Monday, April 21, 2008

The pile - on my nightstand - is actually shrinking!!

So I finished Atonement - and really loved it!! What a compelling - and well told story! I tried to skim but couldn't - the eloquent language and the turns of phrases were riveting:

"Cambridge had changed her fundamentally and she thought she was immune. No one in her family, however, noticed the transformation in her, and she was not able to resist the power of their habitual expectations." This is pretty profound - and to realize that it's a universal thought!! (Here I thought I was the only one who got sucked back into being my old self when I went back home each summer!)

And this one:

"Above all, she wanted to look as though she had not given the matter a moment's thought, and that would take time." Do we all identify with this thought??

And:

"...and he made himself think about time, about his great hoard, the luxury of an unspent fortune." Ah, youth!!

And finally:

"It was a chilly sensation, growing up." That's certainly one way of looking at it!

But I'm a little unclear on the end - I admit I was a bit groggy when I finally finished it - stayed up late to do so - and did Robbie and Cecilia both die? I couldn't quite follow her internal conversations about the various "drafts."

Someone fill me in!

I'm reading a David Baldacci novel called Wish You Well. It's a little "cheesy" but a good friend recommended it - and I want to at least have the story line down when she asks me about it.

I skimmed it but need more details to flesh it out.

So, what is everyone else reading??

6 comments:

hanner said...

I hope that you still didn't think it was predictable by the end!!

hanner said...

And Mom, I can explain it to you. Not in a comment though, because I want everyone else to read it!

grannybabs said...

Did I ever say I thought Atonement was predictable?

I could see where it was going but had no idea it would be so pervasive.

That is what makes it so compelling.

Read it everyone!

bonny with a Y said...

i will put it on my list.

i am thinking i will do things fall apart for our next book club at church

i just finished affluenza and 3 cups of tea. LOVED them.

grannybabs said...

I don't know anything about Influenza and Three Cups of Tea.

Fill me in.

hanner said...

Someone in my house is reading Three Cups of Tea.