The Siege of Trencher's Farm complex examination of modern-day masculinity and liberal values." "Slant Magazine" found that "Much of the novel's prose reads like a screenplay, with tedious descriptions of props, settings, and physical actions ... tension only really matters if you identify with the characters and care about their predicament, which I found too implausible, fantastic, and crudely sketched to do so." Legal scholar Melanie Williams wrote of how the 1971 film had coloured reception of the book: "The book is now republished by Bloomsbury (2003), with the title "Straw Dogs". This seems particularly sad given that past critical commentary on the book has
The Siege of Trencher's Farm been wholly unfair; so dazzled are the film critics by their icon." Williams' agent George Greenfield had planned for Roman Polanski to direct an adaptation, but he was unavailable. For the 1971 film adaptation, writers Sam Peckinpah and David Zelag Goodman changed several aspects of the novel's story while keeping the overall plot. Peckinpah said "David Goodman and I sat down and tried to make something of validity out of this rotten book. We did. The only thing we kept was the siege itself". Williams was "horrified" by the film and publicly denounced it; he did not approve of the