from the Stylist:

100 Best Films From Books We Love
Literary adaptations that stormed the big-screen

Although for me, there's definitely an I Capture The Castle-shaped hole.
Personal preference.

Hurrah for my other 2 big favourites though:
Cunningham's The Hours & The Princess Bride amongst others.

Och, / II

... too slow, dammit; too slow.

Crimson & the White / I

Thoughts from Michel Faber's article, notable for the shift from former Joycean artistic indifference to his work. Also interesting for how he perceives the adaptation as having its identity first & foremost as a text. The closing paragraph:

When answering questions, over the years, about film and TV adaptations of my books, I have always maintained that no movie or TV series could ever change or damage my work. The Crimson Petal and the White is a book, and it will win or lose the trust of each reader when they begin reading its pages. That relationship will go on. But, to my surprise, I've just seen something on TV that I feel has its own artistic integrity and its own emotional power. It's someone else's baby, but damn it, I care how it gets treated.

I mean to watch this. I've been advised to read the novel before. (I even chanced to walk past a second-hand copy laid out on a table at the Meadows' fair last summer, thinking I'd walk back to pick it up later on in the day; rather remiss of me.) 

Now friends have also been pointing me towards the tv adaptation. 

(Costumes? Poetry? Period? Check. Romola Garai, Shirley Henderson & Richard E. Grant? Treble check.)   I'll get onto Faber's original version this summer, I think.

Hand-Sewn Covers:

Needless to say,

Etsy and Books Collide: Penguin's New Hand-Sewn Covers

I'm excited... !! :)

This poem. Today.

This poem. Today. 
That sunshine. Yes.  :)

Awesome. :D

Mills & Boon covers inspire self-portrait project

Sometimes we sit for hours staring at a sea shell.
Other times he'll hold me by the neck in front of
the Pyramids. But there's nothing we like more than
NEARLY kissing each other near some horses.
I always try to look hot in front of him so he doesn't leave me.

http://www.oliandalex.com/mills-boon/

Precursor,

"To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it's like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God."

— Elizabeth Gilbert. Eat, Pray, Love.

I want to read this book.
I didn't know that until today but now I do.

"You play; you win." | The Passion

There she meets her husband, who literally steals her heart. After leaving & meeting Henri, they set off to reclaim her heart from her husband’s house. 

I need to revisit The Passion. I read it quickly in my first year to keep up with term & the reading list. I borrowed rather than bought a copy to cut down on costs. It was quickly supplanted by 'Oranges for which I cared a great deal more. Even so, I remember reading of the above adventure. The concept has always moved me. Winterson's metaphor made literal; the lost heart recovered.

Passion, to Winterson, is a love of life, a love both of the defeats and of the victories. Passion is playing at life without pacing oneself. Passion is betting everything on the rounds of life. When Villanelle gives her heart to her wealthy lover, she has exhibited passion. She loses, but because she already is a gambler at life, she is not destroyed; she instead becomes a wiser gambler at life than she was before her loss.

One troubling aspect of Villanelle is the manner in which she describes love. She always seems to speak of someone stealing her heart rather than her giving it to someone. Yet she understands the gamble of playing with her heart. In the middle of the war, she is grateful for the absence left by her heart. Salvadore wishes to exchange hearts with Villanelle yet it has been stolen by another. It seems that she gave it or gambled it, not that it was stolen. She speaks of her desire for someone to steal Henri’s heart, but does not realize that she is the one to whom he has given it already. Why does Villanelle refer to her heart as stolen when it was actually lost in a wager? She speaks that way because she fancies herself as a smart gambler and one who does not lose.

- students.depaul.edu/~jabsher/undergrad/novel/Youplay.doc

Childhood Storybook Memories...

I headed out with a group of friends last night to see The Secret Garden musical on its closing night at Festival Theatre, Edinburgh. Technically speaking, an imaginative & artistic set, well lit & well costumed (thanks to Wimbledon graduate, Francis O'Connor). The performances from the cast in terms of both singing & acting were also top-notch.

It surprised me how much I could recall from my reading of it as a girl as I gave a brief synopsis to my friends beforehand. I cannot remember for the life of me as to who published the book we owned. If I could, I would track it down again & buy it back in a snap as that one of ours was swept away by the tidying ravages of time. The book was beautifully illustrated & I can see the very captions acompanying the images, starting out with "Mary Lennox was a sickly sallow and sour-faced girl."

I think part of my reason for remembering the plot so vividly was my fascination was the precocious "yellow girl" left orphaned in a foreign land & shipped across the world to live on the moors of Yorkshire. That experience of vast stretches of purple grasses was well within my ken as I spent part of my childhood roaming about on the North York Moors. Add to that, the Gothic element (which this production captured so neatly) of waste & disrepair in both building & inhabitants; winding forbidden passages leading to two sour-faced precocious children coming face-to-face with each other; the intrigue of a hidden door into a different world. Ach, no wonder it took hold so well.

One aspect which Marsha Norman's musical adaptation does not entirely realise is the pivotal role of Ben Weatherstaff, the surly gardener who discovers the children amongst the partially neglected garden and the changes within his character. Initially Ben is angry at finding them there, having quietly continued to nurture the roses but he ends up conspiring in their secret, paving a way back to health & vigour. I remember the moment he introduces them to the Doxology, sung at first by Dickon:

Praise God, from Whom all blessings flow;

Praise Him, all creatures here below;

Praise Him above, ye Heavenly Host;

Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

I think I can recount the moment of the song because of how it initally appears incongruous with the outdoor experience & its curious huddle of people; the garden presenting no established setting of a Sunday. Yet that moment is actually a key one in my mind in terms of creation & new life: the very themes which the novel so readily explores & engages with to bring those broken aspects back to new life through the resolution of the ending.

life has its ‘wuthering’, the painful struggle to get through, but being alive – being ‘wick’ – means that along with the pain you can experience joy, growth and connection.

- Edinburgh Spotlight

Having remembered so vividly, I am now compelled to go back & re-read. Thankfully TSG had already foreseen & embraced that desire of their audience within their marketing strategy of re-printed Penguin classic alongside the programme :)

Thor's backlog

Having been recently reprimanded by my fellow blogger, I hereby list what is left to be read. This excludes the sorry pile of (5) books I'm currently struggling with for various reasons. The most glorious of the five is Dubliners, which I actually quite enjoyed, but have not touched for three years and counting. The most notorious is Firmin, which has a great premise in line with Ratatouille, but requires advanced knowledge of English literature, making it less appropriate for someone who stuck to Tolkien in high school.

The pile pictured, however, is equally promising and depressing. I do not intend to open The Interpretation of Murder again, having found the first two pages needlessly graphic. Mind you, I managed to sit through the whole of Spartacus: Blood and Sand, so am not squeamish to the obsessive extent, I merely found the opening of this book sensationalist of the Daily Mail extent.

Both The Covenant and The Grass is Singing were bought with intent of mood-setting for a holiday in South Africa. Both come with good credentials and some promise - I even started the Grass, but cannot remember much of it to warrant addition to the sorry pile.

The Alchemist came upon recommendation of a former flame, with calls of soul mates emanating from it, but warnings from a closer friend, who in my mind found it too wishy-washy and perfumed in good intentions. It still sounds like a cheap version of the Unbearable Lightness of Being, which still leaves me with the intention to read it. On a beach, slowly working with the sun to increase entropy.

The remainder of the pile, save from Tess, were acquired in a long-lost time of hausse, in 3-for-2 offers and lack of self-control. Engleby is the only one that appeals, although I do not recall any poor reviews of any of the others. Still, the world may be a better place if I offer them to Oxfam rather than waste the few hours I do spend reading on something unwanted.

The David Mitchell is the most promising, not merely because of its stunning cover (which happens to match my flat's interior colour scheme), but with the promise of Dutch seafaring adventure. The sole reason for its grouping with this pile, is to save it from ending up on the sorry pile. I want to give it the full attention it (potentially) deserves. Starting in 2011!