tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23323026.post785669330120938785..comments2023-10-09T07:16:37.801-07:00Comments on Duplicitous Primates: Atonement ReviewAaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03435148918107602176noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23323026.post-77723922877466572962008-01-18T21:41:00.000-08:002008-01-18T21:41:00.000-08:00life really isn't the way mcewan writes it at all....life really isn't the way mcewan writes it at all. his sanctimoniousness is baffling. he hasn't somehow dredged up the oft-unacknowledged core of our existence, he's just invented a world where he can exact whatever sort of cleverly and uniquely cruel fates he wants, regardless of their likelihood or their realism, and present them as some sort of tortured morality play. it's just silly, that's all. life is far more complicated than ian mcewan could possibly imagine.<BR/><BR/>at least that's what i think.wshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11768400510451081743noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23323026.post-76234264258187870762007-12-09T19:35:00.000-08:002007-12-09T19:35:00.000-08:00It already does sound ridiculous, which is why I'm...It already does sound ridiculous, which is why I'm not married, don't bother trying to date, and have absolutely no intentions of ever marrying. Think I'm joking?<BR/>But when you're 20 years old, it's how people talk. And the story follows the character into her 70's and she is looking back on it all.<BR/><BR/>When people ask if I believe in love, I reply, "do you believe in salty?"<BR/><BR/>What they really mean to ask is whether I think there is anything supernatural about love (including any of it's thousands of variations and corallary meanings). No, I do not. I solidly, emphatically do not. And neither does McEwan, clearly, which is why a "love" story is a perfect setting for such a nihilistic plot. To take the highest human sand castle and observe it's inability to stand the slightest wave thrown at it.<BR/><BR/>Read "On Chesil Beach" for an even more absurd and glorious examination of a young couple in "love".Aaronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03435148918107602176noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23323026.post-43927050638700337902007-12-09T09:35:00.000-08:002007-12-09T09:35:00.000-08:00You don't like the Alchemist? I read that story se...You don't like the Alchemist? I read that story several years ago. After reading it, I felt cheated. The story is not Coehlo's. He based it on a much, much older fable and stuffed it with his own embellishments.<BR/><BR/>I'm probably the only one, or one of the few, who feels this way. If I'm going to read a fable, then I want to read something new. Otherwise, if it's going to be derivative, it had better do something novel with the original, and Coehlo, in my opinion, doesn't do anything novel. He just lards it up...<BR/><BR/>I think I'll wait for Atonement to come out on DVD. I heard a snippet on the radio...<BR/><BR/>He says: Why are you crying?<BR/>She says: If you have to ask...<BR/><BR/>(Or something like that...) <BR/><BR/>Me and my wife both started laughing... Wait until you're married, Aaron, after you have lived with a woman for a few years, and this intensely melodramatic moment will sound like something you have heard a million times.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com