This morning, by the photocopier
I have just completed Ian McEwan's fantastic novel, 'Atonement'. I feel a mixture and fear, elation, depression, and anxiety at the thought of writing any further with my novel.
It is a stupendous book, and I don't know who won the 2001 Booker Prize (for which 'Atonement' was nominated) but i'd like to think it must be fucking good.
I'd like to copy out some passages, but it is so magnificently unquoteable; like a suffocating blanket, it swallows you whole. He has the incredible gift of making it sound so simple, too. Which I think is the gift of any great English writer. Alan Holinghurst has a similar talent, though nowhere near the strength to move you. McEwan coils his fingers around your neck and slowly, yet with perseverence, leaves you breathless.
I was weeping in the final chapter, when Briony searches out her sister to right her wrong. The tension of five long years weighted on all three of the characters' shoulders.
posted by Pete @ 7:06 pm
2 comments
2 Comments:
Speaking of which are you watching the footie tonight?
HERE'S SOMETHING INSPIRING
Our deepest fear
Is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful
beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness,
that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
"Who am I to be Brilliant,
Gorgeous, Talented and Fabulous?"
Who are you not to be?
You are a child of the Universe.
Your playing small
does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened
about shrinking
So that other people won't feel
insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest
The Glory of the Universe
that is within us.
It's not just in some of us;
It is in everyone.
As we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated
from our own fear,
our presence automatically
liberates others.
--Nelson Mandella
{1994 Inaugural Speech}
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