Rating: 
Summary: A pathetic excuse for literature
Review: This book completely blew me away with the fact that the main charactor never ever uses the word tractor. This was about the only thing I enjoyed in the book. As a professor of micrefonology I was shocked at the way roosters are portrayed in this book.In short, I would reccomend this book to anyone who loves pumpkin pie. Thank you, Professor Horace Montgomery
Rating: 
Summary: Unforgettable
Review: This is an incredibly well written book that manages to masterfully integrate distinct characters and story lines. This is the first book of Mr. McEwan's that I have read, but after reading it, I would rank him as one of the finest contemporary authors I read in years. Mr. McEwan has the ability to tell great stories from a unique perspective. I was thoroughly drawn into the world he creates regarding British aristocratic life and he portrays the horrors of war with human survival dramas. This is the kind of rare novel that can envelope you and leave you thinking about what happened and what might have been. It's unforgettable and magnificent.
Rating: 
Summary: Been there, done that
Review: I enjoyed the book, but as I was reading I kept sensing that I had read this before..don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting plagiarism at all...just the familiarity of the tone, the mood of the novels of Rumer Godden, a novelist of great popularity in the 1950s. Try her Episode of Sparrows, and then read Atonement with a different set of expectations and perceptions.
Rating: 
Summary: It could've been a beautiful thing
Review: I have mixed feelings about Ian McEwan. I loved "Enduring Love", but I found "Amsterdam" to be a piece of shallow, over-clever trickery; "Black Dogs" is pure, distilled brilliance, while some of his short stories collections, and his earlier work, just parade a kind of smug delight with the macabre mixed with schoolboy, pull-the-wings-off-flies sadism, albeit with very precise use of language and almost coldly elegant narrative skill. McEwan has long been fascinated with the shadowy side of human nature, sometimes to the point of fetishising the grotesque. Sometimes this means intriguing, off-beat insights, as in "Enduring Love", which was a truly original and unique novel (much more deserving of the Booker than "Amsterdam"), and for this reason I keep coming back to him.
"Atonement" is McEwan's most deeply humane, adult novel, and begins to plumb the depths of the very kind of McEwan-esque psychology I enjoy so much. Briony is an unlikeable yet sympathetic character - or at least I found her so. I wanted to kill her but found it impossible not to identify with her. Maybe it's just me, but she seemed to embody all the things you loathed about your younger self - precocity and hubris, shaken up with naivete in a dangerous little cocktail. I get the feeling McEwan is exorcising some of his own demons here, questioning the role of the writer, the possibility of meglomania and sadism in the role, as well as the vanity and intellectual arrogance. And, in the beginning of this novel, I discovered some of McEwan finest prose - porous, supple, richly evocative. I especially remember the passage in which the mother of the house is lying in bed with a migraine, imagining the other members of the house going about their business far away...
And then the book dies. In Briony, McEwan created an absorbing character to the point where almost no other character holds much interest, or breathes. The war passages are, unusually for McEwan, simply dull. The plot sags. The novel picks up a little again toward the end, but the damage is done, and my interest had wandered. It's a shame, because McEwan might have had another slim, perfect little volume on his hands here like "Black Dogs"; instead he pads it out, and the excess is fairly laborious. Still, I'd have to say a reccommend this anyway. The first third of the book is so absorbing and so memorable it's not to be missed.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing characters, wonderful storytelling
Review: As one who cannot stand the flood of plotless books looking so deeply inside their character's souls (thanks a lot Oprah) I had to be shoved into reading "Atonement". What a wonderful surprise. Easily the best piece of fiction I've read in years. The story is about atonement for a terrible lie (did the liar know she was a liar?) told at a family gathering at an English manor in 1935. The effect of that lie on the lives of those she most loved and most hurt is followed through the English retreat at Dunkirk, and at an English hospital on the eve the great blitz. The story ends at the same manor in 1999. The author takes the reader deep inside his three main characters and yet weaves a story well worth the rapid turning of pages. It's as if Joyce merged with Forsythe, incredible understanding of what it is to be human meets brilliant storytelling. I cared tremendously for each character, understood their pain, felt their joy, and I just loved the tragic but honest resolution. I waited a week to write this review to see if the book "stays with you", it does. Ian McEwan is a genius.
Rating:
Summary: When fantasy stains reality...
Review: Like a medieval triptych McEwan portrays a three-phased story, each one independent in its own and at the same time interlinked by the initial drama and the consequences thereafter. On the first setting the year is 1935, an upper-middle-class family, with descriptive scenery and well elaborated characters. The full responsibility for a misconstrued judgment by Briony (the young teenager) will bring dreadful effects on the lives of her sister (Ceci) and her loved one (Robbie). The second panel describes with acute sensitivity and sometimes morbid overtones the retreat to Dunkirk, a crude historical reality over which the author did a considerable research. On the last phase the setting is London during the war, concentrating on the efforts by the medical staff and assistants to cope with the wounded. As an aftermath, the author brings the main character all the way to 1999, in a grand and clever finale.
"Atonement" compounds fiction with historical facts, at the same time addressing the intricacies between the creator and his creation. The writer by means of her imagination and fantasy is to be held fully responsible; she is playing the role of God and as such there is no atonement for whatever misconceptions she has made. Briony is victim of her imagination as much as "Don Quijote" is overtaken by illusions, and although both are moved by a sense of justice, the later is an idealist while Briony has simply indulged in literary models. Contrary to the Marabar Cave incident in "Passage to India" (Morgan Forster), there is no retraction and the accused is condemned. An interesting issue to be raised is to what extent Robbie's proletarian status weights in the final verdict? And whilst Briony has to deal with her guilt throughout her lifetime, is the real perpetrator conscious free?
"Atonement" has the merit of having a refined narrative, a vivid and well-documented historical setting, a subtle touch of drama, altogether contributing to an enjoyable reading.
Rating: 
Summary: two stars only because I finished it
Review: Even when I dislike a book, I give it two stars if I am compelled to finish it.This was the case with "Atonement", which I labored through for many days, all the time wondering why. What WAS this book? I feel like the author was probably laughing at all the rave reviews, because he wrote such a looooong bit of nothingness, so self-important, such a boring stream of consciousness---- surely it was a joke. As another reviewer said, it was much ado about nothing, aspiring to be called "literary" by its boring descriptions and endless details. The entire story, even the ludicrous and contrived ending, just does not work. And I could find little of the "beautiful language" which so many people raved about. The characters were not only uninteresting, but also poorly developed. They took the "stage" for such brief periods -- how was one to get to know them? Therefore, this reader never really cared about any of them. The only reason I finished this book was because I was trying to find out what all the hullabaloo was about. That was the only thing that kept me going. I wish there was something good that I could say about "Atonement"....I had expected so much from this book.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Amsterdam
Review: I couldn't believe this book didn't win the Booker Prize while Amsterdam did!!! Atonement is a MUCH better novel and while I still think some of the hype is over-rated, it's definitely worth a read, even in spite of the lack-lustre ending.
Rating:
Summary: good book for a first novel...!
Review: Ok, it's not his first but it reads like one. Very pedestrian, borish. The details are charming, a bit Waugh-ish without the humor, but because I knew Briony did something for which she would then atone I wasn't able to _read_, I was waiting for the event which wasn't realistically terrible. I didn't find it or the aftermath credible. The writing isn't really that bad but the story is told in a postmodern way that's almost cliche by now--how many novels do we need that are told from different perspectives? It's not new, it's not fresh, it doesn't inspire me to want to read more of his works. This was my first McEwan and, unless my husband who loved this book forces me, it's my last.
Rating:
Summary: McEwans Best?
Review: I'm not sure, being an Enduring Love fan myself, but this was hands down the best new book I read in 2002. McEwan's writing is beautiful, soulful, passionate. Even though it's an easy read, make yourself slow down to truly appreciate the ambiance and subtleties of McEwan's prose. The ending. . . I still think about it, it stays in the back of your head. For those who didn't like the ending. . . perhaps this book was too sophisticated for you!
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