Finished reading ‘The Pianist’ today. Most of you will be familiar with the film adaptation released in 2002, but the autobiography was first released back in 1945, or at least that’s when it was wrote. The book was suppressed by the new communist Russia as it was claimed to contain too many truths. Too much about the collaboration of the Nazi’s with the Ukrainians, Poles and Russians. It also was a bit too heavy, too much too soon you might say. I found it rather disturbing to read. I’ve seen the film multiple times, so I knew what I was getting, but it’s always different reading the book. Sitting down, coffee in hand, iPod switched on, you connect with the book in a completely different way to how you view film. The book was pretty much the same storyline. The film didn’t miss anything out. At the end of the book was some extracts from Wilm Hosenfeld’s diary. The German officer that found Wladyslaw towards the end of the war, hiding in the upstairs lofts. Wilm was out of contact with the war, as I presume most German’s would have been. They knew what was going on, yet they let it happen. Wilm reflects on these thoughts in his diary. I found that pretty upsetting to read. If you’ve seen the film, then I suggest you read the book too. If you haven’t seen/read either, then do it now. This is something not to be missed. Very sad
The Pianist
Posted by Mark Gary McKenny at 16:10 0 comments
A year of books;
Reading List: (August 09-10)
14/07/09 - 02/08/09
Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
02/05/09 - 03/08/09
Animal Farm - George Orwell
03/08/09 - 14/08/09
American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis
17/08/09 - 18/08/09
The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
19/08/09 - 23/08/09
Life of Pi - Yann Martel
23/08/09 - 26/08/09
Macbeth - William Shakespeare
26/08/09 - 30/08/09
Shakespeare - Bill Bryson
30/08/09 - 31/08/09
Lord of the Flies - William Golding
31/08/09 - 01/09/09
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
13/09/09 - 14/09/09
The Magicians Nephew - C.S.Lewis
14/09/09 - 16/09/09
The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe - C.S.Lewis
17/09/09 - 02/02/10
The Horse and His Boy - C.S.Lewis
23/09/09 - 25/09/09
The Catcher In The Rye - J.D.Salinger
25/09/09 - 30/09/09
The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald
30/09/09 - 13/10/09
A Farewell to Arms - Ernest Hermingway
13/10/09 - 25/10/09
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S. Thompson
01/11/09 - 08/11/09
Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
10/11/09 - 15/11/09
Crap: A Guide to Politics - Terry Arthur
12/11/09 - 24/11/09
The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
25/11/09 - 06/12/09
Columbine - Dave Cullen
06/12/09 - 09/12/09
Beyond Good & Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche
11/12/09 - 14/12/09
On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
15/12/09 - 04/01/10
How To Be Good - Nick Hornby
22/12/09 - 30/12/09
Homage To Catalonia - George Orwell
04/01/10 - 08/01/10
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
09/01/10 - 11/01/10
Slam - Nick Hornby
14/01/10 - 27/01/10
Mr Nice - Howard Marks
29/01/10 - 31/01/10
Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer
03/02/10 - 09/02/10
Shooting an Elephant: And Other Essays - George Orwell
07/02/10 - 12/02/10
Touching The Void - Joe Simpson
14/02/10 - 17/02/10
Billy Liar - Keith Waterhouse
20/02/10 - 21/02/10
No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
21/02/10 - 28/02/10
On The Road - Jack Kerouac
01/03/10 - 05/04/10
War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy
05/04/10 - 23/04/10
Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
24/04/10 - 04/05/10
Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
07/05/10 - 16/05/10
Down and Out in Paris and London - George Orwell
17/05/10 - 27/06/10
Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
01/06/10 - 02/06/10
The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
08/06/10 - 09/06/10
The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
19/06/10 - 23/06/10
Nine Stories - J.D.Salinger
27/06/10 - 04/07/10
Republic - Plato
04/07/10 - 09/07/10
The Hobbit - J.R.R.Tolkien
09/07/10 - 12/07/10
The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
Posted by Mark Gary McKenny at 11:02 0 comments
