Atonement

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Summary: PAY ATTENTION AND YOU'LL ENJOY
Review: "ATONEMENT" is a highly provocative novel of complex plots and characters. You have to pay attention to truly enjoy it, but that shouldn't be a problem because the writing is engrossing enough to make you want to do that. It would be easy to compare it to "MY FRACTURED LIFE" because of the use of nontraditional protagonists, however I prefer to challenge that "ATONEMENT" and any other book be judged individually. "ATONEMENT" and "MY FRACTURED LIFE" are both excellent and I recommend them both, but not for their similarities, but for their inherent uniqueness. The should be read as individual books and judged as individual books. From my point of view, "ATONEMENT" is a strong and compelling book that stands on its own.

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Summary: Fleeing the thriller genre,McEwan creates a literary marvel
Review: A PIVOTAL MOMENT OCCURS IN ATONEMENT WHEN Robbie, a family friend of the Tallises, decides to search for their young missing cousins. He does not want the Tallis family to know yet of his love for their daughter, so he separates from her and sets out through the extensive family grounds on his own.

It is a choice that alters the rest of his life. Part one of the book, that the author builds slowly and carefully, ends with Cecelia Tallis's teenage sister, Briony, testifying that during the search, she witnessed cousin Lola's rape. Robbie is suspect number one.

Atonement finds author Ian McEwan turning from the restrictions of the thriller genre to create a literary marvel. He chooses an initial setting in and around an English Country Home occupied by the Tallis family. It is Pre-WWII.

McEwan ferrets out the anima of his main characters, most of whom undergo radical change by book's end, and not because of the World War. Emily is head of the household, mother to 13-year-old Briony (who is an emerging writer,) Cecelia, and older brother, Leon. Significant guests that fatal weekend include Paul Marshall, who is Leon's wealthy friend, a beautiful cousin named Lola, and the bratty mischievous young cousins. Also present: Robbie, a friend to the family since childhood.

In a romantic episode, McEwan writes an unhackneyed, and appealingly-fresh scene of Robbie and Cecelia making love for the first, awkward, but passionate time. Elegantly done.

Part Two narrates the characters' war service. Part Three concerns Briony's adult life.

In course of the book, McEwan subtly reveals a sibling rivalry theme, and shows the dangers that can spring from snobbery and racism. He also deals with how a writer can attempt atonement for their own misdeeds through writing fiction: surely an unusual theme.

A rich and profound work.

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Summary: Something different and sumptuous from McEwan
Review: ATONEMENT isn't much like Ian McEwan's other works: less Gothic and panicked, the love tells in plush detailed prose of an incident in the mid-1930s at a British country house that forever changes the lives of young Briony, a daughter of the house, who witnesses the flirtings of her elder sister with a young schoolmate from a poor family. Briony misconstrues the flirting and lies about the young man's acftion--in doing so she effectively transforms the lives of herself, her sister and the young man forever.

This might be the best book of McEwan's I've read: it seems in theme and atmosphere very similar to L. P. Hartley's THE GO-BETWEEN, but is actually much more effective than Hartley's famous study of hypocrisy and manipulation among the upper classes. It suffers a bit only in that we don't get to see the process of Briony sticking to her lie when the law becomes involved (we are rather simply told she does so). As a result, her crime doesn't seem quite as bad as it should. But this is a marvellously well-told, tight little narrative.

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Summary: Breathtaking
Review: I am seventy years old, have been reading all my life, and cannot remember ever reading a novel that astonished me more. Mc Ewan's moral imagination transferred in the four parts of the book between different protagonists at different times, his mastery of the relevant detail, his integration of the apparently disparate parts, is breathtakingly orchestrated. We start with the voice of a privileged and precocious thirteen year old in 1935 and end with the same person more than six decades later. There is a long and very powerful evocation of the retreat to Dunquerque, an interlude in a wartime British military hospital, a birthday celebration for a seventy seven year old writer. All of them are reflections on our ability and inability to exercise moral imagination, and on the tie between the exercise of that imagination and our self-realization as human beings. The disparate parts of the book are brought together very powerfully at the end - like listening to fine symphonic music, wonderful in itself, mysterious in our inability to predict where it is going, and perfect once it has taken us there.

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Summary: McEwan's magnum opus
Review: I chose to read all of Ian McEwan's other novels before starting on "Atonement", as I had seen from his other work that this was a very special writer. I wanted to enjoy the progression of his writing from his earliest works in the 1970's up to this highly recognized and intelligent novel. I am glad I waited, and I thoroughly enjoyed the process of experiencing this book through the perspective of his other works. This takes on a weighty and important tone from the very beginning, and in it, McEwan is able to delve as deeply into the minds and motivations of his characters as he has in any of his other works. McEwan speaks in the reassuring voice and confident prose that is his hallmark, and I found this to be an emotionally moving and painful, yet important book.

There is true literary magic at work here. A writer looks back on a pivotal event in her early life, which she propagated, and which caused a gaping and irreparable wound within her family. The title is ambiguous, much like his "Enduring Love" was about nothing of the sort, and "The Comfort of Strangers" was really about the dangers of outsiders (stranger-danger?). McEwan writes here about epic themes - family estrangement, war, dislocation, emotional baggage and how that impacts one's life, unforgiveness and imagination. Whether the vital facts of the story within a story were true or the subject of Briony's (the girl at the center of the story) great imagination, much of this story is about her efforts to forgive herself and come to terms with ("atone for") her mistake and in doing so, find peace within herself. Taking place over more than sixty years, I felt like I had lived with the characters through their traumas.

Once again, McEwan creates unforgettable characters; once again he takes on grand themes and succeeds superbly; and again, he has created a story that must be read.

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Summary: The big british novel
Review: I had the same problem as a lot of readers of having trouble reading it slowly enough given that I didn't want to cheat myself of several evenings of enjoyment, but I wasn't successful in slowing down the pace. The fourth, contemporary section of the book was my favorite and where I started to reread the work, because what I like most about Ian McEwan's writing is its essay quality and insights into late 20th century culture, not to mention his ability to drive all this with a suspenseful plot and interesting characters. Here in the final 13 pp. we had the English country house taken over by English tourism, the taxi ride through today's London, the high-borne narrator confronting the intellectual immigrant class, the dominance of the WWII experience in contemporary British outlook. I've read all of Ian McEwan's novels and to me what distinguished this work is his rich description of landscape, especially that of the country estate, to develop the characterizes and suspense and his use of the dreary urban landscape to wind the story down in part 3. And all his piling on of genre writing so that anyone who has read just about any "classic" British novel (or seen some of the BBC programs such as Brideshead Revisited) will find some echoes in Atonement. The main weakness of this novel, to me, is that the central drama and love interest are not plausible. Usually, Ian McEwan's novels revolve around complex, interesting characters who must respond to a side character's unusual, dangerous obsession. These obsessions are usually so horrific that they probably almost never actually take place in the world, aside from in Ian McEwan's novels. Not so Atonement. Here, all of the characters are supposed to be quite healthy and the central tension is not dependent upon any freakish people or events. However, I found the moral sense of Atonement misguided and the response of the characters to one another, implausible. We are supposed to presume that the young narrator is guilty of a crime by misjudging what she sees, but I found her actions reasonable for a 13-year old. In a legal sense, however, she is not guilty at all, though one man is guilty of statuatory rape, and the many adults in the story are guilty of extreme gullibility because they can't tell who is guilty and innocent despite lots of circumstantial clues(The man falsely accused behaves in a way after the "crime" that few guilty people could pull off, whereas the perpetrator disappears). I also was not convinced by the assumption that a crude note read by two young women would be enough to inspire a great life-long passion. Despite these flaws, I think that Atonement is among Ian McEwan's greatest works (along with Enduring Love, and Black Dogs). Unfortunately, I expect that I now will have to wait another few years to read a novel that I will enjoy as much.

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Summary: A perfect book for writers and readers
Review: I have just finished Atonement and am still in its thrall.

This is a beautifully written book, in an age where it seems that the classic tests of good writing have gone by the wayside. McEwan chooses words wonderfully, with a lyricism I thought was lost; he constructs sentences, paragraphs and story into a cohesive whole that seems effortless.

The story is not a mere recitation of the effects of a child's lie. Like great literature, it allows the reader to learn, and not simply be instructed. So many books I've read are readable, interesting and some are tours de force. (Corrections comes to mind as brilliant but nearly a waste of time compared to Atonement.) The theme of sin and atonement is a conservative point of view. The very idea of having to take responsibility for one's actions (instead of dismissing them as a result of an offended childhood or being misunderstood) seems a little old fashioned. As presented by this thoughtful man,the very idea of redemption is explored. Whether it is achieved is up to the reader to decide. Responsibility in this book is not simply bearing up under the weight of retribution, but a true understanding of the debt created when harm is inflicted on another person. To read Atonement is to understand on more than one level the weight of one's actions.

There are details to quibble with, and individual readers may wish for more explanations of some characters and less of others. The weak and drifting mother, Emily, is presented from her own point of view and never explored by other characters. Robbie lacks faults: the sinned against is nearly without sin, so Isuppose religious parables can be drawn. In the self conscious new millenium, the book rarely shows much sympathy for the 'lower classes'. Lola's childhood self might have been more deeply drawn.

I don't think those quibbles matter. For readers who want to be fully engaged and absorbed, this is the book. For readers who want to be pushed into thinking about one's own life, others' lives, and how at least one theme of life matters, this is the book. For readers who love to see the language used as an instrument as well as for its own beauty, this is the book. For writers to need an exemplar of what good writing looks like, sounds like, and how it is built, this is the book.

Rating:
Summary: brilliant, but lacking
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book. McEwan has an amazing ability to describe the psyche and motives of all of his characters. However, at some point for me, the novel fell short. Perhaps it was the fact that he seemed to disregard plot in favor of character development. It lacks fluidity in my opinion, though there seems to be something deliberate in the structure of the story. I could feel the time the author put into the work, making it seem to be more of an excercise in writing than a telling of a story through literature. The ending, which many people have praised, was admittedly brilliantly written: McEwan enters the mind of the 70-something year old Briony, but it seems like that's the main function of it. I felt like he was trying to show off, or simply add a superflous post-modern element to his novel that lacked something. All this criticism aside, I really enjoyed this book, and McEwan's attention to detail, and all of the intricacies of the novel.

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Summary: For Patient, Dedicated Readers Only
Review: I thought the book was beautifully written, but incredibly slow. Just about the time I was ready to give up on "Atonement" things finally started to take shape. McEwan eventually tells a beautiful and tragic story, and I found the payoff to be big, but I wouldn't recommend for the casual reader.

Rating:
Summary: An entrancing, seductive novel
Review: Ian McEwan's "Atonement" works so well as a multi-perspective study in early 20th century English manners that you want it to remain there for the length of the novel. The narrative is as liquid as the fateful pond ambivalent Cecilia plunges into to spite future lover Robbie Turner, and just as refreshing. Psychological acuity, assured pacing, dry-as-toast wit; these are the building blocks McEwan uses to construct the first-half of "Atonement", and he reminds us of their importance and their potential to galvanize and provoke the reader.
Yet, like thirteen-year-old Briony, the novel cannot remain one thing forever. "Atonement" captures the no-man's-land between childhood and adolescence with intimate detail, something few writers are capable of. As she metamorphasises, so does the narrative. I was a bit dubious when McEwan jumped from the townhouse to the battleground. The transition felt a little too Masterpiece Theatre-ish at first. Shame on me. I should have known I was in masterful hands, as McEwan guides the reader through the private hell of a wronged, damaged man seeking salvation through far-off love.
Naturally, the final focus comes back to Briony, first as a eighteen-year-old nurse attempting to bury her guilt under grinding repetition, and finally in a completely different incarnation than expected. I won't reveal the devastating intellectual and emotional surprises that comprise the finale of this masterwork. I will say, however, that it secures McEwan's reputation as one of our great writers.
"Atonement" is about alot of things: the insanity of war, the confusion of childhood, the joy of first love, the ennui of middle age, the darkness of the human heart. However, it's mostly about the stories we tell ourselves and each other, and the way art is used to find forgiveness and peace. Few of us find the atonement we're looking for, McEwan sighs. Why would we need stories if we did?