Long absence

It's been ages since I last had the time to write.

I must correct that.

Since I last had the impulse to write. And I must, to my shame, add that I've been on holiday for 4 whole weekdays and 2 days on the weekend.

I've just been tangled with family. Both natural and in - law. And I've been ill. And it was christmas last Thursday. And I've been exhausted. And to top things up I went into a frenzy reading Ian Mc Ewan's Atonement and I gave Andrés a brand new bike for our anniversary and we had to take it out for a spin. And then another.

But I finally finished reading the novel. I was a little disappointed by the ending. And I kept finding similarities with Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assasin, which is one of my absolute favourite books (coincidence: I was reading it last year around this time). I don't intend to go back to my days as a literature student, but here are a few themes that are parallel to both novels:

1. The older sister - younger sister relationship tainted by issues of maturity and trust

2. Both sisters in love with the same man

3. Both younger sisters portrayed as writers, both (allegedly) publish novels posthumously for different reasons

4. WWII

5. The older man raping a young girl, and its subsequent discovery by each book's heroine

6. The Misce - en - Abime, revealed at the end of each novel. However, the novel - within - novel theme in The Blind Assassin has three levels, while Atonement only has two.

7. The first person narrative in the ending pages of each book

I have to say, to do Atonement justice, that I had started it in the first week of December but because of work related issues I never got too much into it. I only managed the first two or three chapters two pages at a time before falling asleep. Then I started it again last Friday and I literally couldn't stop reading until I finished it today. Mc Ewan has a mastery for keeping the reader completely glued to the pages, and even if the pace of the narrative is slow at certain times, I always finish reading his books feeling physically exhausted because I find them so exhilarating. Same thing happened to me when I read Saturday, but it was even worse then.

So my knitting and writing endeavors have been displaced by reading and writing, but certainly not blogging.