The Macroblog

When John Green, the most eccentric author that I know, announced on YouTube that he’ll sign all of the copies of the first printhing of The Fault in our Stars — he even had carpal tunnel syndrome in the process of signing his name 150,000 times — I promised to myself that I would get a copy of it. It became one of my priorities. I badly wanted one mainly because I’m a big fan of John Green (although I have only read two of his books).

But how do I get one? Being in the Philippines and having only one branch of National Bookstore near my place, this posed to be a big problem. I didn’t know if the more well-stocked bookstores in the country (e.g. Fully Booked, Power Books) accepted pre-orders, and had I pre-ordered a copy from them, that would have been very inconvenient for me because the nearest Fully Booked from our house is at Marquee Mall (which is about 16 kilometers away from where I stay), and I don’t go there much.

So my only option was to buy it from the internet. I still have some reservations with this because the postal service in the country is not reliable. Lost mail is common. Plus, the customs is bi-polar; You could either get taxed at exaggerated rates or get properly taxed (i.e. no tax at all). I’ve heard enough horror and tragic stories regarding this topic that I try to refrain from ordering things from the internet.

Most of my internet purchases were for services, so there’s nothing to deliver. But I have a few experiences in ordering physical materials (especially from the UK). So far, I received all of my previous orders. As for paying duties, I was taxed for a book that I didn’t buy (I got it from BookMooch). Could you believe that? And the waiting time is agonizing. There is really no assurance when you’ll get your package (if it wasn’t lost). I can still remember the first time that I ordered MiniCards from BookMooch: it took Philpost almost two months before I received them.

All of these, and telling myself that I have to minimize my spending on books didn’t stop me from pre-ordering one. This is a necessary purchase that I can’t afford to miss.

Amazon charges a hefty fee for shipping, so it was my last option. Good thing, I learned about Book Depository. They don’t charge you even a single cent for shipping! Amazing, right?

I gambled. Last December, I finally placed my order. It was dispatched on the day it was released, January 12, 2012. Two weeks later, I started to panic a little as it still hasn’t arrived, and there’s no way I could track the parcel. Every time the postman delivered something to our home, I got excited, only to be disappointed because he’s delivering bills and other letters.

Finally, it was delivered to me last Friday (and it was received by the local post office just a day before that). Seeing the parcel got me excited. I was jumping and constantly reminding my self that it was rude and weird to shout with glee in front of the postman. It was like I was in a candy store. Not even the Php 40.00 (less than a dollar) that I had to pay which the postman said was for the tax didn’t ruin my mood.

And the first thing that I did with the small package? I took photos of it, and tweeted about it.

I’m really happy that I pre-ordered it. Just seeing John Green’s autograph (signed with green Sharpie) makes me grin like a maniac. It’s actually my first autographed book! To date, I still haven’t started reading it. I’ll read it after reading other books that I have. Fortunately, I haven’t encountered even a single spoiler about it.

Oh, I’m planning to order more books from Book Depository! I’ll order until Philpost effs me up!

There it is again. The itch. The desire to blog and read books.

This blog hasn’t turned out to what I envisioned 14 months ago. The site sucks, obviously. My writing skills have drastically decomposed faster than an unrefrigerated iceberg lettuce¹. Most probably that’s the result of not really trying writing anything more than 140 characters, a lack of much needed inspiration, a lot of distraction, and less time to blog.

It’s lackadaisicalness 101.

But I’m not here to talk about my blogging life. It’s too boring for you. I’m tired of saying “I’m back!” and then disappear for a very long time (although, I haven’t disappeared completely, I’m active both on Twitter and Tumblr) over and over again.

The real itch that I have right now is to read books. Actually, I haven’t really stopped from reading. The thing is, I’ve limited myself to reading just long-form journalism, articles regarding tennis, football, and whatnot.

For 2011, I set a target to read at least 10 books within the year. Yes, just ten books, and yet, I failed disastrously. I’m unsure, but I think I was only able to read only three books. If you have read one of my entries last year, I wrote that I would try to read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird again since during the first time that I tried to read it, I stopped where Scout’s neighbor’s house was burning. During my second try, I stopped even before that event. Sorry, but I’m not a really classics guy. But I’ll try reading it again sometime.

But even though I was only able to read only two or three books, I did enjoy them! The first one was Paper Towns by John Green (one of my favorite authors) which ending was saddening, the other one was David Nicholls’s equally depressing One Day. The third? I can’t remember it. At best, I’m just imagining that I was able to finish another book. At worst, I’m denying that I was only able to abysmally read two books.

This post was supposed to be about John Green’s new book that I just received yesterday. But it’s getting long so I would stop here. I guess, that will be the topic of my next post.

As usual, feel free to send me book suggestions. Hint: I absolutely enjoy tragedies and crime fiction.

1. I wrote that because I saw a half-rotten lettuce earlier, however, it was refrigerated. [↩]

Atonement (2007)

© Working Title Films

Starring: James McAvoy, Keira Knightley, Romola Garai, Saoirse Ronan,Vanessa Redgrave, Juno Temple, and Benedict Cumberbatch
Screenplay by: Christopher Hampton
Based on: Atonement by Ian McEwan

The Story

1935, on the hottest summer day, Briony sees Cecilia, her sister, undress in front of their longtime servant’s son, Robbie. Because of her immaturity, Briony interprets adult intentions differently and completely misunderstands it. The succeeding actions of the three — and a prior incident between Briony and Robbie — would result into Briony’s crime, a crime that would intertwine the lives of the three and which she would eventually try to atone for years as a nurse during wartime. Robbie is sent to prison, and eventually released, on the exchange of serving for the British Army — virtually severing almost all of his connections to his dear Cecilia.

My Take

In the first part, the time goes back numerous times to tell the story in the perspective of another character. In both book and movie versions, there’s almost no transition from one perspective to another, so if you aren’t paying attention to details, you’ll surely get lost in this labyrinthine story. This could either be viewed as a flaw or brilliantness. It makes you think where one perspective ends, and another one starts. But obviously, that makes it complicated.

The story could feel really heavy and boring, especially at the middle where Robbie is trying to escape from France back to England. I know some people who were not able to finish the movie because of this. In my case, I almost stopped reading the novel (I read it first before watching the movie adaptation). McEwan’s heavy writing could be simply termed as lullaby. It took me almost two weeks to finish it, and in my standards, that means it took me a long while. Although the cogwheel of this tale is Briony’s crime, the story as a whole is also dependent to some sequences from that boring part, remove them and the story wouldn’t be as powerful as it should. Well, I’m really glad that I was able to finish the book.

The beauty of the story lies at the last few pages of the book or minutes of the film where the reader or the viewer respectively is presented two different versions of the ending. The twist at the end is just so big that it will surely change your opinion on Ian McEwan’s magnificent novel. But the icing on the top is that whichever version you choose, you won’t escape the sadness that the story would bring to you.

The actors who played the main characters were well versed in what they were doing. The acting is just so good that you can feel that it really happened. I was really impressed with the mad acting skills of James McAvoy in this one. He’s a really damn good actor. Oh, and I’m sure that you’ll notice the music that was used in the movie. It’s so original, right? Who knew that the sound of typewriter could be used as background music, hu? Dario Marianelli (the composer) is inventive and an outright genius.

The Better Version

It’s hard to pick which is the better version. The movie adaptation is so close to the book that I can’t decide. It’s one of the rare movie adaptations that was really faithful to the novel. And although the twist at the end was presented differently in the two versions — a family reunion in the book, and an interview in the movie — it doesn’t make a big difference. So be sure to check both! But should they release another Atonement movie, I hope they’ll combine the two.

Tearmometer

Prepare at least eight and a half rolls of tissue, you don’t want your clothes to get soaked from tears. In other words, I’m rating this as 8.5 out of 10. It could have easily scored 10, but owing to the fact that there are boring scenes, I had to deduct a few points.