Atonement
by Ian McEwan
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Book Summary Information
Author: Ian McEwanEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-11-27
ISBN: 0307388840
Number of pages: 496
Publisher: Anchor
Book Reviews of Atonement
Book Review: Takes awhile to get into, but worth the ride ** warning: spoilers ahead
Summary: 4 Stars
McEwan's writing style is definitely an acquired taste--there are times when it seems like he is overwriting the novel, and we are drumming through as a reader to try to extract the next available plot event. It took me a few chapters to get moving more rapidly with the reading, but ultimately it was rewarding. While the novel does take awhile to get going, the story picks up steam towards the second half. McEwan has an ability to illustrate and pinpoint detail with great vividness, and that goes a long way in creating believable characters, and successfully moving back and forth in time.
** Warning: Spoilers and plot summary ahead, skip to next paragraph if you haven't read book**
Basically the novel is divided into four main parts. Part one begins with young Briony writing a play and awaiting her cousins as well as her brother's arrival. Briony witnesses a moment of flirting between her sister and Robbie at the fountain and then, after reading a "dirty" letter intended for Cecilia, misconstrues Robbie as being some sort of "monster". Later, while both families are out searching for her twin cousins who have run off, she witnesses her cousin Lola apparently being molested by a man. Putting all she has seen--and read-- together, she comes to the conclusion that the man must have been Robbie. Unwavering in her testimony, Briony is the one who sends Robbie off to prison despite his protests. Part two fast forwards a few years where we are given a first-hand account of Robbie's role in the war. He and his comrades encounter many grizzly deaths, and witness first-hand how brutality of battle can strip away the spirit of individuals, both physically and mentally. Robbie keeps Cecelia's note to "come back" to her as comfort and motivation to survive. Cecilia had been the only one of the Tallis family who had believed in his innocence. Part three takes the story at the same time from Briony's point of view. Living with her sin, she is now working relentlessly as a probationer in a hospital helping out fallen and injured soldiers during wartime. Much like Robbie, Briony has had her freedoms stripped from her, only she has done it of her own accord. Briony's work is a form of atonement, as she also sees war's brutal and graphic results, and tries to comfort and tend to the severely injured and the dying. Having written and not heard from her sister Cecilia, she decides one day to go out and find her sister's place. After seeing her sister, she learns that Robbie is there also, and he confronts Briony about the past, telling her that there is one thing she must do to "atone" for her past: tell everyone what the truth is. Briony leaves, apparently agreeing to do this. From here, part four fast forwards to an elderly Briony's point of view. She has gone to her doctor, and realizes that the headaches she has are an early sign of dementia. She only has a short amount of time before this condition will ultimately rob her of her mind, her thoughts, her identity and her life. Despite hearing this news, she is upbeat as she returns home, and gets there to witness many of the young grandchildren perform her childhood play, "The Trials of Arabella." It is significant because this play takes her back to the past, of that fateful day where she made her mistake. She has been a successful writer, but there is one book that never got published and that has gone through many different drafts. It is basically the story of Robbie and Cecilia, and the mistake she made to ruin their love. She tells us that the book has two different endings--one where Robbie and Cecilia live happily ever after, and the other one, in which Robbie and Cecilia both die in 1940. She chooses the first ending because as she puts it "Who would want to believe that they never met again, never fulfilled their love?" She reflects on whether she has atoned for her sin or not.
One significant issue taken from McEwan's novel is the idea of forgiveness. As the novel progresses, not only is Briony coming to terms with what her lie does to the fates of her sister and Robbie, but herself as well. We wonder whether they should forgive her for this, or what acts of retribution make up for a moment of sin. There is a sense that, although Briony is young when making her poor decision, that once her statement is taken down by the police, the fate of the three main characters are all sealed, and that they must all pay for years to come. Briony makes her form of redemption by working tirelessly during the war, and there is a sense by novel's end that McEwan wants us to forgive, or at least be sympathetic to, Briony. This seems especially true since the last two parts of the novel are taken from her point of view. However it is, it begs to the ultimate question at the end: Do WE forgive Briony?
It is easy to see how this novel was turned into a film up for an award last year, because the scenery and moments "come to life" in McEwan's writing. As far as reading, I would recommend this novel, but do so with the advice that it might take you more than one try to get through, but that it will ultimately pay off. I watched the film first before reading, but now am anxious to go back and watch the film again.
Summary of Atonement
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 of a servant. But Briony?s incomplete grasp of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all their lives, a crime whose repercussions Atonement follows through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.Ian McEwan's Booker Prize-nominated Atonement is his first novel since Amsterdam took home the prize in 1998. But while Amsterdam was a slim, sleek piece, Atonement is a more sturdy, more ambitious work, allowing McEwan more room to play, think, and experiment.
We meet 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the summer of 1935, as she attempts to stage a production of her new drama "The Trials of Arabella" to welcome home her older, idolized brother Leon. But she soon discovers that her cousins, the glamorous Lola and the twin boys Jackson and Pierrot, aren't up to the task, and directorial ambitions are abandoned as more interesting prospects of preoccupation come onto the scene. The charlady's son, Robbie Turner, appears to be forcing Briony's sister Cecilia to strip in the fountain and sends her obscene letters; Leon has brought home a dim chocolate magnate keen for a war to promote his new "Army Ammo" chocolate bar; and upstairs, Briony's migraine-stricken mother Emily keeps tabs on the house from her bed. Soon, secrets emerge that change the lives of everyone present....
The interwar, upper-middle-class setting of the book's long, masterfully sustained opening section might recall Virginia Woolf or Henry Green, but as we move forward--eventually to the turn of the 21st century--the novel's central concerns emerge, and McEwan's voice becomes clear, even personal. For at heart, Atonement is about the pleasures, pains, and dangers of writing, and perhaps even more, about the challenge of controlling what readers make of your writing. McEwan shouldn't have any doubts about readers of Atonement: this is a thoughtful, provocative, and at times moving book that will have readers applauding. --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk
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