"Was everyone else really as alive as she was? For example, did her sister really matter to herself, was she as valuable to herself as Briony was? Was being Cecilia just as vivid an affair as being Briony? Did her sister also have a real self concealed behind a breaking wave, and did she spend time thinking about it, with a finger held up to her face? Did everybody, including her father, Betty, Hardman? If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone’s thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone’s claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no-one was." --From Atonement, by Ian McEwanSome pretty photographs for the next few days & I hope they will divert bizarre people away from my blogs. I'm being comment-spammed like mad. Found out last evening that my mailing address has been changed (for some things, not sure of extent yet) & much is missing.
I do not apologize for one single thing I have said or written (or thought) the last several days & weeks here...certainly I have much to atone for in my life. But my crime of late, if anything, is silliness. Which never killed anyone. Unless they died laughing. If I die laughing, many years from now (!), I shall be grateful.
I shall respond to your lovely comments & emails. Soon. Difficult week (more than usual) ahead. Cheers, everyone.
[Atonement stills by Alex Bailey - the "happy ending" Briony, in her guilt, her atonement, granted to Cecilia & Robbie. I just reread the novel.]
6 comments:
Apologize for nothing. You are so spot-on. (I like how you have me as the representative for Canada!)
I just contacted my Nerd today. I couldn't face computerese on Friday. So I probably shouldn't even be visiting.
I loved the book Atonement but thought the film kinda sucked. Keira did nothing for the role.
Dear Susan
When you do pretty photographs.. you do it well!!! these are gorgeous... You know.. I'll probably be run out of town for admitting it.. but I thought this movie did not live up to it's hype... Gorgeous cinematography, set design and fashions... but I just thought 'something' was missing...
Have a great week Susan... hang in there!! xxx Julie
Hi. Just returned from having brain scanned & somehow there's $40 missing from my purse that I withdrew moments prior to the appt. I had to have my eyes closed for 40 minutes. I am beyond upset & not just about the money. I'm actually thinking of betrayals & atonement, too.
As for the film. I never compare the books (this was a masterpiece) with the corresponding films. I do think that the 3 Brionys were excellent, & McAvoy is very like the Robbie of my imagination - when I read the book the day it was released, all night through.
Production was gorgeous, etc. I am of 2 minds about Keira quite often. It would be a difficult role to play; Cecilia is not wholly likable (or it would be a bore. Robbie is the "best" of what humanity can be in the book/film).
So I don't know really that it's her fault--it might be the script. I'd have to watch it another time & read the script & that's not going to happen anytime soon. (I do it, yes, sometimes.)
I actually did listen to director Joe Wright's commentary & it was quite interesting (to me). He pointed out several parts where he was concerned it might not have worked as he'd "seen" in his mind.
To sum up in the pompous fashion in which I began...Ian McEwan was a producer on the film & he loved it. (He said. He's rather nice so he wouldn't say "I hate it!")
Anyway, I have big ties to this time period & place(s), though hadn't been born of course yet. No, it wasn't perfect, but the book is as close to perfect (to me) as a novel can get. Because no novel can ever be perfect.
The themes are hugely important & compelling to me....Blah blah blah.
Sorry. I just can't believe someone took my grocery money for the week.
xx
Susan, I'm so sorry about your money disappearing. That's foul, indeed.
Same era, same culture, but soooooo much lighter - have you read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society? I just loved it. I stayed away from it because of the "buzz", but really found that it pulled me in.
The photos are wonderful.
Jen, funny how you say that about 'the buzz'...that stuff turns me off at times, too. I have it on my list of library/second hand shop. Hope I can totter about doing that before Hurricane Earl or his leftover bits reach us. Eek.
Thanks for reminding me about book. (I do love tragic stuff though...there's a reason why I have 'drama queen' in my labels:)
What a coincidence, I just bought a book by Ian McEWan because I loved Atonement so much.
At first I was very skeptical (as I am of any movie that becomes "a major motion picture") but I just loved it SO MUCH. Briony is a fascinating character.
As a psychologist, my mum is also interested in issues of atonement, forgiveness etc, so I rented to movie to watch with her and we were both deeply moved.
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