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Atonement

Ian McEwan

Start date: April 1, 2014

Finish date: April 30, 2014

Discussion leader: Christine

Why we're reading this: "There is no disguise about the primary theme of Atonement-it’s there for us to see in bold in the title.…more
[close] "There is no disguise about the primary theme of Atonement-it’s there for us to see in bold in the title. This is a novel about guilt and forgiveness.
But it’s a tricky thing this process of
atonement and this novel looks at what creates the context for guilt in the
first place,how do we share this guilt
and how do we atone for it?

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Oct 05, 2018 James rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites, generally-general, physically-owned, 2018-reads

Somewhat late to the party, or effigy burning, as it’s clear this book has polarised people. But first the initial impressions: loved it, wow, total knockout, holy shit, and other superlatives. This reaction is surprising, as Solar (read a while ago) was in hindsight supremely forgettable: what even happened? Here with Atonement, maybe some professional reviews overdo themselves with their dramatics in ejaculations like, from my back blurb, “No one now writing fiction in the English language su Somewhat late to the party, or effigy burning, as it’s clear this book has polarised people. But first the initial impressions: loved it, wow, total knockout, holy shit, and other superlatives. This reaction is surprising, as Solar (read a while ago) was in hindsight supremely forgettable: what even happened? Here with Atonement, maybe some professional reviews overdo themselves with their dramatics in ejaculations like, from my back blurb, “No one now writing fiction in the English language surpasses Ian McEwan,” or “McEwan could be the most psychologically astute writer working today[.]” These thunderous declarations too comfortably settle in on the too-presumptuous side for my liking. But it's hard denying that, from the writing to characterisation, structure to self-reflexivity, Atonement more than justifies itself as an impressive technical and narrative achievement, and a wholly entrancing character study besides.

Sure, this study concerns a truly infuriating character in Briony (even the name, like Umbridge, sets some people’s blood to boiling). Yet it’s nonetheless damn interesting. Her practical and philosophical interest in storytelling, being a budding writer, results in expansive contemplation on the nature of language, texts, and fiction, which gives us long, flowing sentences like these: “The title lettering, the illustrated, the pages bound—in that word alone she felt the attraction of the neat, limited and controllable form she had left behind when she decided to write a play,” which “in the garden of the arts… was a weed and had to die.” On that word: she sees it as a “typographical demon,” yet evoking “[t]hree figures huddling at the foot of the cross.” On the future novel: “[i]t was thought, perception, sensations that interested her, the conscious mind as a river through time, and how to represent its onward roll,” etc. Atonement is largely (or even entirely) a fiction about fiction, but far from being superficial, artificial, or obnoxious (though Briony herself embodies the latter so well), it is at the same time incredibly human—in all its contradictions that so offend young Briony, who also embodies idealistic order against Robbie’s and Cecelia’s untidy chaos: “What fairy tale ever held so much by way of contradiction?”

Where this book gets postmodern, apart from its self-consciousness about form, also puts us in spoiler territory, hence these tags. (view spoiler)

Other criticism has been lobbed its way, and shields thrown up to deflect them. All make points varying from legitimate to, frankly, outright bonkers ones. I heard someone suggest today in class that the second part could be deleted, and the third aggressively trimmed, to little negative effect. What? Considering the book in light of the above spoiler, this would instead have the effect of what happens when you set fire to the drapes in the library. Atonement, from beginning to end, jumps from inner world to inner world, from Cecelia’s (with her exasperation), Robbie’s (ambition), Emily’s (”slow drift of association”), and most engagingly of all, Briony’s, which is a world of immature emotions, writerly concerns, and elaborate fancies, a perfect storm of chaos in a self-styled symbol of order. By itself, the book's postmodern aspect may just be cleverness, yet within the fuller context of the story (and Briony's character), not to be dismissed out of hand. ...more

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May 31, 2013 Kristi Krumnow rated it it was amazing

Shelves: physical-book-with-paper-pages

Author Ian McEwen performs a lot of weaving in his writing. He does this on many levels, from a character's individual memory, to particular stories that return on the sly many pages later, to larger events that return in new sections. Even though suspicious of who did the crime, we finally learn the truth of this whodunit at the end, allowing for us to be outfoxed into a game with the author, the game of truth and falsity. McEwen traps us into the web-game so that we have to ask ourselves, once ...more

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May 02, 2010 Kelsey Gregory rated it really liked it

Atonement is a haunting tale about an imaginative girl who tells a lie that ruins the life of not only herself, but the people around her as well. In this novel, author Ian McEwan explores the concept of forgiveness and what one can do to earn it.
I personally love this book. As a big Jane Austen fan, it is such a treat to read a book that has stylistic similarities to old style english. At times I found the book a little slow for me, but now that I have read the whole thing I'm really glad I ...more

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