Quote Porn
Atonement
"A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended."
"A story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader's. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it."
"It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you."
The Hobbit
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."
" 'I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it's very difficult to find anyone.'
'I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!' "
A Few Thoughts
While Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series is often credited for launching the fantasy genre, their predecessor The Hobbit paved the way for their creation. I find it remarkably hard to talk about this book in any valuable way: I can't really criticize the things I didn't like because Bilbo Baggins is to fantasy as John Lennon is to pop music (with perhaps a little less LSD), and I hesitate to flatter it because as the Barenaked Ladies said, it's all been done.
Still, I'll give it the old college try. Tolkien, a renowned Beowulf scholar in the 30s, paid much tribute to the time-lost poet who wrote about the bee-keeper, lifting ideas and descriptions from the poem to describe Smaug and some other Middle Earth dwellers. For lit nerds like myself, it's a nice tie-in from centuries ago to today: a poet who time has actually forgotten writes a literal epic (noun epic, not adjective epic), and a man who has studied it is inspired to write a fantastic story that, as we speak, is being made into Hollywood movie magic. It's a tremendous homage to both the human spirit and the written word that the images that create some of the most visually stunning films today are sourced back so far that scholars can't even tell you who wrote it first. Seeing as I'm getting grandiose with it, I might as well quote Carl Sagan: if you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. Replace apple pies with hobbits and, well, you get the (motion) picture.
As for the story itself, I've read it twice, although both readings date a decade or more. Still, it's admirable that any written word was able to draw me away from video game role playing adventures like Final Fantasy into a much more user-driven effort in imagination. I still recall my initial surprise at the idea of an intelligent dragon like Smaug—at that point in my life, I hadn't met Dungeons & Dragons or any other franchises that would depict them as such—and it's stuck with me ever since. I can't say that Tolkien created that trope, but he was instrumental in my meeting with it. Similarly, when I did later mentally invest in D&D, my staple character for years in my late teens & early twenties was a dwarf who either was or was not drunk depending on what a 20-sided dice said early in a playing session. Again, even after the LOTR trilogy of movies were released and it became cliché and passé to be into Tolkien, the tropes were effective and survived. Aside being formative of D&D and every SNES RPG to come later, Tolkien was often formative of things that felt original or funny when interacting with the Tolkien-derived media.
Hopefully my fond memories of interacting with The Hobbit at a young age served as a fun placeholder for actual book opinions.
Atonement was one of the few books that was relevant enough to be taught in a lit course I took, while still interesting enough to actually read for fun. I hear that these sorts of novels become more abundant in late undergrad work and graduate work, but then people who hold BAs with a major in English Literature often look at books very differently than I do. So, who knows. I'm going to go ahead and deem it a rarity anyway.
Perhaps the greatest moment in the book—and there are a few—is the text of the love letter from Robbie to Cecilia. The books meanders a quarter of the way feeling like a Brontë book about rich British folks, and then it's like surprise, here's the word cunt. That one word in that one moment changes the face of the book from one that feels predictable because of its style to an anything-goes story that'll pull a few punches. Once the stuffy fog of a Victorian-styled approach lifts from the narrative, the book has an edge that causes the hours spent reading it to melt away.
McEwan's writing is great, too. His use of Briony to reflect on the nature of creative writing and individualism cause the words to transcend the story and enter the realm of quotes-you-might-read-on-tumblr. Neither of these ideas, though, can really trump the main theme of the book (hint: it's in the title), and it's one that's reflected on at length.
Such length, in fact, that the book's ending actually reveals the surprise that Briony never did get to earn forgiveness from her sister and Robbie, but that parts II & III of the book are her attempt at redemption by allowing them eternal life together in a popular novel. It's an M Night Shyamalan-worthy ending that not only causes the whole shebang to be more memorable, but also gives other parts of the book a much more somber effect. It's masterfully executed, and remains among my favorite novel endings years later.
When's the last time you said that about a text you read for school?
Head-to-Head
Characters: Drunken dwarves, mischievous wizards, noble hobbitses, wise dragons... Briony's a monstrously deep character, but she doesn't stand up to the creation of literal monsters.
Advantage: The Hobbit.
Plot: The Hobbit is an imaginative adventure, but Atonement's World War II tale takes real world history and weaves a dark adventure from that.
Advantage: Atonement.
Ending: I'm really happy for having read The Hobbit, and I'm'a credit it a good finish, but Atonement has one of the best endings of all time!
Advantage: Atonement.
Language/Writing: McEwan's writing is soso readable and relatable. But, then, Tolkien's descriptions are world class and unlike some parts in Lord of The Rings, he doesn't overdo it in The Hobbit.
Advantage: The Hobbit, by a hair from Bag End.
Philosophy: At the most elemental level, Atonement's about atonement and The Hobbit's about a hobbit. Although McEwan gives more thematic ruminatons than just that one, it's already enough to beat out a not-particularly-symbolic adventure story.
Advantage: Atonement.
Winner Winner Turkey Supper
It might feel like an unfair shake because my thoughts on The Hobbit weren't rife with detail, but I really liked Atonement more than many folks did, and I think it criminally underrated.
Atonement moves on to chapter two.
No comments:
Post a Comment