My second LJ anniversary, celebrated with James McAvoy!

[alexandral]

Oh, I completely forgotten about this one – it has been two years since I joined LJ! I was reminded about it by ginger001's post (my mind works in strange ways) who joined LJ almost at the same time and who is my oldest LJ friend. I raise a glass of virtual champagne to say huge "thank you" to all you ladies and gentleman on my friends list who been kind, entertaining and fabulous all these two years!!

And in a flow of good news – I have received a big thank you from the hard-to-please senior manager for the work I have done on my latest website at work. The interesting thing is that I probably only found my inner web-designer self through LJ and icon-maiking so YAY LJ! WHOO-HOO! Thank you all!

To celebrate all this let's look at some black-and white pictures of James McAvoy who is Alexandra's "next best thing after champagne",

















I know this one is not black-and-white, but it so lovely, isn't it?





And because I can't hold it any longer

*************************************************************

Spoilers for the ending of "Atonement"

*************************************************************

I must say how angry I am with Ian McEwan for the ending in "Atonement"! I am almost at the point of writing a letter to him with things like "dear mister McEwan, thank you very much for breaking my heart" because even though I think the ending of "Atonement" with the death of both Cecilia and Robbie is poetic and true and in a way very kind (we didn't get to see them old and living in some squalid conditions whilst arguing with each other because their love didn't survive the poverty) but I am very very upset! I am as upset as I was when I red the ending of "Anne Karenina" for the first time!!

In fact, I am even more upset as I can't see any real reason why Cecilia and Robbie could not live happily ever after. There was no real reason (apart from making all women all over the world cry!!) for them both to die! In Anna Karenina it was all about the institution of marriage in 19th century Russia, about the rules of the "high society" and about the wrongness of it all. Even though their love was as big and beautiful as all stars of heavens Anna and Vronsky had no chance of living happily ever after.. But in "Atonement" Robbie had all the chances to come back as a war hero and marry Cecilia and so on and so forth..

But as if it wasn't enough for two people to suffer there was Briony too! I think I am very different on perception of Briony from many others because I quite like her, at least her film interpretation. It came across for me as if she made a genuine mistake in accusing Robbie because as a child she misunderstood the things she saw. She was very angry with everyone on that day because no one paid any attention to her and this makes her an attention seeker but she definitely believed in Robbie's crime herself.. I guess being angry is a very bad backdrop for anyone..

Again, I think it was true in "eye for an eye" kind of way to make Briony live her life with the heavy weight of what she did and without any opportunity to change anything after she realised that she was wrong. It wasn't shown in the film but it seemed as if she never married, never had children, just lived her life writing in a vain attempt to change the past at least on the pages of her books.

*************************************************************

end of spoilers

*************************************************************


PS: Rantings above are the indicator of my present brain overload at work and I apologise for them. And this is just a start because I am starting another very important and time restricted project at the moment. :D I need a good luck with it!

Comments

[arathesane.livejournal.com]

happy anniversary dear! I'm so glad you are on LJ because you are one of the most kind, thoughtful, and interesting people I have encountered through the internet.

lovely picspam. oh, he is just so very pretty!

heh, well you can't go into to any Ian McEwan novel(or any Tolstoy work, now that I think about it)expecting a happy ending;)I can't wait to see the film, though I am little worried as I love the novel so much. but with a film adaptation of a work I really like, I just go in with the idea that it is a completely different entity from the book they are based on. I don't know if that makes sense, but I find if I think of a film as being separate from the original text, I generally enjoy the film much more.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

EEEEEE! Thank you!

heh, well you can't go into to any Ian McEwan novel(or any Tolstoy work, now that I think about it)expecting a happy ending;)

The way I see it this was all well and truly justified in 19th century, with it's social problems but nowdays we like a happy ending. :D

I can't wait to see the film, though I am little worried as I love the novel so much. but with a film adaptation of a work I really like, I just go in with the idea that it is a completely different entity from the book they are based on. I don't know if that makes sense, but I find if I think of a film as being separate from the original text, I generally enjoy the film much more.

I agree - I either like to watch the film first and then read the novel or like you I like to think of them two as separate entities.. Because the film never can convey all the depth of the novel, these are just two different mediums.But I find if I watch the film first reading the novel afterwards opens more of the story and gives more detail.

[rika-66.livejournal.com]

Congratulations with your LJ anniversary! I'm very glad that LJ helps me to meet you.
My dear, I wish your next LJ year to be very interesting and exiting.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

EEEEEEEE! Thank you so much! It is great to meet YOU! I am so busy at the moment at work ( I think I am working 40 hours instead of my contractual 18.6). I love it because I am doing very exciting things but I am lagging with LJ-ing..

[rika-66.livejournal.com]

Than good luck with you work, too. Just. pls, don't overwork yourself.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! Our vice-chancellor decided to give every student a google email account and upload their google calendar with their timetables. :D

[endlessdeep.livejournal.com]

Happy LJ Anniversary! I am so glad to have met you here. You are one of the kindest and most thoughtful and thought provoking people I have met here. *hugs* :)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! ** big squeeze ** I can't wait to meet you one day! BTW, I watched "Lovers' Walk" and OMPH! Spike!!!

[endlessdeep.livejournal.com]

I am still catching up on e-mail.

Wow, you've seen "Lover's Walk". One of my favorite episodes. What season are you on now?

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I am at the beginning of season 4 now - poor Spike! He lost the jewel-powering!

[endlessdeep.livejournal.com]

At that point in Spike's un-life it's good he didn't have the ring. lol

He just gets his ass kicked by Buffy all the time. Poor guy. You are going to really start feeling sorry for him soon. She's so mean to him and he probably deserves it, but still. lol.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Yay and congrats on the anniversary! May you stay at Lj and make lovely icons for many years to come.

And celebrating an anniversary with James McAvoy photos is alright in my book!

*big hugs*

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much, dear!! EEEEEEEE! I hope one day we can meet!

And celebrating an anniversary with James McAvoy photos is alright in my book!

He is so pretty, isn't he?"Atonement"-the-book is on my reading list, the film is not letting me go!

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

I hope one day we can meet!

I would love that! Not sure when I'll be in England, but you can be sure I will let you know when I am!

He is so pretty, isn't he?"

He very much is. I noticed him first in "Children of Dune", and then in "Narnia" - and after that he seems to be everywhere - and doing a better job with each role.
"Atonement" just opened here but I'm planning to see it as soon as possible. All I've heard about it until now seems very positive. :)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Not sure when I'll be in England, but you can be sure I will let you know when I am!

I'd love that!

I only realised that James McAvoy was in "Children of Dune" when I was looking for his pictures. This series is now on my ASAP list.. How did I miss it? I used to love "Dune" books long long time ago! (but I was less of the fan of Lynch's adaptation - as much as I love his other things)

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

I used to love "Dune" books long long time ago!

I love the Dune books too! Yay for even more things in common.
Not to fond of the Lynch version either. It has an interesting look, but it doesn't feel like "Dune".

Not sure if I think "Children of Dune" is a good adaption either, but parts of it are very good - and James McAvoy is excellent.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Not sure if I think "Children of Dune" is a good adaption either, but parts of it are very good - and James McAvoy is excellent.

I have started watching it already. :D It is acted somehow in a stilted way but has AWESOME special effects. Golden James McAvoy is a thing to behold and so is Duncan.. But I am reminded that I always had a thing against Paul Atreides because he married Irulan just to use her!

And thank you very much for asking – I am good though quite tired. Our "project of high importance" is on hold for now – there are some legalities that had to be ironed out. The project is to do with uploading of students' timetables into their Google calendars.. I am glad of it as I have some other things at the moment!

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Golden James McAvoy is a thing to behold and so is Duncan..

Duncan Idaho is great! (and I've always loved his storyline. So creepy!)
And Paul Atreides was never my favourite. I liked the Lady Jessica, and Atia before she went loony. But I think my favourite characters were Leto and Ghanima, so I love that McAvoy is playing him. Hee.

And good to hear things are well, and a little more quite. You must take care not to wear yourself out! :)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

And Paul Atreides was never my favourite. I liked the Lady Jessica, and Atia before she went loony. But I think my favourite characters were Leto and Ghanima, so I love that McAvoy is playing him. Hee.

** nods ** I really like Alia (and really didn't appreciate her turning into Baron Harkonnen ** sigh **). And children! But I think I'll have to post some of JAmes McAvoy screencaps!

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

I remember a mention of a deceased husband for Briony at the end of the book, although I may have been mistaken.

The ending left me devastated as well, but I don't think the love story is as central to the book in McEwan's mind as Briony's retelling of it. And part of the reason Cecilia and Robbie's story is so sweeping and romantic and beautiful and tragic is because Briony made her mistake, and spends the rest of her life trying to atone (and mostly failing) and immortalising them in words. The story we read, the book we hold, could not have existed, would have no reason to exist, if the lovers had lived and forgiven Briony.

Look how young James was in that first pic! Awww.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Oh, I do need to read the book even if it breaks my heart all over again..Books are always "bigger" then films..

The ending left me devastated as well, but I don't think the love story is as central to the book in McEwan's mind as Briony's retelling of it. And part of the reason Cecilia and Robbie's story is so sweeping and romantic and beautiful and tragic is because Briony made her mistake, and spends the rest of her life trying to atone (and mostly failing) and immortalising them in words. The story we read, the book we hold, could not have existed, would have no reason to exist, if the lovers had lived and forgiven Briony.

Yes, I understand.. The tragic love is often more romantic then everyday love. Also if Briony's storytelling is the hub of the story there is a valid "reason" for them to die as their death gave birth to her stories.

I need to read a book to understand how much of the story was Briony's imagination and how much the reality. In the film it seemed as if the ways of reality and fiction separated at the moment of Robbie's death but may be this happened even earlier?

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

In the film it seemed as if the ways of reality and fiction separated at the moment of Robbie's death but may be this happened even earlier?

I need to refresh myself with the book too, but I think Briony never spoke with Cecilia again after she left home. The letters between Robbie and Cecilia, which ended up in the war museum, were all she had to construct the lovers' lives. So while Briony only began to reinvent the past starting from her going to see Cecilia to apologise, the events before that are reconstructed without full knowledge of the details. The omniscient third-person narrator is really Briony, speculating based on the letters.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you so much for this - I was actually suspecting that Robbie and Cecilia never saw each other after the fateful evening and Briony made it all up. I missed the point of the letters being in the war museum..I am still finishing "One good turn" and after it I'll read "Atonement"

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

I've just been rereading the end of the book, and I realised something about Briony, and it made me feel much more sympathetic of her character at the end, when the meta wall is lifted. Because if everything in the past comes to us via Briony Tallis' writing (this is much clearer, presumably, in the book, where at the end of the section set in 1940, we see the late 1999, and the author's initials, "BT"), then she has done herself no favours in this autobiographical novel she's written. We spend most of the book/movie thinking that Briony is fanciful, hungry for admiration, and incapable of separating reality from her literary imagination; I used to wonder why such an unlikeable character is the protagonist. But at the end we realise that this is the picture that the older Briony Tallis is painting of herself.

That's her atonement, to portray her younger, foolish self truthfully, ungilded. And, with the adult's insight, to also draw out the truths - the hopes, anxieties, desires, petty jealousies - of people in her life that she didn't really know or understand at the time: Robbie, Cecilia, and Emily Tallis. There is a brilliant passage early in the book when young Briony ponders whether everybody else is as real and as special and vivid to themselves, as she is. Whether everyone else is as full of thoughts hidden beneath the surface? She concludes that this was likely, but admits that she knows it "only in a rather arid way; she didn't really feel it." They were secondary actors in a play that she was the star of.

Having once been mistaken about what she thought she saw, and about her perception of other people, Briony now writes about the truth beneath the surface, rescuing the people in her story from melodrama and caricature, to restore them to life in the imagination. They - Robbie, Cecilia, Emily - are as real as the Briony in the book. Their inner selves as complex. We owe that to Briony.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Oh, I am so in love with what you wrote and I am totally agreeing. I just realized why I liked Biony in film - it comes really transparent in older Briony played by awesome Venessa Redgrave how sorry she is for what she has done and how much she wishes to go back and change things. This is also very visible in Romola Garai's Briony and she was wonderfully tender and loving with the young French soldier that she was looking after as a nurse.

Will I wish many years spent in regret and guilt that you can't rectify on anyone? Not at all..

[the-grynne.livejournal.com]

I can't wait to see Vanessa Redgrave play that role. I'd like to see her get an Oscar nom for this - from what I've read, she definitely deserves it.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I would love her to get a nomination too. She was simply wonderful. But even more I would love James McAvoy to get a nomination too. His portrait of Robbie is probably one of the most beautiful and most heart-breaking things in the history..

[lage-nom-ai.livejournal.com]

Eeee! Happy anniversary! You've been such a wonderful part of my flist! :)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

** big squeeze ** I hope we can meet in RL one day!

[lage-nom-ai.livejournal.com]

Count on it! :)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

** squeeze **

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

Happy LJ-versary! I may not have known you since you got here, but I sure am happy I know you now.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

** Hugs ** You are so kind and wonderful and your words mean so much to me.

[allbloomedout.livejournal.com]

Happy LJ Ani!! *throws confetti* Congrats on work too! :)James McAvoy pictures are really pretty. I really love the last one. I'm skipping the spoilers for now. :P Good luck with everything at work! *big hugs!*

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the good luck wishes ** big squeeze ** The last picture is from "Becoming jane", I think.. I have heard mixed reviews about this film..

[allbloomedout.livejournal.com]

Oh I remember that was the poster for the film. I was planning to see it too but it had such mix reviews. :/ I think I'll just give it a try when it comes out on dvd. Your icon reminds me I really need to see The Painted Veil. It's been hanging around in my hd for a really long time. :P I hope you're having a nice weekend!

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

So far I am having a good day - I am still wearing my dressing gown. :D James McAvoy looks so pretty on this poster that I feel I MUST watch "Becoming Jane"

[allbloomedout.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're having a good day. I think I'm always in my pjs when checking lj. :P Please let me know how the movie is. I'm really curious. :)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I will! I think it is a lovely romantic movie if you ignore that Jane Austen is a real person. may be I'll just do this. :D

[partypaprika.livejournal.com]

OH WOW. I LIKE THOSE PICTURES. And happy two year anniversary!

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much!! EEEEE! I never thought I would last so long! I am glad you like the pictures, I am in my James McAvoy obsession period.. :D

[acalicodress.livejournal.com]

I stumbled across your journal via an icon post you made and I'm glad I did- I liked Briony too! She was clearly so lonely in that house... writing stories to pass the time. She liked a man too old and uninterested at the time where she couldn't have known her true feelings, her mother seemed aloof, her sister (who I thought she was probably once close to and had played with her etc) had been and gone to uni and now was a different person and finally she was saddled with those incredibly annoying twins. In fact if you were going to dislike anyone it should clearly be Lola who didn't defend Robbie and point out who is really was. She must have known. And then she married him! That did shock me.

The way it was filmed was so beautiful but also very intelligent and I loved the typewriter sounds in the background e.g. when Robbie realised he's picked up the wrong letter.

Also, YAY for JM B&W pictures... he is my new favourite. Well, he has been for a while but Atonement increased it about tenfold. Have you sene Starter for Ten? He's completely adorable in that.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I liked Briony too! She was clearly so lonely in that house... writing stories to pass the time.

I agree.. I am absolutely not absolving her from what she did (well, she should have thought before accusing a person!!) but I think she definitely was confused as to what is happening because she was still a child. In fact, I was reminded about this by my daughter - she was really confused as to what "a lion lie with a lamb" expression mean when she saw it as a book epigraph. She thought everyone will die. :D

In fact if you were going to dislike anyone it should clearly be Lola who didn't defend Robbie and point out who is really was. She must have known. And then she married him! That did shock me.

Oh, definitely! I am going t read the book but at this moment it seems as if Lola and Paul had an affair and Briony just stumbles upon them. And because Lola didn't want to confess what she was up to she blamed Robby for accusing her. Really terrible..

Starter for Ten? He's completely adorable in that.

Oh, not yet.. Romance???

[acalicodress.livejournal.com]

Oh, not yet.. Romance???

Rom-com with University Challenge thrown in. Very funny.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

EEEEE! I have got it! I should be able to watch it today!

[elspethsheir.livejournal.com]

See, I went looking through your icons and found your Atonement icons, and then this post, which I avoided when it first appeared, as I hadn't seen the film yet. Beautifully thought-out, from your love of James McAvoy, to your interpretation of Briony. I think she not only misunderstood what she saw as a child, but she also misunderstood her own feelings, and spent the rest of her life trying to atone (hence the title) for something that could not be forgiven. (Have you read the book yet?)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I am so honoured that you like them!

I think she not only misunderstood what she saw as a child, but she also misunderstood her own feelings, and spent the rest of her life trying to atone (hence the title) for something that could not be forgiven.

I have read the book since, and I am even more heart-broken over it. :D The story reminds me of the few instances that happened to me personally, when something very precious was broken in a blink of an eye. You can wish to return back all you want but you just can't, broken pieces will never be whole again.