In the news today, I had insomnia last night, so am working on very little sleep, all of which was obtained after five-thirty this morning.
My advertising blitz for my HUM 18 class resulted in one whole student adding this week. We have to do better, people. Picture me as a really sexy uncle Sam–I want you (to advertise or sign up for this class).
I read Atonement by Ian McEwan. I had seen the movie first, but this is not a comparison of the film (there are things they adapt well and things they don’t–not news). The one thing that was unfortunate about seeing the movie first was that I knew that McEwan was going to have his heroine choose a certain green dress, so when he goes on for pages and pages and pages about her changing clothes, I got even more annoyed than I usually would have.
Margaret Atwood has said that there are few characters who feed and clothe their characters. McEwan does so, but I didn’t appreciate the laboriousness of the effort.
And that’s my main complaint–he labors and then the reader labors. McEwan has said that he stresses about constructing his sentences because he’s insecure about his lower class background. I don’t see why I should have to suffer for that. It’s fine to have three (plus one briefly forgotten interlude by someone else) points of view for a day, but it’s not fine to have that day go on for hundreds of pages. And don’t mention Ulysses to me–people only read that as an exercise. I eschew exercise in all of its forms (all its unpleasurable forms, anyway).
The book does get better after that blasted day, but I’m not blown away by his metafictional “surprise” (he’s a little too m.night shamawhatever). The only thing I really like about this book is that the reader is never certain about what happened on a certain afternoon, which colors what happened on a certain night. And so I’m left to tease it out–not that I’ll ever know.
It’s an interesting look at classism, but won’t hold too many surprises for those of this generation–we know better than to take candy from strangers.
felt the same way about atonement. and the cement garden too.