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Atonement

Atonement

List Price: $34.99
Your Price: $22.04
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Very contrived plotting partly redeemed by style
Review: The first part of this novel is an elaborate set-up for a very forced high point that comes shortly after page 100. Luckily for the reader, this set-up requires some character development, something Ian McEwan does beautifully. One cannot overstate the singular precision and perfection of his character writing. Sadly, however, plot not character, is what the author is really after. So we have a series of unbelievable incidents and coincidences, sore thumbs, throughout the first half of this book, and into the second half as well.

The plot devices stand out like flags on a golf course. You can see them from miles away and they disrupt otherwise fine, literary writing.

For example, Jonathan Franzen can't approach the quality of
Ian McEwan. That Franzen can even posture as a writer in a world where Mr. McEwan exists is ludicrous.

That said, I fear that Mr. McEwan's forays into television and screenwriting have marred his talents.

I read an interview where he said he told his wife how Atonement was going to end before, or shortly after, he had begun writing the novel, and that when he actually finished, it ended just as he had predicted with virtually no differences from the initial conception.

This is not hard to do, however, (nor anything to brag about) when you force and manhandle your story like farmers herding sheep into a barn. What wonderful patterns they might have made in the fields if Mr. Mcewan had just let them be.

The paragraph below gives away a plot element, just a warning.
It doesn't spoil the book, however, as it's just one significant element among many, and I try to be oblique about it.

Let me ask you, if you wrote a letter to the person you loved, and then in a fit of passion typed an obscene line into it that you really didn't want her to see (after which you typed a more appropriate letter to her that you did intend to send) what are the chances that you would leave the sexually vulgar letter lying around rather than destroying it immediately? Virtually zero. But in this book the character sets it aside carefully, and as soon as he does you know why, not because he really would do this, but because it's essential to the plot that that obscene letter be preserved; not only does the character leave it lying around, but it will find its way into his girlfriend's hands, and soon everyone will know about it. Freud or no Freud (who that character thinks of to explain his error) this is bs. It's just not credible. Pop. Goodbye fictional dream. Hello Hollywood.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Impressive and Moving
Review: I read "Atonement" knowing nothing about it other than my wife said it made her cry, and that the book had had good reviews. I am not an Eng Lit type, but I think a novel needs four things to succeed: character, plot, construction and style. McEwan spends the first half of the book developing the characters to such an extent that I felt I knew them all, and knew them quite well. The plot unfolded, but I had no idea where it was going. I knew where I wanted it to go, but there were surprises. The construction of the novel was impressive. It was seamless and very clever, but never appeared clever. McEwan is a master of "The art that conceals the art." And this is shown also in his beautiful prose - well worthy of being read aloud.

Now I have to re-read "Amsterdam" - just skimmed it the first time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Shocking and provoking
Review: Like other reviewers I was ambivalent about all the publicity that surrounded 'Atonement' before its release last year. Happily I was not disappointed and it lived up to its expectations. It relies on traditional literary techniques to evoke memory and the power of writing. It also raises issues of literary power and readership. The conflicts of love and war, shame and forgiveness are carried throughout the novel. It also questions issues of class and atonement. I found it incredibly moving and shocking in many parts...Highly Recommended

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A Travesty
Review: Ageing starry-eyed yuppies will eat this solipsistic-self infatuated sugar tart of a book right up as it's passed from sweaty palm to palm through all the precious literary boutiques frequented by urban liberal elites. The snob appeal is impressive; every faddish academic/critic will want one to maintain good social odor with their colleagues, dour men of letters who missed out on the Nobel Prize who specialize in the sexual anxieties of financial planners (zzzzz), and trendy California newspapers soliciting manuscripts for 30 something movie studio executives who crave "serious" recognition and full page advertising for Oscar nominations. Those who believe the life-style choices of arrogant prep school frat boys is anything but the posturing of conceited social climbers will enjoy this trashy melodrama. A contrived, pretentious bore of a novel.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wonderful book! Some others just as good!
Review: ATONEMENT is a wonderful book, but it isn't quite up to THE MAN WHO LOVED CHILDREN, by Christina Stead, which I read in college. And I read a book at Christmes, THE EVIDENCE AGAINST HER, by Robb Foreman Dew, that had more inherent tension in the prose and was equally perceptive about the lives of children, especially. But it's not a contest. They are all wonderful books. Each one worth the careful attention they require, and each one giving you a whole world to live in while you're reading them. These books are what reaading is about. ATONEMENT reminded me of the first book you read when you're growing up that absorbs you so that you can hardly put it down. And you're sad when you don't have it to read anymore. It's that good! Enjoy it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A stunning achievement
Review: Superlatives really do not do this book justice. It is perhaps one of the most haunting and beautifully-crafted novels of the past fifty years with an ending that lingers and affects long after you've turned the final page.

Each of the novel's four parts is meticulously crafted. McEwan is a very descriptive writer - particularly in the extended first chapter - but he is not one to waste words. He builds his characters slowly, weaving a subtly etched plot to a quiet but devastating effect.

This is a novel to treasure and be read again and again.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I'm an Ian McEwan fan...
Review: ...and I agree with the critics who consider this his best effort to date. I've read Enduring Love and Amsterdam, and am intrigued by a theme which runs though all of them: the ability of a random event, a seemingly minor decision, or a simple misunderstanding to change EVERYTHING, irrevocably and (usually, for McEwan) horribly. Add to this his superb prose and, in this case, a haunting story, and you get a book I had trouble putting down (and more worthy of the Booker than Amsterdam).

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What a great book club selection...
Review: On several different levels, "Atonement" is a beautiful, memorable, and thoroughly engrossing novel. All of us who enjoy serious fiction know at some level that plot and characters are the author's creation, the result of a series of deliberate choices. Here, though, Ian McEwan makes that reality a key element in the novel itself. The miracle is that, for me at least, this self-conscious dimension in no way interfered with my being totally engaged by the story he tells. But it would make for fantastic book-club discussion!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not quite able to live up to its hype.
Review: This was my first McEwan read, and while it was lovely in some ways, I don't necessarily agree that it's all everyone is raving about. It seemed to me not all that interesting a story, nor all that accomplished prosaically or stylistically.

There were instances in which I found myself thrilled and smiling, times when I reread passages to enjoy something a second time. But I guess mostly I just want to convey that all the hoopla here and in other media about this book falls into the "emperor has no clothes" category as far as I'm concerned.

It's a good book, not a great book, and I'd have given it 3.5 stars if I could have.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Uneven
Review: After reading glowing reviews for this novel, I was very excited to start it, and found myself deeply engrossed in Part One, which is set during one long, hot summer's day at an England manor house. Treachery, lust, betrayal, and violence occur, shattering a child's view of the world around her. It is a startling, unpredictable start...unfortunately, Parts Two and Three (McEwan seems to think of his novel as theatrical, in the tradition, I suppose of Greek tragedy) can't measure up. I personally find war fiction to be incredibly boring, so was disappointed to find that Part Two was all about WWII. And Part Three, as an elderly woman travels home for a family reunion, feels surprisingly cloying when placed next to the dark, brooding suspense of Part One. The novel feels very uneven, and I was disappointed to see it go downhill, especially since the beginning is so promising.


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