Atonement
by Ian McEwan
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Book Reviews of Atonement
Book Review: Not What I Expected ...
Summary: 3 Stars
I normally have a 100 page limit on a book where if it doesn't pick up by then, I would put it down and consider it a lost cause. This book is really tedious in the beginning ... lots of flowery words and it just wasn't getting anywhere. Frankly, it was just boring. It finally picked up when Robbie, the accused, was marching home from a battle ... till the end. I have to admit, I never felt drawn to the characters at all in this book. I thought it was a superficial book, written in a way that you keep thinking it's a movie, peopled by people who just aren't real.
I haven't seen the movie, so I don't know how good that is. I figured out who was the antagonist early on. I figured out why Briony blamed Robbie for the crime and I figured out the ending long before it arrived. The saving grace of this novel is the World War II scenes and the nursing scenes that Briony described. I love history and that little bits of it really saved this book for me.
If you like books where people put on affected airs, you'll love this book. If you like writing that is long-winded and trying to be flowery and lyrical, this book is for you. Don't try to read this book when you're in a bad mood, because it will keep you grumpy (that is probably my problem). If you have the time to sit and read a book like this, I highly recommend it. If you're a busy mom like me, no, this book won't do. It just didn't move fast enough for me to savor.
8/3/08
Book Review: A Writer Learns About Life
Summary: 5 Stars
There are so many reviews of this book already that I am loathe to add more redundant verbiage to the pile. So I'll just say that this is my third Ian McEwan novel (having read "On Chesil Beach" and "Saturday" before I read this one), and I must say that he is now one of my favorite writers. This book functions on so many levels and in the end is really as much about the craft of writing as anything else. We first meet Briony, who is really the protagonist, as a young adolescent, and we see into her young mind and heart, and understand, before she does, the disaster that her overactive imagination will cause in the lives of her friends and family. She is precocious and thoughtful, but she is young and fails to understand that she is wrong, in so many ways, about what she sees before her own eyes. Her emotions and her imagination get the better of her and although she ultimately realizes the mistake she made and seeks atonement for it, she has nonetheless changed forever the lives of her Cecilia, her sister, and of Robbie, the young man with a promising future whose mother works for the Tallis family. Ironically, though, it is her imagination that will serve her well as a novelist. The book flows through personal lives, society, as well as world history and moves from mid-20th century to the end of the century. A good deal of ground to cover, but McEwan does it well, I think. The characters are interesting and real and the story is compelling.Book Review: Slightly bored; extremely confused
Summary: 2 Stars
I won't reiterate the pros and cons of this novel, which many talented reviewers have done before.
I only want to pose a question to all readers -- because, having read the book through twice, I still don't get this part:
Lola and Paul Marshall. First he assaults her and she covers for him (falsely blaming her little brothers); then he rapes her and she covers for him again; then she marries him. WTF?
Alternate interpretation: They have consensual rough foreplay the first time; then consensual sex; and then she marries him. This would make sense -- if only I could convince myself that a 15-year-old upper-crust girl in 1935 England would have rough foreplay with a man she'd just met.
Alternate interpretation: She fought him off the first time, then had consensual sex the second time; then married him. Nope; that's another WTF. What girl of that era -- or any era -- would willingly have sex with a man who had just assaulted her?
I'm lost. Somebody, please, explain Lola's motivation to me. Otherwise, I am forced to go with my gut interpretation: Lola's actions make no sense, but we're just supposed to accept them because she's (a) a villainess and (b) a female (and therefore can be dismissed as irrational by nature), and (c) a minor character, quickly dispensed with, whose main duty is to be a Contrivance of the Plot.
Booker Prize, anyone?
Book Review: Falls Short of Its Potential
Summary: 3 Stars
Although I was tempted to just see the movie, I picked up the book Atonement instead, reminding myself that the book is nearly always better than the movie. Now I'm curious, wondering whether the movie has corrected the book's faults. It started off so well: a good concept, a main character with good potential, and an engaging, beautifully written first section. But by the second section, I had to force myself to keep reading, wondering why people thought the book was good enough to be made into a movie. When I got to the war section, I started speed reading. I still don't know what the war section had to do with Robbie's character development or the plot development. After that, I just jumped ahead to the predictable ending (something I never do...but even the speed reading was putting me to sleep...). I wish McEwan had developed Lola's and Paul's characters more--what reaction are we supposed to have at their wedding? Why does Briony first become a nurse instead of a writer? We are led toward visions of her attending an MFA program or at least getting an internship at a magazine. Although the ending is poetically correct, it's not very satisfying. I'll think I'll wait until the movie comes out on DVD (at the library) to find out if it is a more satisfying story than the book was. This book was quite a surprising disappointment.Book Review: Better than I expected
Summary: 5 Stars
I really enjoy reading Ian Mcewan's books, but I didn't expect much from this one since both my mother and my friend had stopped reading it midway. That was a few years ago. When I saw that the movie came out I figured I better read it before seeing the film. So I checked out this "mass market version." I usually steer away from these editions but I like the way the cover looks and feels. Anyway, at no point during my read of this book did I want to take a break from it. Quite a bit of time is spent setting up characters and background, but this only makes the events that follow all the more gripping and compelling. I really cared about the characters and felt what they were going through as much as I have in any book I've read. At times I even felt my body reacting to McEwan's highly descriptive writing. Indeed, this is an intense and at times grisly read, but it's one that creates an enjoyable connection to the story that McEwan exploits to the fullest as he plays with expectations and draws out some points in the story while delivering plot development in shockingly brisk fashion at others. He makes it easy to get sucked in. I still haven't seen the movie, but the pleasure I got from the book was more than I expected from both.