When Marnie Was There (contains a wee spoiler)

I first saw this first as a movie.  I have been slowly collecting Studio Ghibli movies ever since I fell in love with Hayao Miyazaki's Howls Moving Castle.    Like Howl's, this was also taken from a book and directed this time by Hiromasa Yonebayashi.  I have actually seen the movie three times now... the first time was with English subtitles which were a little confusing to follow.  I loved it anyway, the film was crystal clear and sparkling which is what I have come to expect from a Studio Ghibli production, and the story was intriguing.   There was such an open, honest sweetness to the characters Anna and Marnie, which gave an endearing quality to such love and friendship between two young girls.
    I next bought the book, which I couldn't wait to get reading (I had questions from watching the movie).  Naturally there are differences (as most movie adaptations have) but again, as with Howl's Moving Castle, the changes did not detract from the story.  I enjoyed reading this English version of what I had only seen yet as a Japanese story.

I then went back and watched the movie again just to compare to the book, while I was waiting for the English version to arrive in the mail.  I truly enjoyed it a second time. Like with any book or movie you see consecutive times, there is always new things to notice and appreciate.
Today I watched the English version.  I cried at the end.  Actually it was sooner than that, but when I began to cry it was at a very heartbreaking scene.  Marnie was begging Anna for forgiveness for leaving her alone at the silo (yeah it's a wee spoiler, but I just wanted you to understand that this is the moment that I truly began to understand the point behind this story), which is that there are many kinds of grief, which shape our lives years after the loss has occurred.  What Joan G. Robinson wrote is actually quite heartwarming, and is more about grief than I first realized.
It think it will become a great comfort book for me.
Grief issues aside, this is a great book and a wonderful movie. I wouldn't hesitate to buy them both.

Comfort Reads

Over the past couple of months I have found myself needing time to myself.  Last year I took quite a lot of time off work to grieve my mother's passing, and on top of that there have been a couple of times when I have just been sick.  Since being sick is usually an unusual thing (maybe once a year), this illness after illness left me just plain worn out and not able to cope with anything of an emotional nature.  I was just broken, and I desperately needed space and time to heal.  My theory is that the grief from last year and subsequent stressful events at work had weakened my immunity so I have been, unfortunately, susceptible to whatever has been going around at work, and whatever DH has brought home with him. 
Months later I have managed to construct some semblance of equanimity and I have been able to cope with most things... but I still manage to get sick easily (rebuilding my immunity has not been so easy to do).  Which has left me with a lot of free time on my hands (at home, sick, on the sofa) and not a lot of energy to do many active things.  Reading was also a somewhat difficult thing to do as some subjects were just too emotionally weighty for me to even attempt (as wells as being too weak to be able to hold up a book).  So for most of this year I have been skirting around the more emotionally evocative novels knowing that it wouldn't take much to have me in tears, though I was still taken by surprise by one or two which had me bawling, but I managed to deal with it.
Which brings me to my next topic, what to read when you are feeling low.
I spent considerable time on my sofa, under a quilt and my little Samsung tablet on my chest, reading Pride and Prejudice fan fiction.  I actually had quite a lot of time to sift through what I had already read, favourite any that I thought I might like to go back and read sometime, as well as blog about at a later date.  It was almost therapeutic to read such fluff, about a beloved story, and just enjoy without being too emotionally engaged. You can find lots at this link:-  Pride and Prejudice Fan Fiction
Hopefully I won't get sick again this year, I am making attempts to improve my health, but it will be some time I think, before I reach the level of health I was enjoying before last summer.  It is a small comfort, but after I have finished working on the fan fiction for Pride and Prejudice there are so many other books to have a look at, that even if I do succumb again to illness, at least I have something easy and absorbing to do.
And if you can't read too much, there is always Pemberley Digital to keep you entertained.