Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Atonement

Having opted out of Sky because we’re not here enough for it to be value for money, we’ve been spending money saved on DVDs. Last night we sat down to watch one of them and, both of us liking films about World War II, we chose Atonement. I have to say that it was only by dint of some whisky and homebrew beer that I managed to retain the will to live. This film was like what some academic writers do to history when they manage to turn an interesting subject into something dry as dust boring. Caroline told me to give it time, but when her eyes started to glaze over I knew it had had time enough. I wonder, is the McEwan book as bad as this, because apparently the film is faithful to it. I wouldn’t be surprised, since this is Booker literarty-farty territory. If you’re looking for a romping good war story go and buy Enemy at the Gates, however, if you’re looking for a soporific…

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Remember having to sit through this once... you have my utmost sympathies.

Anonymous said...

Ugghh Chickflick! Hey, I just finished Shadow of the Scorpion, loved it.

I gotta say, however, what I really enjoy about your work is when we get to read of events through the eyes of a war drone. The tension of the war drone doing their job while doing their best NOT to be subsumed fascinates me. Yeah...I understand you can't just write about that all the time, but every time you do, man it rocks.

Acutally, now that I think about it, I even ejoyed reading about the intrigues within Prador Society more than what they humans were doing. Hmmm, that's pretty cool, Neal.