’s endeavors, as formulated under the uncompromisingly unsentimental pen of Groom (which is more than what you can say about Zemickis’s interpretation) come across as not particularly poignant or deeply affecting. They are, however, often deliciously blunt and sidesplittingly hilarious.

Besides, as Forrest would say: “… at least I ain’t led no humdrum life.” The book may not be a masterpiece, but it’s by no estimation a humdrum read either.