Movie left so much out....

The book has Jerry feeling up Nancy Putnam in a drunken haze after a party at Cozy Cabins, while Pookie is transporting hung-over party-goers back to the houses~~she was the only one not too drunk to drive! This scene was a big change to their couple dynamic. Another scene that would have been crucial to the desparation of Pookie not to let Jerry go was the one in which they went to New York City for a weekend. That chapter in the book was powerful and sorrowful and it's from NYC that Pookie leaves to go back home. Also never mentioned on screen but very important to Pookie's character, I feel, is that fact that she sent Jerry, about a year after leaving, a suicide note, wishing him well but assuring him there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. Jerry is sorely tempted to get the copies of Pookie's hometown newspaper from around the date of the letter, but does not, in hopes that she did not do herself in. Frankly, I wouldn't have been able to stand it, had I been Jerry! I would have had to know.

There was no supposed pregnancy scene in the book, Pookie's mother is alive, and there is a disturbing part where Pookie is obsessed with the shooting of a crow, which was not in the movie, but I felt important to Pookie's mental problems.

I think the movie suffered (and was just plain boring) b/c these scenes were not included. Even a few of them would have helped. I, too, found the lack of changing seasons hilarious.