V e r i t a s . S o p h i a . I u s t i t i a

These days, I really don’t know what I am doing or where I am going. Most of the time, I find myself supposed to attend two or even three meetings at the same time, and all of them take away time that I’d rather spend with my students. I am beyond tired, I am utterly out-and-out exhausted. As my dad drove me to school yesterday, there was a moment when I felt like my neck was being seized by a strong hand behind, the grip so strong, while another hand holding a knife ran it across my throat, right through where my Adam’s apple is, a quick slash, a gash, a gush of blood running down the front of my body, more blood squirting onto the windscreen, and I was transfixed on this sensation, the skin on my neck broken by this sharp cold metal, raw flesh exposed, reminding me of those cold red slabs of beef you find in a wet market or wrapped in cling film on a Styrofoam tray. It was so strange because it feel so violent and yet so peaceful, a sense of calm ran through my entire body and I wanted to cry both tears of bitter sadness and ecstasy because I wanted to give up, stop fighting and let myself be completely bled dry.

They tell me I look tired. I am mortified by that. I am tired, of course, I am. But to feel tired and to be told I appear tired are two completely different things. The suicide I performed was mine and mine alone, but I cannot, cannot, I can’t look tired. My body is betraying me. I look into the mirror and all I see is treachery- anxiety, tension, pressure, strain- etched on my skin and like my suicide, I smash the mirror, demanding it give me the beauty of Dorian Gray. Because it is one thing to feel crushed, it is another for others to know it. Tear through it all. Everything gets thrown out. Out! I take the bus to Kiehl’s. I get an energizing face wash, moisturizer, a leave-overnight face peel, a clay mask for sensitive skin, a body wash that contains no soap, a shampoo with jojoba, a conditioner with twenty different fruit extracts that’s completely scentless. I desperately want to look fresh, please, I cry. Feel fresh and you will look fresh? I don’t know how to start that engine, so I’m going for Look fresh and you will… appear fresh. Erode away.

Drop dead.

Caught Atonement yesterday and while it fared adequately, I guess, for a synopsis of McEwan's novel, I couldn't help but feel that it was a little, or rather, much too literal for its own good, hardly ever veering off the narrative arc of McEwan's novel, as though the screenwriter were much too in awe of the original work, which is, of course a very formidable piece of literature; nonetheless, there seemed to be little understanding of the quite obvious fact that the picturial image works in a very different way from the written image not only in narrative structure but in how it engages its audience/reader and if a filmmaker thinks he can make an adaptation by a simple translation of the original work into a script and ultimately a film, he entirely misses the whole point of adaptation, for what is crucial to making a work of literature great is very different from what makes a film great. As it were, I felt like a reader watching a lumpy, episodic, predictable and for all its pretty pictures, ultimately hollow movie, a movie with no guts to take itself seriously as an autonomous work of art (there is a reason why films are based on a story and not a re-telling of a story); when you create a film, even if it is from a well-known source, you want to create something that still manages to astonish, to surprise, to engage, and that is what Atonement- the film- failed to do for me. Viewers who have never read McEwan's book will wonder what the big deal is, which is a shame. It is a safe adaptation but lacking entirely in imagination and any attempt to make of itself a work of art and thus imbuing itself with a soul of its own, and not merely the specter of a greater work.

Anyway, when I got home, the film had already passed from memory, and I began to think of those film adaptations of literary works that have become autonomous works of art in their own right, and it was particularly disappointing that Atonement should fall so short, because it really was superbly cast. While some adaptations like Atonement fade from memory so quickly, other movie adaptations have gained a life of their own, such that when you watch the film, it is as though the writer had had that actor in mind as he was creating his work, and when you return to the book, you cannot imagine anyone else as those characters again. It is rare, but I got around thinking about it and here are some characters who have gone from page to screen and have been nailed so perfectly by actors under superb direction you'll never read the books without them playing the parts again.

Seriously, can you imagine another adaptation of these literary works with anyone else in the lead roles?

1. Clark Gable as Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in Victor Fleming and George Cukor's adaptation of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

2. Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski and Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois in Elia Kazan's adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennesse Williams

3. Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in Blake Edwards' adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

4. Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch in Robert Mulligan's adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

5. Malcolm McDowell as Alex De Large in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

6. Marlon Brando as Don Corleone and Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of The Godfather by Mario Puzo

7. Jack Nicholson as Randle P. McMurphy in Milos Forman's adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

8. Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining by Stephen King

9. Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector in Jonathan Demme's adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris (yes, others have tried playing Hannibal the Cannibal but it is Anthony Hopkin's forever...)

10. Heath Ledger as Ennis Del Mar and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist in Ang Lee's adaptation of Brokeback Mountain by E. Annie Proulx (the performance of Ledger's all-too-short lifetime)

Is it just me or does not this year's Australian Open feel like the best Grand Slam tournament we've had in recent years? The standard of play was remarkable right from when the umpire at the first match of the tournament began play to the very end when Jo-Wilfred Tsonga's forehand found the net on Novak Djokovic's second championship point. For as long as I can recall, the first week of a Grand Slam has always been a kind of formality for the top women players, but right off the bat this time we had third seeded Jelena Jankovic staving off matchpoints in the first round against an unheralded Tamira Paszek, and Wimbledon champion Venus Williams pushed hard by China's Yan Zi.

The women's number two Svetlana Kuznetsova lasted just two rounds, then unbelievably we had the mighty Roger Federer himself on the ropes, in round three, stretched to the limits by a very game Janko Tipsarevic; he prevailed 10-8 in the fifth set in the men's match of the tournament, only to see his streak of 10 consecutive Grand Slam final appearances snapped by another Serbian, Novak Djokovic, in straight sets in the semis. Federer's defeat compounded the shockwaves that were still reverberating from the thorough demolition world number 2 Rafael Nadal received just hours before from an unseeded Jo-Wilfred Tsonga. For the first time in exactly two years, we found ourselves watching a Grand Slam final that did not feature Roger Federer and/or Rafael Nadal.

Federer of course came into the tournament diminished by a flu, but for chrissakes, a flu?! Surely it would take more than the sniffles to arrest the two-time defending champion? It did- a lanky Serb with cannonball groundies. Nadal's defeat on the other hand, wasn't entirely a shock. It was the first time the Spaniard had made it past the fourth round in Melbourne, which told you one of two things: one, that he was playing out-of-his-skin tennis or two, he had got seriously lucky with his half of the draw. Ding dong, number two. It really isn't his fault but who can blame him for NOT losing a set up to the semis when all his opponents were ranked at least 20 spots behind him? He'd strolled through his draw without getting pushed and when push came to shove in the form of Jo-Wilfred Tsonga, Nadal found himself beaten so bad, as one commentator put it, he left the stadium dragging his jaw behind him.

By reaching the final, Tsonga joined a long list of surprise Australian Open runners-up (see Clement, Schuettler, Baghdatis and Gonzalez) who ominously for him, have never played well enough since to land in another major final. The pundits are calling Tsonga the real deal though, this dead-ringer for Mohammad Ali with the thunderous serve and a forehand that makes his opponents look like flies waiting to be swatted. He did beat 3 top 10 players en-route to the final, and you don't get lucky thrice. I sure hope they are right, because Tsonga is an engaging player to watch and is armed with a big, big game. Then again, weren't they saying the same time about Baghdatis 3 years ago? We'll see.

Finally, just moving back to the women, it's great to see Maria Sharapova back in top form after a horrendous season last year. Sure she didn't get to take a shot at the woman who humiliated her in the final here last year (raise your hands, who saw Jankovic beating Serena Williams coming?) but she did beat Lindsay Davenport in the second round (always nice to beat someone who's double-bagelled you before) and even more impressively, whollop world number one Justine Henin, who until meeting Sharapova in the 4th round, had not lost a match since Wimbledon 2007.

So here we are at the start of 2008. Federer's dream of a Grand Slam (winning all four of 'em in a calendar year) is over almost before it began. Novak Djokovic has his first major title from two finals (no one's gonna call him Choker-vic again); the fiery glint is back in Maria Sharapova's eyes, and intriguing plot lines have been written: Who will bear the brunt of Roger Federer... you know he's mad, and since hell hath no fury like a champion scorned, some players are gonna be seriously wiped by the maestro just to quench his blood lust... Will Tsonga be a factor at the rest of the year's biggest tournaments? More importantly, can he just win his first title soon so the hype can briefly be justified? How will Rafael Nadal react with his number two ranking under assault from Djokovic? Can Ana Ivanovic become Serbia's first female Grand Slam champion? And finally, is it really, really finally impossible, a fragment of wishful thinking, for Andy Roddick and Marat Safin to win another major?