Atonement in The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

Aug 17, 2010 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it liked it

Shelves: romance, popular-fiction, ultimate-reading-list, before-i-die, novels, contemporary, historical-fiction, literary-fiction, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I loved McEwan's prose style, and there are scenes in this book I know are going to haunt me. Part I, written in omniscient, takes place on one Summer day in 1935 and covers different perspectives, the most crucial being that of thirteen year old Briony who commits the "crime" against Robbie and her sister Cecilia that requires atonement. A lot of that part, which takes up half of the book, dragged for me, although I was impressed with how well the author conveyed early adolescent angst.

Part II I loved McEwan's prose style, and there are scenes in this book I know are going to haunt me. Part I, written in omniscient, takes place on one Summer day in 1935 and covers different perspectives, the most crucial being that of thirteen year old Briony who commits the "crime" against Robbie and her sister Cecilia that requires atonement. A lot of that part, which takes up half of the book, dragged for me, although I was impressed with how well the author conveyed early adolescent angst.

Part II covers Dunkirk from Robbie's perspective. Part Three is from Briony's perspective as a nurse in wartime London. The scenes in those second two parts involving World War II were so evocative and immersive I can't regret reading this book. But then we get the coda set in 1999 and it left me sputtering in anger. The thing is that ending in many ways is brilliant, and I can recognize that even through my hate for it.

***Spoilers***

And here be the spoiler part where I get the bitterness towards the Briony the author and McEwan the Author off my chest. In the third part, Briony gets the letter from the magazine about her novella, and I feel contemptuous because obviously she's learned nothing. What happened to Robbie--what she did to Robbie--is still nothing but grist for her writing mill. Certainly her working as a nurse is no atonement--its more material for her writing and self-aggrandizement. If you truly want to atone for a crime, the first thing you must do above all is eschew the spoils--and real regret and the ironies of that letter seemed lost on her.

Then, well, she seems to have enough of an epiphany and to see something of the letter's irony to come to her sister and do what Cecelia and Robbie want her to do to put things to rights. Doing so would have real cost, cause real pain and humiliation to her and the book there might have ended on a note of redemption for the character.

But wait! It turns out in the contemporary coda that Robbie and Cecelia died in the war, Briony has had a brilliant career as a novelist and is celebrated by her family in her old age. Even the odious Lola and Paul are Lady and Lord. Her "atonement" is a creative non-fiction account of what happened on that day over 60 years ago (with a happy ending!)--and it will only be released after Briony's death when it can cost her nothing.

I can already hear people protesting that ending it without the coda would be too pat. Why that coda is a brilliant reflection on the nature of writing and the author as God! (The very fact that's pointed out in the book just makes me feel even more bitter toward McEwan.)

Sorry. But there's something a bit too facile in that. I'm a bit alienated by writers who write about writing--it's narcissistic, as if nothing *is* more important than God, the author. Mind you, that is an apt characterization of Briony--from adolescent to septuagenarian--but I was still left angry at her and Ewan both. ...more

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Nov 04, 2010 Allan Fisher rated it really liked it

Shelves: literature, booker-nominated

A brilliant book and a change from the sci-fi I have been reading lately.
I found it interesting that Briony Tallis, the girl who commits the crime, is portrayed as a future author. An interesting take by McEwan - I am not sure of his full reason for this. I am sure it has been said before but is McEwan saying imagination is responsible for this crime? On reflection it is a simple thing to do in the circumstances, especially for children who can so easily believe the worlds they create with one h ...more

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