Atonement
by Ian McEwan
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Book Reviews of Atonement
Book Review: If you're writing your thesis...
Summary: 3 Stars
...on modernist influences in contemporary literature, get this book. If, on the other hand, you would be reading it just for fun, I'd say skip it.
Allow me to explain my position. My degree is in modern literature with an emphasis on the work of Virginia Woolf. McEwan is obviously greatly influenced by VW's work--in fact, at one point the narrator even mentions that she has read The Waves three times (and I am betting that McEwan has as well). Like VW, he is a master of the English language. Very few living authors could compete with him stylistically. McEwan is not just writing a novel--he is creating a work of literature, one that I would bet will be read in college classrooms for generations to come. If I could, I would give him six out of five stars for his brilliant craftsmanship of this work.
However, I would never read The Waves for fun, and I wouldn't recommend reading Atonment for fun either. Even though it was brilliant, I did not enjoy it. I found it tedious and, oddly enough, a little too highbrow for my tastes. I say this as a person who has absolutely loved some of the other works of great contemporary literature, like The Hours, for example. I cared about the characters in The Hours. I did not care about the characters of Atonement. They left me cold, and the entire plot of the book could easily be summarized in a page or two.
Atonement is a lot of beautiful language and very little storytelling. Even the supposed big twist at the end left me saying, "Um, okay, that's mildly interesting, I guess." Many hardcore literary types have probably loved this book, but I can't recommend it to anyone else.
Book Review: Interesting But Over-Hyped
Summary: 3 Stars
Overall, I liked the book but do consider it over-hyped. I enjoyed the first part and didn't have a problem with the same "scenes" described from different people's perspective that some people seemed to have. Actually, I thought that worked very well. I thought the characters were very well drawn out and you could understand (may not agree but understand) their motivations.
If you're expecting a twist or deep secret, don't. There isn't one. Most people will figure out what is going on and who did what right from the start.
For me, the book falls apart in the second section. It is still well written and very descriptive, perhaps overly so as some have pointed out. But I did think I got a feel for London at the beginning of WWII.
Spoiler Alert.
I don't necessarily like happy endings but the ending is unsatisfying. The man who actually molested a child ends up marrying her and evidently lives happily ever after. You don't really get much sense of where Briony has been other than that she is losing her memory. BTW, I thought this was a nice touch. Evidently she is being tortured by what she did and, short of death, this might provide her some relief. And the hero and heroine die during the war. The book ends where it started with Briony's play. Didn't see the point of that. Interestingly, the movie took this scene out completely and replaced it with Cee and Robbie frolicking on the beach near the cottage she had arranged fro them to go to after Robbie returned. I guess the movie producers thought that the ending was too much of a downer and put in that fantasy scene.
Book Review: Superficial, Cheesy and Agonisingly Boring
Summary: 1 Stars
Let's not beat around the bush. If I were ever asked to make a list of the ten worst books I've ever read, Atonement would be on that list. And pretty high up.
I read Saturday by Ian McEwan a few months ago; picked it up at an airport. I liked it. So when I saw the movie Atonement was playing on several of the flights I was recently on, I decided to get the book first, before watching the movie. What a mistake.
The plot of this book is superficial, not to say cheesy (a girl falsely accuses her sister's boyfriend for raping her cousin, and a long journey of "atonement" begins). McEwan's talent for descriptive writing is lost in tediously long passages that made me flip back a few pages just to remember where the story was left off. I found myself not caring what would happen next, but calculating how many pages I have left. The book took me ages to read; time and again I found myself yawning after a few pages, then dozing off into blissful sleep.
Why waste words on such a terrible book. I have no idea why it became a bestseller and what all the hype is about. On a recent trip to London I bought On Chesil Beach, so I'm going to give McEwan another chance. Hopefully Atonement is nothing but an aberration.
I should have known though... Through the book cover (I got the mass paperback version, depicted above) I learnt that the main character in the book - that annoying, whining, wish-I-could-smack-her, spoilt brat - Briony, is played by Keira Knightley, one of the worst actresses recently seen on the big screen. On second thoughts, what a fitting choice...
Book Review: Masterwork
Summary: 5 Stars
I'd never read McEwen before and the first 100 pages of this book were rather slow, but I plowed on through and was rewarded with a masterful, well written story. McEwen is a master of the english language and the plot was very intricate and well conceived. There is also much in this book about the history of England during World War II, and that is perhaps the icing on the cake of this great story. The evacuation of the British troops at Dunkirk and the subplot of the three soldiers making their way to the French coast during the mass retreat was probably my favorite part of this book. However, the final portion of the book, which had to do with training nurses in London during the outbreak of hostilities was also very interesting.
I wasn't as interested in the lead-in to the story, which revolved around the pre-war English country life, but it also had it's moments of intrigue and drama. The story is centered around a romance and while I'm not much for romance stories, I must admit it did draw me in. The many twists and turns in the plot build towards a fabulous ending, which although I thought I had figured out by the time I got there, I hadn't.
The prose and style is incredible throughout, very descriptive and rich with detail. Character developement is obviously a specialty of McEwen's and each of his subjects is multifaceted and complex. I would recommend this book to everyone, and I have, and I will be looking to read many more of McEwen's novels in the future.
Book Review: A truly admirable novel
Summary: 4 Stars
So many people have written a review of this book already that I think it would be a little redundant of me to do another plot summary (yawn). Suffice it to say that the plot really revolves around three characters: Briony Tallis, who's thirteen in the summer of 1935, her sister Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the charlady's son, who conducts an illicit romance with her. The novel is written in four parts, taking place in 1935, the Battle of Dunkirk during WWII, at a hospital in London, and then in 1999 when Briony is an old woman.
I have to say that I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. I'd heard that the book was slow to begin with, but for me that wasn't the case at all. Rather, it was when the novel got to WWII where my interest began to flag a bit (I'm sorry, but endless descriptions of warfare are uninteresting to me). The novel is all about perspective: that of thirteen-year-old Briony as she truly doesn't understand what was going on at the fountain that day; that of Robbie on the warfront; that of Briony, age 18 as a nurse and trying to make amends for what she has done; and that of 77-year old Briony at her birthday party. It's a pretty amazing story, and McEwan is a pretty fantastic writer. Even though I really didn't like Briony, I could more or less understand why she does what she does. It's a book with a complicated plot and not much action--but don't allow that to put you off from reading this truly admirable novel.