28 January 2011

The Secret Garden

  • Watched one of the best Korean drama here (Korean dialogue, Chinese subtitles only).
  • Thought the show might be based on a book and found this instead... one of those books that got away during my childhood days. Much enjoyed reading. [Project Gutenberg free e-book download here].
  • Turns out the TV show and book are completely different, other than very loosely based parallel main characters. But both highly enjoyable.
  • Suffering on P&L here. Will have to go slow on trading for a while = fewer blog posts.
My Rating : 5/5

6 comments:

Taichiseal said...

From the book :=

"It was the lock of the door which had been closed ten years and she put her hand in her pocket, drew out the key and found it fitted the keyhole. She put the key in and turned it. It took two hands to do it, but it did turn.

And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk to see if any one was coming. No one was coming. No one ever did come, it seemed, and she took another long breath, because she could not help it, and she held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed back the door which opened slowly--slowly.

Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her, and stood with her back against it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with excitement, and wonder, and delight.

She was standing inside the secret garden."

Taichiseal said...

Another passage. Lovely prose. :=

"One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes."

Don C said...

TS,

The magic of "The Secret Garden" was one of the ingredients that made Victorian-Edwardian English literature and culture so fascinating when I was a kid:
The magical transformations and whirled-away journeys to a secret world which is yours and yours only to delight in.

And all it takes to get there, is to walk down a simple garden path, or fall back into an impossibly deep wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia), step through beyond a looking glass into a magic wonderland (Lewis Carroll), or climb up through the branches of an enchanted magic Faraway tree (The Faraway Tree series)...

I'm sure many of us dreamt of splashing around in puddles on rainy days in our Mackintosh and boots, eating treacle pudding with Golliwogs and Noddy, drinking ginger beer and trekking across misty Mystery Moors with the Famous Five, hideaway in a secret tree attic headquarters to hold meetings with the Secret Seven, and most definitely of all, to go away to boarding school with The Naughtiest Girl in School...

Then you grow up and realize its not all magic sugar and spice, and all things nice...
I discovered writers like Hector Hugh Munro@Saki and his macabre stories satirizing Edwardian society and culture; and earlier still, the high priest of social satire Jonathan Swift and his much-misjudged works: "A Modest Proposal" and "Gulliver's Travels".

A contrast indeed, to go from tasting sweet heavenly turkish delights (Narnia), to gobbling down stewed impoverished Irish children (Swift)...
Losing your childhood innocence and growing up into awareness and knowledge of the real world sucks.

Sigh, to return to the magical worlds of our Secret Gardens once again...

Taichiseal said...

Don - Take a break from the real world and watch the show.

玄彬 = Colin Craven
河智范 = Mary Lennox

Beats "Dream Home" anytime.

Don C said...

Just realized my words above make me seem like an Anglophile. But actually I think somewhere in me, the smoldering embers of a chinese chauvinist still burns on...
;)

You are right. Should stop getting distracted by worldly events...

I know next to nothing about Korean stars, but they should be very good eye candy.
Thanks, I think I will cosy down and catch this show during this holiday break.

Happy Chinese New Year TS.

Taichiseal said...

I am sure you will catch on real fast.

Happy New Year, Don.