Suffragette

Typically I sort out my impressions, observations and judgment related to films through writing about them and then most of the time I post the written review. This time I have a bit of a backlog. I have seen lately Suffragette and Truth. I liked the films but they did not make a significant impression on me and I did not know what I could really write about them. There has been another reason too. I wanted to continue writing about my plans for 2016. This is not an easy subject and I still have some work to do before I really know how I want to live this year to make it really special this time. The best year ever, as some gang ho motivators say. Let’s say a good year, anyhow. I will get to it soon but for now it will be about the films I have seen, as it looks I need to do some catching up with films to see the ones that were awarded Golden Globes.

                                

Suffragette, I believe, is a British film, at least many actors playing  in the film are British. Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Romola Garai, Ben Whishaw, Brendan Gleeson. Well, Brendan Gleeson is really Irish but this is definitely not a Hollywood production even if Meryl Streep plays the cameo role of Emmeline Pankhurst, the political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement. Woman who helped women to win the voting rights. Being a recently declared feminist, I had to see the film. It was sort of an obligation, really. I realized how little I know about women movements that were so necessary for me to be as independent and free as I am now, in the XXI century. It was not that long time ago when Swiss women were not allowed to vote. They got their rights as late as 1971.  I found that very surprising. One would think Switzerland is a civilized country. Obviously not in all aspects. No wonder women still have issues with equality, it is still rather new.

I have not liked to hear about violence related to feministic movements. I do not agree with violence in any form. Seeing the film, however, I realized that women of the times did not have any other choice but to bring their point across in a violent way. They were not heard unless they shocked or scared the society. Did Emily Davison wanted to shock through suicidal stepping in front of the King George V’s horse or was she just unlucky?  The truth most likely will not be known but this does not change the fact that she was in despair to bring the message across no matter what the price. And that price was her life.

                                        

The film is also about growing up. Maud, played by Carey Mulligan, at the beginning of the film is just interested in what is going on among women she works with. Coincidently she gets involved in presenting women plea for voting rights.  This starts her strong involvement in the movement leading to loosing her family. She becomes a woman with the purpose. I like the way Carey Mulligan handled the metamorphosis of the character. Rather a subtle performance and by this subtleness powerful.

What particularly moved me was the story of Maud’s husband who through pressure of the society threw the too independent woman from home and not being able to combine taking care of their son and working, gave away the son for adoption. His last cry was: what have I done ??!! Looks that men were also hurt by unjust treatment of women.

This brings me to my favourite couple of the film actors : Romola Garai and Ben Whishaw. Ben Whishaw plays the father and the role of Romola Garai is this time not particularly significant. I first saw them in the series The Hour, they both were memorable. Since then I have seen them in several productions and I believe that they have great future ahead of them, at least Ben Whishaw.

                 

Maybe the film made more of an impression on me than I initially though or maybe I am too verbose? In any case it is enough this time, I will have to write about Truth on another occasion.

My rating 6 out of 10.

Happy New Year!

                            

I have started the year in a very beautiful part of Australia, very quietly and philosophically. It was not my usual start to a new year but new beginning sometimes calls for new ways.  This is how it was this year.

My new year started in Kangaroo Valley, in Glenmack Park. I am not a camping person and Glenmack Park is a caravan and camping place. I did not feel that camping was my way of living and I hired a self contained-cabin with air conditioning. So I was not exactly roughing it. The reason why I found myself there was my long estranged friend celebrating her 21^st anniversary of coming to Australia on the 31^st of December. She and her two sons spend their summer holidays camping in Kangaroo Valley. In the process I discovered how camping places in Australia look like and work. This is really impressive and attractive way to live. Maybe not for everybody, maybe even not for me, but  I appreciated the community spirit, easiness of making new friends and comfort one can achieve through great organization and service. I am not sure if I will repeat the experience but I really enjoyed it my time there.

             

Kangaroo Valley threw a party, as any respectable place in Australia would, and the 9:00 fire works in its length and quality suited the special occasion of saying good bye to 2015. The old year was finishing with a bang but the new one started with only one skyrocket. This came rather as a surprise but not a disappointment. I knew the new has started.

New Year should start with new resolutions. It is true that our New Year resolutions fizzle out and are forgotten rather soon after the year has started. It also happens that we promise ourselves that this time it will be different, that we will be more diligent in following on our promises. This is exactly the point I am at right now. I am hopeful that it will be right this time, even if I am a little skeptical about living up to my expectations. Of course I expect changes to my initial plans, even some disappointments with myself. But I am planning to follow up on my plans on monthly basis to check with myself if I am on track. Say, first week of each month. Maybe I will manage to go through this year being happy with my progress?

The first step is now. This is a decision making time, a decision on what is especially important to me. Things I want to focus on. In Steven Covey’s words I want to identify my rock tasks and focus on them first. For me it is health, friendships, learning, reading and writing, giving, home, travels and generally fun and pleasure.

The next step is to design my masterpiece day and define projects for the year. I am still working on details.

Lewis Howes, the author of The School of Greatness poses questions:

How do I want my every day to look?

How do I want to feel every single day?

What am I creating daily?

Who am I spending time with?

What places am I exposing myself to?

What passions am fulfilling?

They are good and important questions and I find that the answers are not so easy to come up with. After some reflection though, I found my answers. At least their first cut.

Merry Christmas

                                      

I am starting my Christmas today and am off to Melbourne.

Happy, warm but not too hot, friendly, moderately sober, reflective in a positive way Christmas wishes

AC

My 2015

                                                     

It is this time of the year to take stock of events and learnings of the year that soon will belong to my past. Has it been a good year? Yes. Not an easy or particularly happy one but it has been in many ways a good year.

Some people, quite a few really, think that I tend to over-analyse or even complicate things. I reluctantly agree. Translating my favourite Polish saying into rather clumsy English – I have it like that. This is how I am made. I do not apologise for being one way or another as long as I do not hurt anyone. In this particular case, I bore some people and this maybe hurting them, even if only a little. Meeting friends, I watch myself not to go on my marry way analyzing small events to death. This forum however allows self indulgence, reading my post is not compulsory, even if very much appreciated.

Wow, it has been a long, meandering introduction. I declared the 2015 to be the Year of Elegance. I do not mean dressing elegantly but living elegantly. Living elegantly means to me being measured and deliberate in reactions to life surprises and challenges. Not going into a flap. Accepting whatever comes at me without blaming anyone or denying existence of potential problems. Being grateful for existence, friends and surrounding beauty. Forever learning. Keeping good order around me and within me. Accepting limitations. Living with moderation especially when it comes to eating habits. No rush and no greed. And definitely no overeating. And loving… Not necessarily particular people, even though this is always a wonderful experience but just being loving and kind. Elegant living requires good listening, this is how we find beauty and needs of others.

It came out as my life credo. It is, really. So, have I lived elegantly this year? In some aspects, yes. There is a lot of room for improvement though.

2015 was a year of recovery from rather serious health issues that took over a big part of my 2014. The problems taught me a lot. The main lesson was in acceptance and taking things as they are, submitting to necessary hardship, trusting that this too shall pass. And it did pass. At least for now, but I have improved my ability to live in the moment and do not worry that much about what may come, as I did in the past.

It is always very difficult for me to loose a friendship. Unfortunately, I did loose friendships this year. One, I lost very definitely through death. I feel sorry at the loss and thankful that I was given a chance to know the man. Bad memories fell by the wayside.

The other changes brought disappointment, some surprises and plenty of life experience. I moved on…

The main uplifting event of the year was my stay in Poland. Once again I decided that I do not want to close the Polish chapter yet but I rather continue my schizophrenic life between the two countries I love. I am now hoping that Poland under new rulers will not change in such a way that I will not want to go there again.

Some of my European summer plans did not work out but some worked out better than I had expected. My traveling plans did not work; I had some health issues that stopped me to visit Berlin or Prado in Madrid.

I wanted to renew contacts with my family and friends and this worked out better than I had expected. I enjoyed getting in touch and spending time with my old friends and the young ones. The young people, I am close to, are fantastic. Living their lives and planning their future well. It was stimulating and very enjoyable to talk to my young friends. I have also mended some ways that got broken in the past. This was one of the happiest experiences of the year and it means a lot to me.

I used to say that I do not have family, and then went, with my partner of the time, to a family reunion. There were close to 200 people of Mieszkowski (my maiden name) family. My partner said – You do not have family? and who are those people??? It woke me up. I do have a big family with whom I do not keep much contact. I made a choice, not the best one and I take full responsibility for that. To remember about my family I included a family reunion picture as my FB background. This is what will always stand behind me, the legacy of my parents.

Coming back to Sydney with new thoughts and new energy, I made a commitment to go to gym twice a week, play and improve my bridge in the local club - Trumps, play lawn bowls and volunteer in the local council. It all works very well and is fun. All except volunteering. It is very difficult to comprehend that wanting to be useful may be such a difficult thing. Bureaucracy of the process is unbelievable. I still live in hope that after seven months I will get an assignment eventually.

It has been also a year when my reading changed. I re-discovered fiction. This is not what I want to elaborate on right now; I just want to say that reading and books have been an important part of my 2015.

It has been a year when I spent a lot of time on my own. This helped me to think through some dilemmas and see things from a new perspective. It has freed me from some doubts and regrets. I decided that life this year has been good.

                                        

More on The Secret History

I wrote about the book before, the time as I was still reading it. I was drawn into the story from the fist pages. This is what Donna Tartt’s books are like. It is easy to make such a generalization as she has written only three books and I already have read two of the three. The author promises the next book in 10 years time, I am glad that I still have one more unread. The pleasure, reflections and fun of reading The Little Friend are still ahead of me. I think, I will make a break from Donna Tartt and delay the pleasure as well as balance my reading a bit. David Copperfield, Cixi and a couple of books by Adam Phillip are in reading right now and I am still choosing my number one of the current books. The one I intend to read in one go.

Back to Donna Tartt… The Secret History is another elegant book, just right for my Year of Elegance that actually has not been so elegant after all. It is a book about being cultured and this appeals to some of the readers. It is also about beauty of things, art, nature… And it says that unless beauty is wed to something more meaningful is always superficial. Hmm… something to think about. Florentine museums, churches and galleries say that adoration of God makes art meaningful. This is fine with me. But beautiful objects one just likes to look at and hold do not seem to be wed to anything meaningful except for giving pleasure to the observer. Hmm…. again.

The Secret History is a multilayer story and one of the layers is Donna’s version of Crime and Punishment. Comparing a writer to Dostoyevsky is a big if not arrogant statement, but I am not doing it lightly. I read Crime and Punishment many years ago and still remember the sticky, oppressive feeling the book left me with. The feeling is still there when I think about some of the fragments that stuck to my mind for good. The same happened to me while reading the second part of The Secret History. I did not enjoy the reading and yet I could not put the book away.  The unpleasant feeling is still with me. It may stay for a while, it seems.

One statement by Julian, the teacher, one of the characters of the book, made me ponder: “ a Hindu saint being able to slay a thousand on the battlefield and it not being a sin unless he felt remorse”. It that true in general sense? There is a lot of remorse that the characters felt and this creates a really Dostoyevsky’s atmosphere. It is so easy to kill and so difficult to live. But perhaps only if one feels remorse.

The story is also about friendship. Can it be real or is it an illusion we want to create out of desire to share some events of life with someone caring and trustworthy? As the story develops we see that most of the situations taken by the narrator as acts of friendship were really dictated by self interest of his friends. Were there really friends or was it just a projected need of Richard. The idealistic part of me cries realizing that this is often true in life. This is a dramatic statement but formulated with tongue-in-cheek and with acceptance of life realities.

The main character, Henry, fascinates and puzzles me. Liking him to Mycroft Holmes? I wish I could talk to someone about complexities of his nature and coming up with justification for his decisions and acts. Comments and discussion on the subject would be most welcome. She hopes...

P.S. Writing about the book in my first review, I felt that I did not give it justice. I felt it but could not put my finger on what actually bothers me in what I had written. I published the post anyway and got a comment from my very faithful reader and commenter saying that he will give the book a miss. This is absolutely understandable, we like different things and I was not hurt by it as I was not trying to convince anyone to read The Secret History, even if I thought that the book is definitely worth while reading. What bothered me however when I wrote about the book that it was coming across as a very trivial story. On reflection, it is a very trivial in many ways. Like one of those books to read fast to kill time. This is deceiving. One reads the book fast, of course, but this is a deep, wise book, written elegantly, with great knowledge of various aspects of art, culture and human nature. It investigates our motives actions and ways of dealing with consequences. It is a universal book about human conditions and issues. A great book for people who like philosophy and psychology.

The author is likened to Dickens and I am starting to understand why Donna Tartt’s name is often mentioned together with the great XIX century writer. The same attention to detail, wonderful narratives, written in the first person (like David Copperfield, I am just reading). There are, no doubt, more similarities but I am only half way trough my first Dickens’s book. (4/1/2016)

Emma Watson, I salute you

I must confess that I am up to date on Polish and European affairs, but not so much on Australian. I feel a bit guilty about it.  My excuse is that a lot is happening in Poland at the moment and even if I know I cannot do much to change it, I am drawn to Polish news hoping that maybe I will get some reassuring news one day. This day has not come yet. So, I read and I listen in hope. I would like to offload my frustration and fear caused by the situation by writing about it, but not now. I may do in a future post. Today I am going to write as a feminist. By coincident, I found today an article about Emma Watson and her speech her speech at HeForShe movement in the United Nations. I had to check when it actually happened and it was around March this year. Tony Abbott apparently joined the campaign, good on you Tony! I can see even more reasons to extend my interests to Australian news; this is my home country, after all.

                                                                                            

I want to write about the Emma’s speech and my impressions. I was moved to tears by the speech. Emma Watson is a wizard not only in Harry Potter but in social/political life as well. And I felt ashamed. I have always been convinced about women’s rights to be treated as equal to men. I always have been, but I never was inclined to be vocal about it. I perhaps did not like potential confrontations… I am not sure but this is neither the time nor the place for self-analysis. In my braver moments I called myself a feminist giving quickly my definition – feminist is the person who helps women to live life their way. Emma Watson talks about general understanding of the word “feminist” as to be a person hating men. This is perhaps what I subconsciously had in mind when I was hesitant to call myself a feminist. I do not hate men, far from it. I just think that in work force women should have even chances as men to succeed if they have the same ability to do the job.

Recently I heard a man saying – women are cleverer than men. I was supposed to be flattered, I believe. But I find such generalization silly and untrue. I would agree, however, with somewhat altered statement - women are cleverer than men generally think women are. I have met many clever, capable women and men and I came across many silly and incompetent people regardless the gender.

Listening to this moving and inspirational speech of the young actress, I decided to get out of the closet and confess – I AM A FEMINIST. My life has been of a woman working together with men in similar roles to my male colleagues.  I even studied mathematics not realizing that women were not supposed to understand such things. Thanks God, I did not know that it was not for me.

When I came to Australia, my earlier indoctrination served me well. Hearing sexist comments I thought – “Wow, this Australians have strange sense of humour”. I did not get offended by what I thought were silly jokes and I did not harp. This saved me a lot of grief, I believe. When I eventually got the message, I was on my way to succeed as an IT professional in IBM. I had some women colleagues, but I was frequently in situations when meeting were opened with words: Good morning gentlemen and Anna. I still think it was fun.

Inspired by Emma Watson, I will investigate how to become an active feminist and become a SheForShe.

Donna Tartt - The Secret History

I just finished the fourth part of My Struggle by Knausgaard. I have been absolutely fascinated by the first two books but I have lost momentum while reading the next two. Maybe I even lost some interest; consequently I was much slower reading the fourth part than the first two. I put the book aside several times to read other things, but when I got back to it after a break, the old magic came back and I finished it in one sitting. I may come back to writing my impressions about the Karl Ove story and I will most likely get the next book one day, maybe not that soon though.

                                                          

For now, another book took over my attention and thoughts.  I am now following my second fascination that started earlier this year. Donna Tartt! When I finished My Struggle – Book Four, I moved the same day to read The Secret History of Donna Tartt. I found it strange that it felt as if I was still reading the same author. Building of sentences must have some similarity. I am half way through The Secret History now and no longer have earlier feeling of déjà vu regarding the style. 

                                                        

On the right Polish cover of the book, I like it better than the English version. It says more about the book content

              

Donna Tartt has written three books so far; The Secret History published in 1992, The Little Friend published in 2002 and The Goldfinch – 2013. It takes her about 10 years to write a book. She says that being born in 1963 she will write two more novels. Maybe three… It is a long time to wait for the next one, but I still have The Little Friend to read. My Polish friend, a literature teacher, who is responsible for my reading Knausgaard and Donna Tartt, already has new writers he intends to put on my reading list. So far, I appreciate his forceful recommendations so I am expecting new literary interest to come up and unfold.

The Secret History is a story described as intelligent person thriller; it keeps reader’s attention fully captured. As a thriller should. And similarly to The Goldfinch it is much more than just a well written mystery. It triggers off reflections, memories, asks questions that stay with the reader and demand personal answers. It is also a book about appreciation of classical studies, art and beautiful objects. There is air of exclusivity about the way heroes dress, eat and behave. Some of the six main characters, five boys and one girl, come from rich families, some do not have any money, but all of them have their rather exclusive style. They are nonchalant about wearing Charvet ties, Astrakhan coats while they study classics at the Vermont elite collage. There were times I considered attention to labels, silly and empty. I still do in many ways, but I also recognize a special beauty of some exclusive objects and appreciate pleasure of possessing them. They can be treated as utilitarian objects of art, so I am not that critical any more of people liking their beautiful possessions. And Oscar Wilde said “A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life”. Let’s not ignore good dress sense. 

£172.75 - Charvet striped silk tie - Good news : now shipping to Australia !

                                               

My observations today must have made an impression that my interest and the book itself is all about exclusive dressing. It is not, on either account. I just elaborated on this particular subject maybe a bit too much. Temporary weakness. Maybe I even started to pay more attention to small things and their beautiful details. But I am also thinking of my answer to the question, triggered by the book, in which part of my life my character was formed. Was it my solitary childhood when I was reading those idealistic books or was it the time I first lived in a big city, still reading a lot and working as one of the first Warsaw computer programmers? When my work ethics were created?

The main issue the book is asking of readers to grapple with is about how far can one go in committing unethical deeds and get away without being punished by self, others or fate. Is it possible at all? Will our conscious allow it? I will keep reading to find out Donna Tartt's answers. Conclusion, if there is one, soon.