A scintillating piece of the purest gemstone, a diamond, was tracing around the forceps of a persona, the face of a mountain. The sky was a jet-black expanse devoid of sunlight and every color that pleases the eyes. There were small bursts of constant explosions inside that cavernous cave of red. A ripping sensation engulfed the whole scenery, like a piece of meat being torn by a pack of savage dogs. Emptiness. Then, a small stream of gold flowed from the heavens. Color was restored in the most simple of hues. The raging river was calmed and tamed. There was absolute stillness in the valley. A small crack, a curve, appeared on the face of the mountain. A smile. Then, I closed that little book called "Atonement".Ian McEwan's masterpiece left me a man defined by his emotions. It was a breath-taking view I glimpsed but I fell into a pit of the darkest kind. I was a happy yet an unhappy man. The logical part of me was so astounded and amazed by that single confession, that act of self-abdication. The logical man was very impressed by that post-modernist ending. Yet, that man of feeling was abhorred and devastated. He was deftly crushed. I did not know what to say. Of course, in times like these, feeling is preemptive of thinking. One feels before one thinks. When the dust settled, all I felt was anger, then I saw the light. This is sort of reminiscent to Lolita. Where Nabokov uses literary artistry to, in a way, ask for consideration on Humbert's part. To mask the monster underneath a facade of beauty. McEwan adapts this concept in a different way. Instead of aesthetic artistry, though it is still present, the manipulation of fates and events become the central point of his undertaking. They both acknowledge the healing powers of the written word. Before the book even started, the reader is already given a Romantic novel quote--something out of Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey." This sets the tone for a book that will be packed with literary allegory. Even the form of the book walks the reader through some of English lit's historical periods: Part One--Austen'esque Romanticism; Part Two--Historical Fiction War Story; Part Three--Victorian or Modern Memoir; and Part Four--Post Modern speculation and theory. You see, McEwan's Briony cleverly concocted a covering of gold to a broken statue of clay.“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.”Briony will never receive Atonement. But, I do believe that she has achieved At-One-Ment with herself if not with her readers, for she has done everything in her power to make up for her crime. “A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.” If you consider the gravity of Briony's crime, the effect, the outcome, even when you put her innocence in consideration, one can't help but feel hatred for her. I admit, I did. But in time, the fact that it was the effect of a wildly imaginative ardor will soften the blow. Surely, atonement isn't for her, but sympathy is what she deserves and it's what she refuses to get. Some might consider her act of altering the story a Pontius Pilate act. But I admire her for it. She shuns sympathy even when she greatly needs it because she knows she doesn't deserve it. And though she might not be able to mend the flesh, she was able to conjure their spirit of love. Robbie and Cecilia might be gone, but their love lives in the memories of people who read their story. Much like Briony has etched herself in mine. I know what she looks like. I watched her grow up. I was there every step of the way, and I will keep a part of her alive in me until the day I take my last breath. But even then, that wouldn't be the end. Others will take her up in their memories and keep her alive. Sure, she might not be the same as when I envisioned her. But she'll live far longer than I. So the same will go for the lovers. Therefore I wholeheartedly agree with the excerpt below. “But what really happened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish.”Literature immortalized their love, and that's all that matters. Not her Atonement, but their Love.
Four stars for the exquisite, lush descriptions in Part 1. Astute insight into a variety of characters and their motivations. The details of a single day made me feel I was there. (My frustrations at the ending make it a grudging four stars.)I read Part 1 with suspense (even trepidation) at every turn, but it was fueled by information on the book's cover--telling me that Briony would accuse Robbie of a crime and it would change their lives forever. (I am not sure how I would have reacted to this section without that knowledge. This detracts from the book's inherent power, having to rely upon the cover copywriters.) The long descriptions of each moment, with its smells and light, prolonged this delicious agony. Parts 2 & 3 flew by in comparison, with the crime already committed and the days and years described succinctly.I am especially impressed with McEwan's understanding of how a 13-year-old girl, in her immature, orderly, and righteous ways, would feel revolted, defiled, and betrayed by the idea of blatant adult sexuality. I can believe she would respond as she does, and that she would be unable to distinguish between a maniac and a lover.Class is a major theme, and who can argue with the classism McEwan portrays? The evil rich prosper and the innocent poor are squashed underfoot. An interlocking theme is freedom--to choose a path and live your life. Of course, there is also loss of innocence ("she was still wearing the filthy white dress").***SPOILERS BELOW!***I feel cheated by the revelation in the last pages, of fiction within fiction. If the whole book is Briony's version of the story, it should be first-person. Of course, this is the main theme of this novel--the creator of fiction wields considerable control over others, concealing or changing words at his/her own whim. So I think McEwan wants to piss us off to make his point. Why else "deceive" the reader, then "un-deceive?" He seems to say that readers want a "happy ending," but I'd rather have a tragic one and know it than have "happy" one ripped away from me. Briony creates the false happy ending (the one she wishes had happened) for her own selfish reasons, and perhaps it helps her sleep at night.The book's title is never achieved for me: Briony cannot atone for her wrong. She wants her novel to be an atonement. She wants her service as a nurse to atone. But, for Robbie and Cecilia, the damage cannot be undone. Briony spends her life having to assuage her conscience through her writing. But she lives a long, prosperous/satisfyingly successful, comfortable life, so I feel her novel is too little, way too late.What about Briony's experience with the West Indian, lawyer cabbie? You can't tell who's educated nowadays, she says. That should have been true for Robbie in 1935 and she knows it.Where are the reliable, loyal men among the characters? Not Jack Tallis, absent father who can't even get home in an emergency. Not Leon, who is married four times and can't seem to commit to the profession he studied. Only Robbie is "innocent" (although the consensual fornication he commits with Cecilia in the library would have been a crime in 1935 though it is not to modern readers), and he is accused by the pillars of society. Perhaps the blue-collar men are reliable and loyal--the constable, the servants, the soldiers. They also have to jump when the rich say jump (make a roast on the hottest day of the year, die in the war, etc.).I'm also not convinced of some plot elements: Wouldn't Cecilia make some argument as to Robbie's innocence--wouldn't it be heard by someone--or is her testimony nullified by her indecent acts in the library, acts I'm not sure are fully revealed? Couldn't she appeal to the sister who wanted to protect her--do they never talk after that night? Would Lola marry Marshall (I can't give 20-year-old Lola the same inability to distinguish between maniac and lover that I can allow in 13-year-old Briony)? Would Marshall seek a legitimate relationship with Lola? How can the lifelong prosperity of the Marshalls, shown by Briony in the final section, have had its beginnings in the violent, hateful acts we witness in 1935 (rape is not an act of sex, it is an act of violence)? Would Jackson and Pierrot be close, life-long family members of Briony, while their sister Lola is estranged from Briony? I feel including Jackson and his descendants in the final birthday party for Briony is a convenient plot element, but not believable.
What do You think about Atonement (2003)?
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.
—Allison
Goddamn you, Ian McEwan. I have previously cursed you for writing some of the most heart-wrenchingly painful shit I’ve ever read. Today, I curse your skill.I put off this book for a long time. I found it a couple of years ago on a bargain rack for two dollars and picked it up, knowing I’d get to it eventually. I wasn’t super excited, because I saw the rather uninspired film adaptation. I don’t usually enjoy historical fiction, either, so there were the two big arguments against actually putting the time in. McEwan, you’re an investment. I know this.I’ve got no idea why I picked it up. It was the day before the new semester started, and Atonement looked interesting. I read something like ten pages that night before putting it aside. Then class started and I didn’t have time for it. It sat there on my nightstand for weeks. The part I read was interesting, but I couldn’t dedicate the time necessary to the dense prose. But then it started bothering me. I didn’t like that I’d started it, but didn’t finish. So I picked it up and finished it.One of those courses I’m taking is in creative writing. Each week, we are assigned a chapter in the textbook that focuses on how to write the different aspects of a story well (plot, setting, characters, etc.). Atonement could have been a companion text for how to do everything right. That is frustrating when you’re struggling to do anything right.Beautifully written, terrifically painful. McEwan is a dick of the highest order.
—Caris
I absolutely loved this book. It was romantic and very moving at times, with intelligent, complex themes about guilt and the power of writing. The book is split into 3 distinct parts with a final denouement at the end that ties them all together. The 1st part plays out on a country estate where Cecilia, the wealthy daughter of the estate owners, finds hersrlf attracted to Robbie, the son of their charwoman. However, her relationship with Robbie is misinterpreted by Cecilia's younger sister, Briony, which leads to tragedy. With the emphasis of class distinctions and upper class hypocrisy, this section is very reminiscent of Jane Austen and the book, in fact, opens with a quote from Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. McEwan is an excellent writer and the scenes between the lovers are charged with eroticism and longing:“Now and then, an inch below the water's surface, the muscles of his stomach tightened involuntarily as he recalled another detail. A drop of water on her upper arm. Wet. An embroidered flower, a simple daisy, sewn between the cups of her bra. Her breasts wide apart and small. On her back, a mole half covered by a strap. When she climbed out of the pond a glimpse of the triangular darkness her knickers were supposed to conceal. Wet. He saw it, he made himself see it again. The way her pelvic bones stretched the material clear of the skin, the deep curve of her waist, her startling whiteness. When she reached for her skirt, a carelessly raised foot revealed a patch of soil on each pad of her sweetly diminished toes. Another mole the size of a farthing on her thigh and something purplish on her calf--a strawberry mark, a scar. Not blemishes. Adornments.”The 2nd part of the book is a war novel where Robbie finds himself in the middle of the British Army's rout in France and it's frantic withdrawl to Dunkirk at the start of WWII. The horrors of war are well described in this section and Robbie keeps going for one reason only: Cecilia's promise that she would wait for him:"I'll wait for you was elemental. It was the reason he had survived. It was the ordinary way of saying she would refuse all other men. Only you. Come back."The final section is a coming of age story and deals with Briony's attempt to atone for her guilt by volunteering at a hospital. McEwan does a excellent job in this section of writing a historical novel about life in England at the start of the war. The fear of a German invasion is palpable and blackout curtains and bomb shelters become a way of life.McEwan takes his time setting up the plot and he carefully describes each of the main characters, especially Briony, at the start of the novel. You get a real feel for their personalities and desires and this helps give gravitas to the tragic events that play out. I did watch the movie version several years ago and, surprisingly, this didn't ruin the book for me. To some extent, it actually made the novel better since all the events had an undercurrent of sadness to them as I read. I'm a romantic and a sucker for well written love stories: "Nothing as singular or as important had happened since the day of his birth. She returned his gaze, struck by the sense of her own transformation, and overwhelmed by the beauty in a face which a lifetime's habit had taught her to ignore. She whispered his name with the deliberation of a child trying out the distinct sounds. When he replied with her name, it sounded like a new word - the syllables remained the same, the meaning was different. Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art or bad faith can ever quite cheapen. She repeated them, with exactly the same emphasis on the second word, as if she had been the one to say them first. He had no religious belief, but it was impossible not to think of an invisible presence or witness in the room, and that these words spoken aloud were like signatures on an unseen contract”
—Jon
