Tag Archives: Musings

Atonement

Atonement  is a British movie (2007) based on Ian McEwan’s novel of the same name, published in 2001, directed by Joe Wright, starring Keira Knightley (Cecilia Tallis), James McAvoy (Robbie Turner), Saoirse Ronan (Briony Tallis, 13), Romola Garai (Briony, age 18), Vanessa Redgrave (Briony, 70).

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We also see Benedict Cumberbatch  (as Paul Marshall) in a supporting , yet crucial for the plot, role.  It turned out to be the role that made Steven Moffat want Benedict to play Sherlock in the BBC series, as he considered him to be just the right amount of creepy and sleek in order to embody the world’s only consulting detective in a 21st century version of Arthur Conan Doyle’s works. What a good choice he made! Continue reading →

Along came Benedict…

Along came Benedict… and inspired my reading

A lot. I used to read a lot. As soon as I had learned to read fluently, my mum got me a library card and from that moment on, I became a regular visitor to the local library. I always lugged around piles of books and would spend my afternoons or any time available really reading, drifting off into different times and ages, exotic (at the time) countries, fictional realms. My reading was a wild mix back then, from childrens’ books to crime stories to love stories to classic antiquity tales.

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(c) Pixabay

I moved from primary school to grammar school and that’s when things started to get a bit weird. Oh yes, we did read at school, of course we did. Only, I mostly did not like what we were made to read!

I’m living in Germany, thus, I attended German schools, and I tend to think there’s quite a difference between, say, Germany and the UK as far as cultural education goes. I’m under the impression that all things cultural are playing a more important role in the British society than they are here. There’s no fixed canon of books that must be included in the syllabus here, but of course there are Continue reading →

Melrose

Melrose

And so it’s happening. The filming for the 2018 Sky Atlantic mini series „Melrose“, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the title character, is well under way. Apparently Cumberbatch had been telling the truth, when he answered the question of which character he really would love to play with „Patrick Melrose?“. His obvious passion for Patrick and the novels right there and then made me curious and I’ve read the whole series of autobiographical novels written by Edward St. Aubyn – Nevermind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother’s Milk, and At Last – a while back already.

Edward St. Aubyn on Wikipedia

The books’ timeline spans over decades – Patrick Melrose being only 5 years old at the outset and over 40 at the end, with each novel actually describing the events taking place in usually just one day or even only a couple of hours, focussing on the actual event taking place at the time. And yet we see the family’s Melrose_Edinb_2017history unfold in the various flashbacks telling about events of the past that have so obviously impacted the here and now, leading to what Patrick Melrose is going through – from being abused by his father as a child over becoming a drug addict to finally recovering and seeing his way through the net of lies and intrigues of the past, finally to emerge as a different person, not unscathed, but still alive.

In my opinion, the overarching theme of the books is that of dysfunctional relationships – marriages, families, childhoods – dysfunctional lives in general, shining a spotlight on the British upper class in decline, but being in denial about it, self-loathing – it wasn’t long into the first novel until I spontaneously thought „like father like son“.

Continue reading →

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The Child in Time – Musings

BBC One’s The Child in Time got some harsh criticism, mostly for the production, while the acting, especially by Benedict Cumberbatch and Kelly MacDonald was generally praised.

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Copyright: BBC One

As in the book, the storyline focuses on Stephen and Julie, as they try to cope with the loss of their daughter Kate, a second thread focusing on Stephen’s friend Charles Darke (nomen est omen!), his sudden retreat to the countryside and subsequent regress into childhood. We also learn about Stephen’s parents and their past, the „pub scene“ having a central importance for the plot, as turns out in the progress of the story.

The book has more plot with elaborate descriptions of characters and situations, making the storyline somewhat less elusive, no way to put all of that into a 90 minutes timeframe for tv though. Some viewers thus got quite irritated watching the tv film. They sensed plotholes and got confused by the non-chronological storyline, the flashbacks and flash forwards. In my opinion though, the makers of The Child in Time were adamant to get the message across not only by what is said, but also by what you see: Continue reading →

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