Atonement

Rating:
Summary: A novel characteristic of our time
Review: It seems likely that the author has learned of the novelist's craft from reading works such as L. P. Hartley's THE GO-BETWEEN. Aside from a few trivialities -- confusion about when to use "might" rather than "may," the anachronism of having a child punch the air in satisfaction (kids didn't do that before the Eighties or so) -- the author seems to have written an assured story in the mainstream of the modern British novel and that will please many readers.

But the title "atonement" must be understood with characteristic ironic modern quotation marks around it. What readers learn to be the "atoning" action of the book, is not an atonement in the historical sense of this word -- a word with venerable and profound religious meanings that, I suppose, the author and many of his readers are too much people of their time to believe could be true. So the pleasant sadness with a tinge of irony that the author presumably intended may itself provoke a deeper sadness in readers who regret that such an "atonement" as the book presents is the only kind of atonement really believed, by moderns, to be available.

And so the book is truly clever, but it's not great art. Many people will consume it with excitement, it will make the rounds of the reading groups, but few people will reread it.

Rating:
Summary: Is truth stranger than fiction?
Review: 'Atonement' is first Ian McEwan novel I've read and in the moments that followed turning the final page I can honestly say it is with great regret that it has taken me this long to become acquainted with his work. Such is the impeccable characterisation, the tightly controlled prose and the sumptuous description that the reader is willingly fed, the plaudits attributed to this novel have been totally vindicated and are wholly deserved.

Like Sebastian Faulks, McEwan returns to the heart of middle-class England in 1935 where 13 year-old Briony Tallis and her family are holding a family gathering with their cousins from the North of England. Briony is intending on performing her latest play, 'The Trials of Arabella' whilst casting her cousins in different parts but whilst her ambition is tempered by their distinct lack of enthusiasm, she later finds an audience in the most surprising of circumstances. Also attending this meeting are Celia Tallis, a recent Cambridge graduate, who is accompanied by her close friend Robbie Turner, an English graduate planning a career in the field of medicine. The pres-cis on the back of the hardback edition hints less than subtly as to what lies at the heart of this novel but that is an issue that I intend to steer clear of. Quite simply, McEwan actively encourages the reader's own exploration with promises of glorious prose and a rewarding conclusion to those that take up the challenges within these perfectly-toned pages.

McEwan manages to maintain what seems to be a recent tradition amongst English novelists by taking his readers to the foreign battlefields of France at the height of the warfare but, significantly, refuses to concern himself with epic conflicts and heroic rescues. Whilst the reader unavoidably becomes emotionally entangled with the soldiers, it is their mental trauma and horrors that are brought to the fore whilst the writer's pen is wielded as expertly as the surgeon's scalpel in the military hospital where Briony now works. At this point you could be forgiven that this has become a war novel or a romance but in all honesty it is hard to try and pin down what genre 'Atonement' occupies. There are times when is it none of these, other times it promises to evolve into one or the other but each potential development is simply a bandage covering the deeper wounds that lie beneath the surface.

I confess that this review will shed little light on the actual narrative and plot of this novel but then to reveal it would be a tragedy as well as a travesty. You will have to persevere with 'Atonement' but there are certainly rewards to be reaped by the end. Many people have told me that this is the culmination of McEwan's previous works, that it is his finest work to date but since this is my first experience of his novels I'm not at liberty to agree or disagree. What I can say is that this is a novel that should be read, reread and then treasured.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book
Review: Like The Blind Assassin, Atonement is a story within a story. It is very well written and gets even more interesting after the first twenty-five or so pages. I don't want to give away the story; suffice it to say that the author is effective in communicating the way one's life (or peoples' lives) can be very normal one minute and an incident can change everything from that moment onward.

I belong to a few book clubs, and this would be a good choice for that type of a group and also for any individual who wants to read a good story written by someone who really knows what he is doing. This is one of the best books I have ever read.

Rating:
Summary: Ian McEwan greatest living novelist?
Review: Atonement is a tour-de-force, McEwan's measured prose is a delight and chapter effortlessly follows chapter before the lack of an obvious plot becomes apparent. By then this reader was totally absorbed in the other worldliness of middle class England between the World Wars. Suspense then builds steadily towards a dramatic conclusion that very few will second guess.

Rating:
Summary: It Is Hard To Share Very Much
Review: Ian Mcewan is an accomplished writer. This work, "Atonement", was nominated for, "The Booker Prize", and while he did not win this time, he has one the award in the past. I have read two of his previous works, and while I enjoyed both they each were too brief. Extremely well done, but the ending came too quickly for such fine work. With, "Atonement", he has written a much more elaborate work, and has done so with a mischievous style that is as rewarding as it is deceptive. From beginning to end his game is in play and it makes for any substantial commentary very difficult without giving away the end of the maze.

The reader is confronted with an extremely precocious 13 years old whose behavior passes traditional boundaries to become almost unbelievable. I also found her to be both one of the most aggravating and easiest characters to dislike that I have come across in some time. Her introspective musings and personal observations became almost tiresome and entirely too difficult to accept. And if there is any doubt, her subsequent behaviors are beyond atrocious, or are they?

Not many authors can maintain a deceptively planned story with such skill, or maintain the tension to literally the closing sentences. The author has done this and more. When you reach the end you will at once feel that you have been had by a very clever pen, and then realize the ending is far from decisive and singular. A very wonderful tale.

Rating:
Summary: Briony's Crime Revisited
Review: McEwan gift of prose is uplifting in a time that so few new novels are able to explore the delicate subtleties of character. He crafts an intriguing tragedy. But is it tragic or just ironic? We are lured through the novel seeking resolve and justice, yet are left at the end with an extremely skinny discourse on the role of the author/God and his/His ability to manipulate any outcome (or not). Instead of seeking resolution, or atonement in the final pages, the reader witnesses an all to common must-hurry-and-finish ending that ultimately leaves the characters underdeveloped, and the plot ambiguous. McEwan's structuring of the novel is curious. He divides it by two narratives. Briony's narrative, essential to the theme, appears at both the beginning and the end. Stuck in the middle is Robbie¹s inconsistent narrative as he trudges through the evacuation at Dunkurk. In retrospect, this middle narrative has little relation to the story and advances the plot only slightly. The reader continues through the part seeking some link to the complixities that were developed in the first section, but is left with little. Perhaps if McEwan had Robbie's narrative develop his incarceration, or better yet had given Cecelia a voice, the novel would have been tighter. Most curious is the ending when the 70 year-old Briony returns to her family estate which has been turned into a hotel. This is reminiscent of Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. Perhaps the novel should have been called Briony's Crime Revisited.

Rating:
Summary: Atonement by Ian McEwan
Review: My wife bought the book because it was highly rated. She read it then told me that I had to read it because it was good. It didn't take long before I was bored. 15 pages in I wanted to quit! But I kept reading hoping that it would get better. By page 33 I said to my wife that I wasn't going to read it. She laughed. She said she wanted to see how far I would get, how soon I would quit. I read 2-3 books a week and I have read some boring books but why should I?

Rating:
Summary: A novel at the top of its form.
Review: In a single day, three lives are changed forever in ATONEMENT. Booker Prize winning author, Ian McKewan's 351-page novel begins with the hot summer day in 1935 that marks the turning point in the lives of thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis, an "excited and talkative" (p. 215) girl who "lived in her thoughts" (p. 219), her older sister, Cecilia, and childhood friend, Robbie Turner. McKewan's highly-polished novel then takes us to the bloody WWII battlefields of Dunkirk in 1940 before reuniting the Tallis family in 1999, exploring the psychological depths of each of his three wounded characters along the way. McKewan's "drama by the river" (p. 219) is not only a deeply-moving story about loss of innocence, love and war, but ultimately it is about a writer's lesson in learning to confront her own life with "backbone" (p. 302). ATONEMENT is a profound novel at the top of its form, written by an author at the height of his talent.

G. Merritt

Rating:
Summary: Atonement: A Novel : Tragedy And Social Commentary
Review: Atonement: A Novel : Tragedy And Social Commentary
By B Michael
There was no author more brilliant during the 16th century than Ian McEwan. Still, while scholars often feel Atonement: A Novel is drug-influenced, it is one of McEwan's most timeless works. In the following paragraphs, I will show that most conservative critics are wrong about McEwan's use of loss of innocence. This claim is buttressed by three points: (1) the Romantic views of Atonement: A Novel's protagonist, Tom Dick, (2) McEwan's famous incorporation of satire in the work, and (3) the author's incorporation of sexual identity.

First, when parents dismiss Atonement: A Novel as a simple roman a clef, all I can say is, yet again, the curs of ignorance slaver at the heels of reason. While this fact allays most of McEwan's Italian detractors, it has led a certain Symbolist critic-- the execrable Robert Frost --to proclaim "totally, McEwan's intentions for Benvolio Sawyer are ambiguous here." This reasoning differs radically from traditional theories of the post Minimalist school.

Second, critics are dead wrong when they cite Atonement: A Novel as an example of McEwan's dwindling will to live. It's quite obvious that McEwan's will to live was tenuous at best by the time Atonement: A Novel was completed. Developments in the opening monologue are often cited as evidence; at best, this is the drug-influenced critique. Give me a... break!

Could the so-called "Romantic" critics be more wrong about Atonement: A Novel? The author uses dystopic future-vision to transform Colonel Adams from a ponderous bit-player into a triumphant hero. Ichabod Maxwell is a far from marginal character; in fact, it is through him that many of McEwan's late 17th century influences show through; it is no great feat to realize McEwan has written himself into a corner here!

Atonement: A Novel should be required reading for all teens. Perhaps it's time that scholars reevaluated their estimation of the book. Though contemporaries found McEwan's use of juxtapostion pandering, history will vindicate Atonement: A Novel. This book is perhaps the greatest exploration of religion mankind has ever seen.

The End

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful writing!
Review: This is a very well-written, indeed it's a beautifully written, book. The language used just keeps you flowing along through the story, which is absorbing in its own right. The book presents a tale of misplaced knowledge, of conclusions reached without sufficient information, and of accusations made which profoundly change the lives of everyone involved. We see guilt, sorrow, venality, heroism, in fact, almost every emotion runs through this book except the one most needed: forgiveness. The author is to be commended for the way in which he presents the events unfolding around the main characters, and the sterling use which he makes of our language, turning the commonplace into something almost profound. You will not be disappointed if you read this work. I predict a literary prize in its future.