atonement

'Briony sat on the floor with her back to one of the tall built-in toy cupboards and fanned her face with the pages of her play. The silence in the house was complete – no voices or footfalls downstairs, no murmurs from the plumbing; in the space between one of the open sash windows a trapped fly had abandoned its struggle, and outside, the liquid birdsong had evaporated in the heat. She pushed her knees out straight before her and let the folds of her white muslin dress and the familiar, endearing, pucker of skin about her knees fill her view. She should have changed her dress this morning. She thought how she should take more care of her appearance, like Lola. It was childish not to. But what an effort it was. The silence hissed in her ears and her vision was faintly distorted – her hands in her lap appeared unusually large and at the same time remote, as though viewed across an immense distance. She raised one hand and flexed its fingers and wondered, as she had sometimes before, how this thing, this machine for gripping, this fleshy spider on the end of her arm, came to be hers, entirely at her command. Or did it have some little life of its own? She bent her finger and straightened it. The mystery was in the instant before it moved, the dividing moment between not moving and moving, when her intention took effect. It was like a wave breaking. If she could only find herself at the crest, she thought, she might find the secret of herself, that part of her that was really in charge.'

- Ian McEwan

Atonement

(Page 35)

Book two* of The Book Challenge: complete

Have to give my sister a tip of the LB hat for all the stellar reading material she's provided me with.

I'd say i felt guilty for giving her The Hunger Games Trilogy as her half of the challenge but it's so damn addictive that, quite frankly, i refuse.

Plus, now she'll understand why my eldest sister and i randomly burst into fits of nerdish HG outrage and be able to join in with her our general befuddlement concerning the casting of Peeta in the movies.

Hutcherson? Really? Were they drunk?

So...no, i don't feel bad but i most certainly got the better literary deal.

Who's complaining?

Not i!

I've known the story of Atonement for what seems an absurdly long time.

Long before the movie appeared, as it was one of my eldest** sister's favourite novels.

I'd heard the story time and time again as she gently seethed about the injustice of it all and berated me to read it myself.

Then my other sister read it and they fumed collectively and tried their best to get me in on the surly action.

By this time i'd already seen the movie - Em waited to finish the book before she watched it - and felt no urge to torture myself with a story that i already knew was going to cause me to pull a Pat Peoples:

Also, their clipped accents thwarted any enjoyment of the movie so i was doubly disheartened towards the book.

And on top of that, i'd already developed a distaste for Ian McEwan (see: The Cement Garden) so really, what were the chances i was going to read it?

...

That was 7 years ago and i'd outrun the misery without fault.

...

Enter: My beloved sister

She got me.

She well and truly got me.

And i loved it.

Every damn second.

It caused me pain, an absurd amount of anger and cruel, unfulfillable hope.

I didn't throw it out the window though.

Mostly because it was closed and i really don't trust my aim...

But that's something, right?

I can't say as much for re-watching the movie, however.

I'm so on board with all the casting but the accents?

Yuck.

Joe Wright, you're an idiot.***

*Book one, here.

** The more i look at this word, the less sense it makes to me...

***But not completely. Pride & Prejudice and Hanna are sheer perfection.