What have Eline Vere and Amy Winehouse in common?

[Bernadette]

They seem an unlikely pair but yet, let me know your views.

[mrs.Rides]

Hello Bernadette, congrats with your site! It's very good-looking.

The ladies Vere and Winehouse have an addiction in common. Heavy stuff in Eline's case: Laudanum.. also known as Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim's Stone of immortality. About Winehouse's (private) live I don't know much. So, further comparison comes to an end here.

Cordial greetings, - F -

[Marja]

I liked your new column, Arnold. I think Amy Winehouse and Eline Vere have a lot in common with Virginia Woolf.

It reminded me of the film The Hours.

You can watch it on YouTube. Type: The Hours Final

Greetings,

Marja

[mrs.Rides]

Oh, Marja, never believe movies 'after the book' or 'about the live of..'. Read the writer herself. Because, before you can say 'flabbergasted' you are in the wrong movie. - mrs Rides (always in the wrong place)

[Marja]

After seeing the movie I read two novels by Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway and To the lighthouse. Wonderful books. Better than a film. But I still think that the final scene of The Hours is beautiful. Perhaps because of the words. Not an actual quote from Virginia Woolfs, I suppose, but Michael Cunningham's. But it inspired me to read her books.

'Dear Leonard. To look life in the face. Always to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it. To love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard. Always the years between us. Always the years. Always the love. Always the hours.'

[Peter]

There are both on twitter: http://twitter.com/AmyWinehouse and http://twitter.com/ElineVere2

[Dot Gloucester]

Actually I just read that Amy has cleaned up her act and is now addicted to the gym. I think this is quite sad.

Sorry I hate any physical exercise, why would you walk on the treadmill if you can walk somewhere interestingly instead?

I wish Amy luck, she is beautiful and talented like Eline Vere but unlike Eline I hope she makes the most of her talent.

[Brenda]

Hello,

Is it normal to say hello on a forum? This is my first time, I might just as well admit it... I'm a forum virgin.
I was reading the small discussion on the similarities between Amy Winehouse and Eline Vere.
My first thought was: strange comparison. But when I started thinking about it,
it struck me that there are certainly quite some resemblances, some already stated below... eh... above.

As said before, they both sing. Taking this a small step further one could say that they both play a role.
They perform, and while doing so, I think they both feel they are not really acting the way they would really want to:
Eline feels melancholic and depressed most of the time and though little we know about Amy, she probably does, too.
Related to this is the way they dress. When Eline dresses up for dinner, in pink and with all the buttons and beads
she looks as if she is going to a ball. A very gay presentation for somebody that unhappy.

The same probably goes for Amy. She knows how to dress like a popstar, including the big hair and tattoos. Being one, she doesn't have much choice... but wasn's she caught one night in the streets of London, dressed in nothing more than her pants and bra and being very emotional? Where does that remind me of? Of Eline wandering in rain and storm through the streets of The Hague one night, after a row with her sister, without any coat on and in a state of despair. Or am I getting carried away now?

Anyway, there is one more thing that I thought of: they both destroy their own luck, their own success. Happiness is right there in their hands and they throw it away. Eline by ditching her loving fiancé and ruining the relationship with the only family she has left, Amy by cancelling concerts, leaving stage being drunk and refusing "Rehab". It's been said before, they both do some kind of drugs and that too, destroys everything they can get out of life.

Well, that's roughly what I have to say about it. I am done now, my reluctance is gone, I feel deflowered.
Does anyone have a cigarette?

[Peter]

Are both ladies still singing? This has become a problem for Eline. Follow her to find out why.

[Dot Gloucester]

Maybe there is something in it:

Eline:
‘I was a soul-disturbing unrest of the nerves, which were like the tangled chords of a broken instrument.

It was not for him to infuse the delicate fibres of a flower, which rough handling had bruised, with fresh sap and renewed vigour.’

Amy may have felt like this at some point.