Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Things I learned the hard way

So I had this long, lovely, coherent post about A.S. Byatt's Possession and the film adaptation of the story, but then Word decided to freeze on me multiple times and I lost the whole thing because I'm an idiot and I didn't save it. I've been learning a lot about backing up my info these past few weeks. My phone also died recently, and if you know me, you know my phone is my life. I always swore I wouldn't be one of those people tethered to technology, but the crackberry won out and without the damn thing I'm entirely lost and can barely function. My phone tells me where to be and when to be there. Without it I'm hopeless. ANYWAY... I have a new phone now and am back to my dependent ways.

Back to Possession. The book was great. I still think I prefer The Children's Book, but I really enjoyed Possession, and it was truly a literary feat. Byatt essentially wrote two narratives, diary entries, letters, literary criticism, and a boatload of poetry. I'm not saying the poetry is the best thing I've ever read, but there's a lot of it and it must have been a huge undertaking.

But the movie. The movie was terrible. Filmmakers made absolutely ludicrous choices that completely messed up the entire plot. Since they destroyed the main conflict of the story, they majorly played up the romance between Maud and Roland. That relationship, as well as the relationship between LaMotte and Ash, was just uncomfortable. I found myself alternately cringing and wanting to stab things as I watched the movie. I planned on writing about adaptation with Possession in mind, but the notes I took were so riddled with obscenities and question marks that there was no real way to write an academic paper.

I have a migraine and a possible allergic reaction (to peanut butter nonetheless. I'm truly distraught), so that's all I'm writing for now. I've managed to actually finish my semester on time for the first time in a year, so now I'm on break and somewhat free. That means that I should be writing more. Well, that's the hope anyway. Off I go for now.

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