Atonement

by Ian McEwan

published

November 27th 2007 (first published 2001) by Knopf Publishing Group

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binding

Paperback

literary awards

National Book Critics Circle Award (2002); Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction (2002)

isbn

0307388840 (isbn13: 9780307388841)

description

On a summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment's flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son...more

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Martine rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

02/16/08

bookshelves: british, family-drama, favourites, film, historical-fiction, modern-fiction

Read in February, 2008

Having recently seen and loved the magnificent film adaptation, I decided to reread Atonement, which quite impressed me when it was first published. And guess what? It was an even more rewarding experience the second time around. Knowing what was coming -- knowing the plot twist at the end -- helped me focus on the quality of the writing rather than on the development of the story, and as always, McEwan's prose completely sucked me in. He is, quite simply, one of the most talented authors...more Having recently seen and loved the magnificent film adaptation, I decided to reread Atonement, which quite impressed me when it was first published. And guess what? It was an even more rewarding experience the second time around. Knowing what was coming -- knowing the plot twist at the end -- helped me focus on the quality of the writing rather than on the development of the story, and as always, McEwan's prose completely sucked me in. He is, quite simply, one of the most talented authors alive, and he uses his gift to great effect here.

I'm not really going to go into the plot here, because the less the first-time reader knows about the book, the better. Suffice it to say that it is about an imaginative thirteen-year-old who witnesses a few things she doesn't understand, draws the wrong conclusions and ends up ruining the lives of two people near and dear to her. The first half of the book deals with the event itself and the hours leading up to it; the second half deals with her attempts to, well, deal with it -- atone for it, so to speak.

As always, McEwan excels at setting the scene. His description of a hot summer afternoon in a 1935 English country house is lush and sumptuous, his evocation of a young soldier's struggle to reach home after the disastrous 1940 battle of Dunkirk is haunting, and his look into the horrors of a war-time London hospital is gruesome in all its detail. Amazingly, McEwan manages to find beauty even in the most horrific scenes, which is one of the things which set him apart as a writer. As usual, though, it's the psychological stuff that is really outstanding. McEwan has a knack for taking his readers deep into his characters' minds, letting them share their most intimate, most uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Sometimes these thoughts are a little disturbing (those of you who have read his earlier works will know what I mean), but usually they have the effect of completely drawing the reader into the story. The latter is definitely the case in Atonement. By presenting the story from different perspectives and vantage points, McEwan provides the reader with a complete and engrossing view of a life-changing event and its aftermath. All the different perspectives ring true, and together they tell a marvellous tale of perception, loyalty, anger, secrets, lost love, shame, guilt, obsession with the past and -- yes -- atonement. And about writing, for more than anything else, Atonement is about the difference between fiction and reality, the power of the imagination and the human urge to write and rewrite history -- to write destiny and play God.

I've heard quite a few people say that they found the first half of the novel too slow and ponderous, wondering why McEwan felt the need to devote nearly two hundred pages to the events of a single day. Personally, I found that part of the book to be utterly brilliant in its rich, Woolf-like glory. As far as I'm concerned, the atmosphere of the first half is superbly drawn, with each character down to the most minor one being well realised and the tensions and suspense at work almost being made tangible. For me, it is the second half of the book which has problems (albeit minor ones), in that I found the jumps in time and perspective jarring and the (otherwise fascinating) chapter about Robbie's adventures in France somewhat unreal. Of course, there are good reasons for the slightly unreal quality of the Dunkirk chapter (which the film captured just brilliantly), but still, it didn't quite work for me; it felt a bit out of place. Thankfully, though, the rest of the book worked just wonderfully for me. Like other McEwan books, it left me with a haunting question -- 'What if...?'

As for McEwan's impressive insight into the mind of a thirteen-year-old girl, which other reviewers have called scary, I think that has everything to do with Briony's being a writer. She is hardly your average thirteen-year-old (I think even McEwan would have a hard time coming up with one of those!); rather she is a writer (a good one), and that, of course, is something McEwan knows all about. As a fellow writer, I greatly enjoyed seeing the world through Briony's eyes, and hope her author will live to her old age and write as many good books as he has her doing.
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Terry rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

01/12/08

Read in December, 2007

This is where a 2.5 star rating would be ideal. I am extremely ambivalent about this novel--first the pluses: the writing is gorgeous; McEwan has some of the best prose out there. Every line has meat to it, nothing is throwaway, and every visual is so vivid that the reader is transported to a specific time and place. Secondly, (what everyone praises the novel for), the commentary McEwan is making about the novel itself--the fact that it is written, that characters and plots are manipulated by th...more This is where a 2.5 star rating would be ideal. I am extremely ambivalent about this novel--first the pluses: the writing is gorgeous; McEwan has some of the best prose out there. Every line has meat to it, nothing is throwaway, and every visual is so vivid that the reader is transported to a specific time and place. Secondly, (what everyone praises the novel for), the commentary McEwan is making about the novel itself--the fact that it is written, that characters and plots are manipulated by the author, and how a real character emerges (eventually) while at the same a written story exists too. This is very difficult to write about without revealing anything about the plot, but as one reads the novel, it becomes clear what McEwan is trying to do. Finally, the references to other literature (including some of the best novels--Clarissa, Lolita--and novelists--Elizabeth Bowen is directly mentioned, Henry Green and Virginia Woolf are obvious influences) is fluid, never forced, and is done to showcase a love of literature.
At the same time, there are downsides to McEwan's endeavor--how to write a novel that is commenting on its obvious falsity (its construction as fiction), while at the same time trying to convey reality. This is perhaps an impossible task, and I'm left with the nagging feeling that the novel wants to have its cake and eat it too. The characters and situations are so obviously phony that it becomes distracting in the first part of the story. I was drawn in by the fantastic writing, but then found myself wanting to hurl the novel across the room at some of the ridiculous choices by both the characters and the novelist. Namely: 1) The main plot twist makes little realistic sense. Absolutely zero would fly in a mystery novel let alone real life; 2) The characters in the first part are boring aristocrats who we don't care about (check out a Henry Green novel; except in his novels, the reader continues to laugh at them, there is no attempt at emotional attachment); 3) The 'mystery's' solution is obvious to the reader before the crime even happens; 4) Briony (part 1) is an insufferable narrator (as kid narrators, To Kill a Mockingbird excluded, so often are); 5) The novelist's choice to name a sexually, precocious teenager 'Lola' (too obvious a reference). But these choices are meant to be ridiculous--reality is only supposed to set in in the epilogue. At the same time, I marveled at how real parts 2 (Robbie at war) and 3 (Briony as a nurse--some of the hospital scenes are the best I've ever read) seemed to be. Then the question became for me--if they seemed real because of the way the scenes were written (the gore again in the hospital), but could not have been real because the characters and overall plot of the Tallis family are so fake, isn't that cheating? I haven't reached a conclusion yet, but something is still bugging me about the conception of it. Ultimately I prefer novels that go the opposite route--Paul Auster's Oracle Night for example--that start out real and quickly become fake, or throw out the idea of a realistic, consistent plot entirely (only in the conclusion does David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas come together), rather than the never-ending 'is it real? is it fake?' push-and-pull of Atonement. ...less

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Amy rated it:

03/27/08

Read in March, 2008

**NOTE: Spoilers included: I like the experience of reading a book and then seeing the movie, which is why I read this book. Both the book and the movie are highly acclaimed, so what could be a better choice?

I haven’t yet seen the movie since I just finished the book today, but perhaps I should have read "No Country For Old Men" instead.

100 pages into this book, I wanted to just give up. It felt like something that would have been forced on me by high school English tea...more **NOTE: Spoilers included: I like the experience of reading a book and then seeing the movie, which is why I read this book. Both the book and the movie are highly acclaimed, so what could be a better choice?

I haven’t yet seen the movie since I just finished the book today, but perhaps I should have read "No Country For Old Men" instead.

100 pages into this book, I wanted to just give up. It felt like something that would have been forced on me by high school English teachers, with all the descriptive, flowery language about British aristocratic characters, scenery, and architecture in 1935 that I just couldn’t bring myself to care about. Were it not for the knowledge that Briony was going to commit a crime (based on the back of the book), I would have definitely put it down. Even so, I thought the crime would have been something worse than perjury – taking approximately 170+ pages to build up to the crime better damn well be murder! (joking) – but nonetheless, her crime tore her family apart, which was bad. But still, taking up 170+ pages to describe one afternoon (as many people on this site have noted) was unnecessary. And even though the writing style was beautiful, elegant, etc., it seemed like nothing really *happened;* it was mostly thoughts, memories, and physical descriptions, much of which were irrelevant to the actual plot. Maybe that’s just my preference for reading books in which the characters actually DO something and TALK to each other. I mean, don’t get me wrong, a little description is ok and necessary, but this just took it to the extreme. I know McEwan was just trying to show the depth of the characters at play, thus getting the reader to care more about them and make the impact of what was about to happen more forceful, but he overdid it to the point of making me not care at all. I didn’t think the plot of this book really needed such in-depth description.

However, Parts 2 & 3 changed gears and definitely picked up; it was like reading a completely different book! I enjoyed reading about Robbie’s traumatic escape from France during the Battle of Dunkirk, and Briony’s experience as a nurse tending to the wounded/dead of World War II. Both sections were a refreshing contrast to the superficial, snobbish feel of the first section of the book (not that war is refreshing).

One thing I thought the book was missing and should have elaborated on more rather than the tedious Part 1 was the immediate aftermath of Briony’s crime. After the crime occurs, the plot immediately jumps to Robbie in France during the war, and we are told very little of what happened in the 3 year period of time between the crime itself, Robbie’s prison sentence, and his eventual deployment. We know that Robbie had aspired to go to medical school, but was the outcome of the novel a result of Briony’s crime or World War II? Even if Briony committed no crime, wasn’t Robbie’s being drafted to the war and eventual separation from Cecilia inevitable?

Despite being unsure if the novel’s outcome was the result of war or a childhood crime, unlike what some posters on this site have written, I actually liked the ending. I liked the revelation that the story was a novel within a novel, and an attempt at atonement that never happens in (Briony’s fictional) reality. If Briony had went on to talk to her family, lawyers, and legally retracted her false statement, and then Cecilia and Robbie lived happily ever after and forgave Briony, the novel would have been merely a glorified version of Briony’s juvenile The Trials of Arabella. Maybe it’s just me, but happy, neat endings in movies, books, etc. sometimes just get old. Life is just not that perfect, and the fact is, seemingly innocuous actions in the present may lead to consequences that can never be redeemed.

Overall, the length and weightiness of the first part of the book is why I only gave it 2 stars, but if that section had been condensed into, say, 50 pages or less, I would have given it 5 stars.

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Chris rated it:

09/04/08

Read in March, 2008

Review from The Literary Snob

Openly, I admit that I belong to the faction of those who make every attempt to read the book before watching a film adaptation. I will not go so far as to say that every film is worse than the book it attempts to reenact — personally, I thought both adaptations of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were an improvement — but, even with the expectation that a movie will not compare wit...more Review from The Literary Snob

Openly, I admit that I belong to the faction of those who make every attempt to read the book before watching a film adaptation. I will not go so far as to say that every film is worse than the book it attempts to reenact — personally, I thought both adaptations of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were an improvement — but, even with the expectation that a movie will not compare with its predecessor, I vehemently avoid watching a film adaptation of a book I have not yet read. There are many benefits to taking this approach, but I learned a new one with my most recent read: It can lead you to a amazing book you wouldn’t have read otherwise.

I had no interest in reading Ian McEwan’s Atonement. From a distance, his novels seemed to hold some promise, but nothing about them demanded my immediate attention. And with a bookshelf filled with titles that beg for me to open their covers, any book that ask for less is not likely to appear in my Goodreads account. What changed my mind was Keira Knightley. Like her “twin” Winona Ryder, I’ve been impressed with how Knightley can make a great literary character seem so real — that’s not to say that the film isn’t outright atrocious (Ryder’s Jo March was amazing, but 1994’s Little Women was a horrible adaptation). So, I decided that if I was going to see the film, I had to make it through the book.

As I began, I was worried that I may be wading through little more than a world of Austenesque British romantic realism and childhood plays for 351 pages; quickly, however, I was being swept up into a child’s imagination and an intrigue that could lead in many different directions. Centering largely on inventive 13-year-old Briony Tallis, perception becomes reality as adult actions are misconstrued. What results is an innocent man being punished and a young love affair being torn apart. The story moves quickly as one scene is played out in many different perspectives and vantage points. It is further propelled by the underlying sense throughout that something is out of place, a feeling that is confirmed in the book’s final pages.

From the British countryside to war-torn France and the streets of London, McEwan excels in his descriptive settings. He more than succeeds in creating a novel which embraces scenes equally lush and inviting as they are repulsive and haunting. Some readers will find the first half of the novel, which embodies the lush, multiple perspective portion of the text, to be somewhat tedious; and I wouldn’t completely disagree with this statement. Upon completing the work in its entirety, however, I believe I had felt enough excitement and couldn’t imagine a beginning that better set the mood for the rest.

McEwan does an amazing job in developing Briony from a girl most would find annoying, if not outright repulsive, to an young woman whom we feel sympathy toward as she realizes how badly she has hurt two of the people most dear to her. Unfortunately, the characters of Atonement are not all so perfectly written. Without much back story, it is unclear why many of the lead characters make the choices they do. I found the young couple, comprised of Briony’s sister Cecelia and hired hand Robbie, to lack a certain believability. Their actions were effective in propelling the novel forward with images of romance and heroism, and this seemed to be their purpose, but I had hoped to find some deeper meaning. What is it in Cecelia that convinces her so quickly that Robbie is the one? Why are they so sexually charged on their first meeting? Why is Robbie so sympathetic on the battlefield? It wasn’t Robbie or Cecelia that I cared for, it was the idea of the rudimentary love they shared and the driving force for hope. This lack of depth in these primary characters seemed out-of-place in a novel that so effectively weaves a psychological web that it was impossible for me to not become tangled up in it.

Through it all, I believe Atonement effectively makes its point. Perception and imagination are the creation of the author, the one who can and will play God — this is the separation of fiction and reality. Which left me asking, which of the two is more real? Which the more powerful?

Despite its couple of setbacks, I consider this novel great enough to be placed amongst my list of favorites....less

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Michele rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

08/17/08

The novel is primarily about story writing. The protagonist first writes stories as a child, and her view of the world is affected by her understanding of the events around her as a novel as well as her difficulty in separating the reality of her life, actions and their consequences, from the fiction she writes.

The novel is constructed in three parts with an epilogue - the first part, comprising almost half of the book describes a family and their hired help in 1935. 13 year old Briony Tallis ...more The novel is primarily about story writing. The protagonist first writes stories as a child, and her view of the world is affected by her understanding of the events around her as a novel as well as her difficulty in separating the reality of her life, actions and their consequences, from the fiction she writes.

The novel is constructed in three parts with an epilogue - the first part, comprising almost half of the book describes a family and their hired help in 1935. 13 year old Briony Tallis witnesses an argument between her older sister, Cecilia, and their charlady's son, Robbie Turner, but she is far enough away that she only sees the action without hearing what they say. Her active imagination (she aspires to be a writer), imagines a scene in which Robbie threatens her sister and she interprets the rest of the events of the day in light of this supposition. But Briony is too young to understand adult motivations and she gets it all wrong.

Her older cousin Lola and two younger twin brothers Pierrot and Jackson, have come to stay with the family while their parents separate (their mother is in France with another man). She is enraptured by the scene, imagining it as a scene in a novel, something she has decided she will write because she is currently frustrated with playwriting (at least the directing and producing part). Robbie is not threatening her sister, he is in love with her and they've both just discovered it. During the evening, the twins, in frustration and homesickness, run away and a search party is sent out into the night to look for them. As everyone separates, Briony wanders for a while until she comes upon what she thinks is a bush, until it separates, revealing itself to be a man and a prone figure on the grass. The figure is Lola and she has been attacked. Briony, with her newly formed ideas about Robbie as a madman and her desire to protect her sister, names him as the attacker. The section ends with him taken away in a police car, and enough foreshadowing of Briony's actions and complicity in accusing him for the reader to clearly know he is sentenced for the 'crime'.

The second part describes Robbie's trek across France to Dunkirk as part of the retreat of May 1945 after he was offered the chance of commuting his sentence by working it off in the army. It describes the horrors of war, the camraderie, the numbness that he feels as he walks, despite a wound full of shrapnel across the landscape and how he hates Briony for what she has done and loves Cecilia, who has promised to wait for him and loves him. It ends with him dreaming of rejoining her (a feverish dream in a burnt out basement), on the beach awaiting evacuation the next day.

The third section describes Briony's decision to forego university and sign up as a nurse instead, her decision to recant her testimony and her confrontation with her sister and Robbie in her sister's flat. They tell her what she must to do recant, and she leaves them to pursue their own lives together. She decides she must write the story as well as part of her atonement. This final section is signed "BT 1999".

The fourth part, the epilogue, is Briony's reflection on the fiction she has written in which she reveals that she is dying but Lola and her husband Marshall (her actual attacker) are still alive, so she cannot publish the account, and, unlike parts of the third section, we find out that Robbie dies of septicemia that day and Cecilia in a bomb raid a few months later (a bomb raid at a Tube station that she wouldn't have been taking if she and Robbie had gotten together and moved to their cottage as the fiction that Briony created had them doing). Briony realizes in the end, that she will be dead before the novel can be safely published and her atonement will make no difference. (There are also discussions of whether the writer can atone, since the writer has the power of god in writing the story and one can never know what is true and what is not.)

Unlike everyone else in book club, I liked the book better than the movie....less

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Élizabeth rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

01/07/08

bookshelves: p--language-and-literature

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

A few years ago, I was reading an issue of Granta, and found myself immersed in a short story by Ian McEwan. It was one of the best stories I'd ever read, and when I finished reading it, it was one of the few times I've ever thought, God, I wish I could have written that. I wanted that control of language, that mastery of the narrative, and I was in awe of the skill it took to create that piece.

Eventually, I recycled that issue of Granta -- it's a thick journal, as literary journals go, abou...more A few years ago, I was reading an issue of Granta, and found myself immersed in a short story by Ian McEwan. It was one of the best stories I'd ever read, and when I finished reading it, it was one of the few times I've ever thought, God, I wish I could have written that. I wanted that control of language, that mastery of the narrative, and I was in awe of the skill it took to create that piece.

Eventually, I recycled that issue of Granta -- it's a thick journal, as literary journals go, about 250 pages in each issue -- but before doing so, I was careful to cut out the pages the McEwan story was on, and clip them together with a binder clip. I'm sure that story is still somewhere in my childhood home; I could never bring myself to get rid of it, in any of my periodic cleaning sweeps.

Imagine my shock, when today, trying to distract myself from the pain in my foot, I tugged down Ian McEwan's Atonement, and found that short story again. The retreat from Dunkirk is about 190 pages into my copy of the novel (yes, I read it all today, I'm a really fast reader and I was concentrating because my foot hurt like a -- well), and re-reading it, with the preceding chapters still fresh in my mind, settled the matter for me. I was right to cut out those pages, and I'm still in awe of the skill McEwan wields.

I'd been plunged into a very different world for almost two hundred pages, caught up by the lush language and the intimacy of the family setting, and then suddenly to be confronted with the violence of the retreat from Dunkirk, still cloaked in McEwan's incredible way of writing, was just amazing. And the plot, which begins slowly, is ultimately very satisfying; it's never resolved traditionally, we're never sure of what happened, but it's tied up so neatly, with the stunning twist at the end of the part of the novel written in third-person, which is so tiny you might not notice, that it becomes something far more than we expected.

Everyone, I suspect, knows my love for unreliable narrators and epistolary fiction narrative-within-narrative, and this satisfies those kinks in the most subtle way I've ever come across. Add the fantastic use of language, the complexity and completeness of the universe (the throwaways are just amazing in their richness), and the excellent characterization, and there is no way I wasn't going to love this. The fact that McEwan writes rape -- and adolescent rape at that -- wasn't enough to put me off, although I wish we followed Lola as well; watching how the rape played out for the convicted Robbie and the accuser Briony (and it's a nice touch separating the victim from the accuser) as well as Cecelia, who's torn between her family and her lover (and possibly I really fell for her when she deliberately turned her back on her family -- I didn't like her much through the first part, but when she chooses Robbie and sticks by him, and when she doesn't give in when Briony visits, I was enchanted), but I had no real sense of what happened to Lola internally, right after the rape. The marriage is a fascinating thing, but...I'd have liked a scene in which she suggests, a little, a very little, that maybe it wasn't Robbie and Briony insists, "I know it was him, I saw him, I know it was him," and she gives way under the considerable force of Briony's personality.

But as I say, I'm not rational about this. This is a story I love, and will be rereading, not just for the pleasure of the novel, but in order to learn from it.

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Leigh rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

07/31/07

bookshelves: national-book-critics-circle, novels, war-literature, wwii

When I'd just finished Part I, I wrote this:

"More than a little reminiscent of Woolf in its converging and diverging viewpoints, its serious concern with the portrayal of social and interior life... and of course the dinner-party scene. That part, I loved. I wasn't as keen on the latter third or so of Part One, with its tiring proleptic hints of deferred tragedy, and Part Two thus far is slow going--which is surprising, as it's the WWI...more When I'd just finished Part I, I wrote this:

"More than a little reminiscent of Woolf in its converging and diverging viewpoints, its serious concern with the portrayal of social and interior life... and of course the dinner-party scene. That part, I loved. I wasn't as keen on the latter third or so of Part One, with its tiring proleptic hints of deferred tragedy, and Part Two thus far is slow going--which is surprising, as it's the WWII part! But it's early yet."

Funnily enough, it took McEwan till Part Three to acknowledge that Briony is, in fact, a Woolf wannabe. Despite being a perfectly good portrayal of men at war and of a dramatic historical moment (the evacuation from Dunkirk) that's mostly overlooked by historical fiction, Part Two never did manage to impress me. Mostly, I think we weren't given enough emotional insight into Robbie in Part One, so being dropped into war-torn Europe with him in Part Two was no more than abstractly affecting. I also couldn't tell how much of the "mystery" from Part One was supposed to be telegraphed, but there were no surprises for me in the final revelations.

That said, I loved the Tallis women, and was particularly impressed by McEwan's insights into what it means to be a woman; see Briony's wry observation in the closing section about the veteran colonel who resents the feminine presumption of writing about war. Overall, Part Three was by far the most compelling as a narrative, and after a lot of vacillating, I was finally sold on the book by the final section, where all its slightly precious metafictive devices were finally justified. For some reason, McEwan writing about Briony writing about Briony learning to write (i.e., her insight while watching the fountain scene) just felt self-indulgent. But when the last level settled into place--McEwan writing about Briony writing about Briony writing about Briony learning to write--I got interested in what he was saying. I don't know how that works.

Moreover, what could have felt pat and cynical in that final section (the author's deceptions and conflations, the rewritten happy ending, the dreaded first-person flash-forward to The Present) was actually quite moving and smart.

And for this passage alone, I thought the novel was worth my time:

The problem these fifty-nine years has been this: how can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all.

(The little echo of Hamlet in "The attempt was all" didn't hurt either.)
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Allison rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

01/23/08

bookshelves: fiction

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in January, 2008

I feel that perhaps I have sabotaged this book somewhat as I read it directly after finishing Love In the Time of Cholera, and perhaps in retrospect should have read a poetry book or some non-fiction in between. Clearly anything I would have read after finishing a Masterpiece would pale in comparison but I decided that the critical raves this book had received and high praise from people around me should be enough to encourage me to see it through to the end.

Here is why I found this book lac...more I feel that perhaps I have sabotaged this book somewhat as I read it directly after finishing Love In the Time of Cholera, and perhaps in retrospect should have read a poetry book or some non-fiction in between. Clearly anything I would have read after finishing a Masterpiece would pale in comparison but I decided that the critical raves this book had received and high praise from people around me should be enough to encourage me to see it through to the end.

Here is why I found this book lacking without giving too much actual plot away to those who would want to read it themselves.

I found all of the characters completely devoid of any true personality or any reason I should care or feel connected to them. The details described in the book do a lot for physical surroundings but we know nothing of Cecila except she went to college and chain smokes, so I don't particularly care about anything that happens to her, besides the fact that much of her life is lived outside what information the book provides. Briony is a terrible child, a narcissistic teenager, and and at last a harmless grandmother who I don't especially care about at any of these three points in her life. The only character with the least bit of humanity seems to be Robbie who is still somewhat confined to his role as the "victim". All the lovely descriptions of ponds and hospital wards and French war-torn villages could not make up for the fact that none of these characters were the slightest bit interesting to me or seemed to connect to anything. They simply floated through long locational descriptions being powerless to the world around them and unfortunately for me I didn't need 350 pages to get that point. It could have easily been accomplished as a short story or novella. I just kept feeling that the book had all this great detail but didn't focus it on anything that it shoud have.

I know this may sound exceedingly harsh and once again I do chalk some of this up to reading Atonement directly after a much better novel it had no hope in eclipsing or even paralleling in its structure but I also know how quickly and easily I fall in love with characters. How quickly I can get pulled into a good story and I sincerely feel that although I wouldn't call this book a complete waste, that my time would have been much better spent elsewhere....less

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Gina rated it:

04/26/08

bookshelves: 4-stars

Read in April, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I really enjoyed this book because is resonated with a lot of life experiences I have had - migraines, sister-to-sister competition over a boy/man, issues with social class (as most people have had experience with), and more.

I must admit I was happy to be finished with the section about fighting the Germans in France. It just seemed to go on and on and belabor the points the author was trying to make about suffering, loss, and the question of "will he make it out of there?" The part ...more I really enjoyed this book because is resonated with a lot of life experiences I have had - migraines, sister-to-sister competition over a boy/man, issues with social class (as most people have had experience with), and more.

I must admit I was happy to be finished with the section about fighting the Germans in France. It just seemed to go on and on and belabor the points the author was trying to make about suffering, loss, and the question of "will he make it out of there?" The part about the French shooting their cavalry horses as part of their admittance of defeat (and the large numbers of horses shot) made my stomach turn - as someone who owns a horse and pony and really can't see the point in killing them all, I mean really - why?

I like the way the book was set up - where you get the happy ending you so want, but then the truth which in your heart, you knew had to be true. The odds of the main character getting back to his love in England seemed so remote with the descriptions of the thousands, or tens of thousands, of soldiers awaiting rescue boats when air craft bombers could so easily sink them.

I was impressed with the father character despite his alienation of his wife and daughters because of the way he gave his hired help a house (after her husband, the gardener died) and gave the boy every opportunity to excel in life.

In this day and age, his alienation of his wife (and presumably the mistress he had) would be deplorable, but being from Irish descent myself, I know that "not divorcing" and taking on a mistress, but then finally settling with your spouse for your golden years is something that is still not at all uncommon in many parts of Europe.

My heart aches for the mother, and I absolutely love the authors descriptions of the migraines that plague her every moment, rob her of time with her children, and basically control her life. I have lived this life - similarly at least (no kids, but plenty other things that the "black panther" of a migraine chose to ruin - holidays, final exams, sporting events, etc.). The way the author analogizes the wife having to control her thoughts and actions to keep the migraine beast at bay are the best descriptions I've ever come across. For any reader who has suffered migraines on a regular basis, it is a strange feeling to see them so well described, when such excruciating pain seems so indescribable.

Briony, the younger daughter's love for writing, dashing princes, the underdog prince winning the beautiful girl, etc. resonated with me since I loved those stories as a little girl. I also loved to write, keep a journal, and even write plays for my sister and me to perform for my parents. The way she lays blame for the incident in the garden on the wrong person, and so adamantly, was very disturbing. That's where my similarities ended. I kept waiting and hoping for her to come clean and at least confess that she wasn't sure of what she saw.

Despite the movie awards this book spawned, I have heard more negative than positive movie reviews. That's why I chose to read the book. Because I had so many similar life experiences, I found the book quite enjoyable (except for the mass killings of the French cavalry horses). McGregor does a very good job in his descriptions of the house and scenery, the children and other characters, and most amazingly - his analogies of "the migraine". He must know first-hand what it feels like!...less

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Jessica rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

09/26/07

Read in September, 2007

recommends it for: liars

This is the first book I've read by this guy, and I really enjoyed it. You know who I'd recommend this book to, but I don't think it'd fit in that little box up there? Okay, you know how sometimes you're craving a certain kind of musical style, like sixties soul, say, or classic British punk, but you don't actually want to listen to old music, you want to listen to something that's, like, of the now? There're a few (okay, not many) bands out there that don't just do hollow retro imitations, but ...more This is the first book I've read by this guy, and I really enjoyed it. You know who I'd recommend this book to, but I don't think it'd fit in that little box up there? Okay, you know how sometimes you're craving a certain kind of musical style, like sixties soul, say, or classic British punk, but you don't actually want to listen to old music, you want to listen to something that's, like, of the now? There're a few (okay, not many) bands out there that don't just do hollow retro imitations, but sort of take what they love from the classics, and somehow make that new and fresh and appropriate to our time. I'd say this book is like that: it's the perfect thing if you're after an exquisitely written modernist novel, only you don't actually want to get into the musty old canon, and would like something new. Honestly, I think this actually works better with fiction than with music.... In any case, this guy can sure put together a sentence, let me tell you! Beautiful, beautiful sentences. They made me a little ashamed of myself. Actually, they made me a lot ashamed, but I was enjoying it so much that I didn't feel bad.

I'm a little hesitant about putting this in my book report, because I really do recommend this book and I'd like you to read it, but I have to say that I did find the last chapter hugely disappointing. It did have one instant where it went a ways toward redeeming itself at the end, but on the whole it was kind of like.... I don't know. It didn't ruin the book or anything, but it made me feel like Ian McEwan might be something slightly less than the incredible, sublime sentence-crafting god I'd been picturing him as. I mean, I guess he looks pretty ordinary on the back photo, which should have been a tip-off. Isn't there some culture's artistic tradition that's like that, where they purposely don't finish or add imperfections in their statues, to remind humanity that nothing we make can all that great? Well, the little coda at the end of _Atonement_ kind of hit me like that. To be sure, the author is extremely talented... but he is mortal, like the rest of us.

Yeah, the ending is dumb alright.

Worse than dumb, it's poorly executed. I understand why he felt he needed it, and the impulse was a good one. However, its function should have been accomplished with the grace and style all previous chapters had, and in my opinion it wasn't. It was just off, to me: like a great restaurant with mediocre desserts.

Anyway, it was still a great book. I'm curious if other people agree with me about this, or if I just sound cranky. I was just looking at other Bookster reviews, and everyone else seems to be like, "I didn't really take to this book until I got to the fabulous ending!" So obviously there's no accounting for (everyone else's) taste....less

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Bart rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

09/12/07

Read in September, 2007

recommends it for: Literary fiction aficionados

That I can remember, I've never before disliked the start of a book so thoroughly, and by the end, gone on to think so much of it as a complete work.

The last 2/3 of this novel are as good as contemporary fiction gets. The first 1/3 is like reading a Jane Austen plot trapped in amber.

As the title indicates Atonement is about a future artist's massive effort to redeem herself for ruining the character of a young man when she is a younger girl. There are parts of this novel that ar...more That I can remember, I've never before disliked the start of a book so thoroughly, and by the end, gone on to think so much of it as a complete work.

The last 2/3 of this novel are as good as contemporary fiction gets. The first 1/3 is like reading a Jane Austen plot trapped in amber.

As the title indicates Atonement is about a future artist's massive effort to redeem herself for ruining the character of a young man when she is a younger girl. There are parts of this novel that are disjointed - or if they aren't they appear so because the opening act moves so slowly that one is barely conscious and later unable to recall that anything much happened at all.

Halfway through this novel, when its greatness starts to happen, a reader almost laments his earlier opinions of it. But whose fault is that? The beginning is such an act of endurance that the later parts make a reader wish that McEwan had moved things more quickly in the beginning - and used those words for more character development in the middle - so the reader could declare this novel, unequivocally, one of the five best novels he's ever read.

McEwan is at the top of the art form throughout, though, whatever a reader opines of the product. He knows what he's doing every step of the way, right down to an allusion to the disjointed narrative methods employed by Virginia Woolf.

The ending is brilliant, unexpected and harsh. But unlike the case of the returning Baxter character in the third act of Saturday, this ending is consistent and at once surprising and inevitable.

After a person has read a few hundred novels, he grasps the art form well enough to know when an author is writing - usually it's when the author's employing some top-heavy descriptive technique that makes the water droplets gathered on a rose petal somehow more important than the protagonist's motives for anything she's done to that point - and it fairly well cries out, "Look at me, my creator is a writer!"

Knowing when an author is writing means knowing that if there's a surprise coming, it's either going to be predicted about 50 pages out or done in such fantastically poor form that its inconsistency mars the rest of the work.

McEwan is fine enough at his craft that the ending is both unanticipated and perfectly consistent. That alone makes this novel excellent....less

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Melissa rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

04/01/08

Read in March, 2008

When I saw the film adaptation of Atonement, I admired its blend of deep emotions, layered characters and a somewhat fast-moving pace in the plotline. The scenes featured in the movie were all gripping, some picturesque and others gory and biting. The ending made me fight back fits of tears. So, after seeing the movie at my local theatre, I decided to pick up a copy of the book at the library. This wasn't easy, though, because all seven paperback copies were currently taken out, so I had to plac...more When I saw the film adaptation of Atonement, I admired its blend of deep emotions, layered characters and a somewhat fast-moving pace in the plotline. The scenes featured in the movie were all gripping, some picturesque and others gory and biting. The ending made me fight back fits of tears. So, after seeing the movie at my local theatre, I decided to pick up a copy of the book at the library. This wasn't easy, though, because all seven paperback copies were currently taken out, so I had to place a request for it.

When I finally received the book two weeks later, I dived in. McEwan's prose was lush and detailed, painting a vivid, rich picture in my mind. I was transported to the fountain by the Tallis house where Robbie and Cecilia shared an awkward encounter, or the steamy scene in the library, where they proclaimed their love for eachother. The characters' inner monologues were equally good. As a longtime writer, I could relate heavily to Briony's thoughts about what she regarded as a childish writing style lacking imagination or originality, and her struggle to break free from this and achieve maturity in her written pieces. Also, the part where she contemplates her body as a strange, intriguing mechanism of science was extraordinarily written, and certainly relatable, as everyone has thought this over at one point or another.

A great deal of the beginning of the story is dedicated to demonstrated the motivation for the "crime" that Briony commits - perhaps the inner core of the story, as it drives the rest of the events thereafter.
The layered aspect of the movie is also present in the novel, for it spans three distinct time periods in the twentieth century, and three different settings in England/France. Throughout Atonement, these are all juxtaposed.

When reading this book, one can learn more about World War II, both by the perspectives of a nurse and a soldier. Writers can explore the components of vibrant description. As a writer myself, McEwan has certainly impacted me. When I wrote a short story recently, I could see some of the beautifully detailed and investigative asepects of Atonement coming out in my own writing.

But, what perhaps makes McEwan one of the best current writers is his ability to tackle awkward or sensitive situations with utmost grace; like Robbie and Cecilia's awkward encounter in the library, or their steamy love scene between rows of bookshelves in the Tallis library, or Briony's difficult post-crime encounter with the man she wrongly accused.

McEwan's voice is beautiful and unwavering; Atonement is lush in detail, and covers a wide range of settings and emotions. After finishing the book, I felt like I could identify with each of the three main characters, for McEwan follows them all through their experiences pre-war and during the war. I would recommend this book to anyone, especially budding writers, those who enjoy characters studies, historical fiction fans, or just someone with a rainy day and a chance to pick up a book. ...less

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Carolyn rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

02/03/08

She sits at her desk in the fading late afternoon light that oozes in through the slats. Her hands hover over the keyboard, and she wills them to move, to begin typing out a review of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, but they do not. She understands, of course, that willing her hands to move and making them move are two entirely different things, that in fact the thinking about the one is preventing her from accomplishing the other. And yet she doesn't quite know where to begin, what to say.

How...more She sits at her desk in the fading late afternoon light that oozes in through the slats. Her hands hover over the keyboard, and she wills them to move, to begin typing out a review of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement, but they do not. She understands, of course, that willing her hands to move and making them move are two entirely different things, that in fact the thinking about the one is preventing her from accomplishing the other. And yet she doesn't quite know where to begin, what to say.

How can she best express her profound admiration for McEwan's gift of more fully putting the reader into the minds of his characters than perhaps any other writer she has read? In fact, there were many times throughout her reading of the book where McEwan captured the inner workings of a character with such precision that Carolyn thought to herself, "Why, yes, that's it exactly. That's exactly what would happen inside me if I were this character, in this situation, and yet never could I articulate it myself."

And what generosity of spirit McEwan demonstrates, that even the young person whose transgressions against the truth put the most crucial events of the story into motion and have such terrible consequences, is presented in such a way that, although we may despise what she does, we come to understand her so well. In truth, Carolyn, who was also given to trust in the conspiracies of her heart and her imagination as a child, saw some of herself in this character.

And oh, the structure, with its powerful final pages, surprising us and making this story so much more than it was already. Carolyn longs to say more about these final pages, but she is reluctant to do so, for fear of spoiling the novel's impact for others.

And yet, for all this, Carolyn cannot deny that there were sections in the book that did not fully captivate her. Surely such a revelation says more about her than about the book, for there is no denying that Atonement is a tremendous literary achievement. At times perhaps, to Carolyn, the narrator's description of the events and the internal lives of the characters was, perhaps, too precise, if such a thing can be possible...it felt a bit removed and clinical, coolly observing and reporting on the events from a safe remove.

She sits there still, trying to best determine how to express all this. Simply clicking the mouse to assign the book four out of five stars is so inadequate as to be almost comical, when thinking of such a rich, complex and wonderful book as Atonement. And yet she remains at a loss, utterly uncertain as to what else to do, as the sky outside her window takes on a soft pink and purple glow.

CP
Berkeley, 2008
...less

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Dixie rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

10/01/08

bookshelves: my-favs

Read in October, 2008

recommended to Dixie by: Annalisa (Thank you!)
recommends it for: book club

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Wow. A simple, three-letter word describes this book for me. If you ask me for a simple summary to see if you might be interested in picking it up, I would have to tell you... it is a beautiful love story within a story about childhood dreams, decisions and consequences; simply put.

I struggle beginning a new book when the writing style differs so much from my previous book. I went from simple young-adult fiction (The Bronze Bow) to Atonement. The styles couldn't be more different. I really s...more Wow. A simple, three-letter word describes this book for me. If you ask me for a simple summary to see if you might be interested in picking it up, I would have to tell you... it is a beautiful love story within a story about childhood dreams, decisions and consequences; simply put.

I struggle beginning a new book when the writing style differs so much from my previous book. I went from simple young-adult fiction (The Bronze Bow) to Atonement. The styles couldn't be more different. I really struggled getting into the first bit. I think I re-read every page, paragraph and word for the first 5 chapters. After 5 chapters I was finally grasping the style and getting into the story. It seemed so overly descriptive! It didn't help that I was reading the book while driving with 5 other women with another book being read aloud and other conversations to distract me. Lucky for me, I stuck with it.

Do not read on if you have not read the book:

If you know me, you know that I love a happy ending. A happy ending does not necessitate 'happily ever after' where no one suffers or learns a life lesson, however because of my optimism and hope for the 'happily ever after' I didn't want to believe Robbie and Cecilia didn't have theirs which is what kept me to intrigued.

When I read the part where Briony thought she might end up treating Robbie in the hospital, I had a grim thought that the author was foreshadowing the exact opposite. He was too clever through the book to give us such an obvious clue. Knowing this, did not keep me from hoping. I loved the patients she did have a chance to treat and comfort and I think that Briony giving us such detail about those strangers and what she felt for them and the care she gave them was her way of helping Robbie. She wanted what I wanted for her; a restitution. A chance to make it right. An atonement.

I felt a little sick to my stomach when I finished the end of Part III because I realized that was the end of the story and I didn't believe her ending. I was prepared for an unhappy ending and it seemed too superficial for me when it all seemed to be so perfect. Would Briony really change her story? Would she really be bold enough to face Cecilia and Robbie with the truth? Isn't it too good to be true that the festering wound in Robbie's side would just go away? I didn't realize all the symbolism and truth I had been reading over until I read the last sentence. I turned the final pages in the book, hoping there was more to the story, but when only the back cover looked back at me I knew it was over.

I feel that I need to start the book over again to truly appreciate all the details now that I know how it ends. I can't seem to stop thinking about it which is why I gave the book 5 stars. There is so much to analyze and discuss. I was captivated. I was moved to tears. I was shocked and I was amazed. Wow....less

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Cheryl rated it:

(review of isbn 038572179X)

02/05/08

bookshelves: nyt-bsl-january-2008

Read in March, 2008

Even if I hadn't added this book to my NYT BSL to read for January, I would have eventually picked the book up to read regardless. Simply because there is a movie out there by the same title (and in theory based upon the novel) that thoroughly intrigued me. I have yet to actually see the movie, but from the few trailers that I saw I felt I knew exactly what had happened and why without knowing the actual plot. I wasn't wrong. On the contrary, everyone of my theories turned out to be correct.

...more