A scintillating piece of the purest gemstone, a diamond, was tracing around the forceps of a persona, the face of a mountain. The sky was a jet-black expanse devoid of sunlight and every color that pleases the eyes. There were small bursts of constant explosions inside that cavernous cave of red. A ripping sensation engulfed the whole scenery, like a piece of meat being torn by a pack of savage dogs. Emptiness. Then, a small stream of gold flowed from the heavens. Color was restored in the most simple of hues. The raging river was calmed and tamed. There was absolute stillness in the valley. A small crack, a curve, appeared on the face of the mountain. A smile. Then, I closed that little book called "Atonement".

Ian McEwan's masterpiece left me a man defined by his emotions. It was a breath-taking view I glimpsed but I fell into a pit of the darkest kind. I was a happy yet an unhappy man. The logical part of me was so astounded and amazed by that single confession, that act of self-abdication. The logical man was very impressed by that post-modernist ending. Yet, that man of feeling was abhorred and devastated. He was deftly crushed. I did not know what to say. Of course, in times like these, feeling is preemptive of thinking. One feels before one thinks. When the dust settled, all I felt was anger, then I saw the light. This is sort of reminiscent to Lolita. Where Nabokov uses literary artistry to, in a way, ask for consideration on Humbert's part. To mask the monster underneath a facade of beauty. McEwan adapts this concept in a different way. Instead of aesthetic artistry, though it is still present, the manipulation of fates and events become the central point of his undertaking. They both acknowledge the healing powers of the written word. Before the book even started, the reader is already given a Romantic novel quote--something out of Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey." This sets the tone for a book that will be packed with literary allegory. Even the form of the book walks the reader through some of English lit's historical periods: Part One--Austen'esque Romanticism; Part Two--Historical Fiction War Story; Part Three--Victorian or Modern Memoir; and Part Four--Post Modern speculation and theory. You see, McEwan's Briony cleverly concocted a covering of gold to a broken statue of clay.

“How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all.”

Briony will never receive Atonement. But, I do believe that she has achieved At-One-Ment with herself if not with her readers, for she has done everything in her power to make up for her crime.

“A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.”

If you consider the gravity of Briony's crime, the effect, the outcome, even when you put her innocence in consideration, one can't help but feel hatred for her. I admit, I did. But in time, the fact that it was the effect of a wildly imaginative ardor will soften the blow. Surely, atonement isn't for her, but sympathy is what she deserves and it's what she refuses to get. Some might consider her act of altering the story a Pontius Pilate act. But I admire her for it. She shuns sympathy even when she greatly needs it because she knows she doesn't deserve it. And though she might not be able to mend the flesh, she was able to conjure their spirit of love. Robbie and Cecilia might be gone, but their love lives in the memories of people who read their story. Much like Briony has etched herself in mine. I know what she looks like. I watched her grow up. I was there every step of the way, and I will keep a part of her alive in me until the day I take my last breath. But even then, that wouldn't be the end. Others will take her up in their memories and keep her alive. Sure, she might not be the same as when I envisioned her. But she'll live far longer than I. So the same will go for the lovers. Therefore I wholeheartedly agree with the excerpt below.

“But what really happened? The answer is simple: the lovers survive and flourish.”

Literature immortalized their love, and that's all that matters. Not her Atonement, but their Love.

There are so many angles and perceptions to consider in this book. Sometimes the end can make a book and that is certainly the case here where the story is left open for interpretation. This is a book that leaves you thinking and considering, making up your own conclusions--and strong enough characters to make you want to.

The first few chapters I did find my mind wandering through lengthy descriptions (I'll call it beautiful, poetic scenery), and yet that scenery set a lackadaisical feel vital to the innocence and peace of that opening day. It's not just the easy-going feel of pre-war life McEwan was portraying. On a second read, I find a strain, a desire to understand every motive and action. And in those details I find sadness that life never moved on. It was played over and over again trying to find meaning and purpose to each detail. The slowness is painstaking analysis. There is a reason for the meticulous care with which each detail is described and the read well worth the persistence to the end.

Even from the beginning I was intrigued with the story and found the characters compelling. I just loved Briony's capricious character, her innocent yet eloquently advanced mind. I could despise the nosy little sister and sympathize with the fearful inactive girl all in one breath. I could hate Paul's conceit and Lola's pleas for attention and understand the muteness all the same. But mostly I could sympathize and relate to Robbie and Cecilia as likable characters, wanting to add more time to their brief, interrupted interactions. I found myself ever-fearful for the end and therefore could not put the book down.

Spoilers in my analysis to death.
Despite Briony's foreshadowing (saying she would rewrite the fountain scene from all perspectives), I did not suspect the end. I expected the separation but not the invention of this whole story. Because of the story in a story format, you can interpret the few authentic scenes anyway you like and not take her word for any of it. That is what I love about the story, particularly on a second read, that I can question motives assigned to characters instead of take it for face value. At one point reading Robbie's thoughts I considered the layers: Ewan writing Briony writing Robbie and paused in awe at McEwan's talent.

Because of the layers, McEwan has the unique opportunity to add insight and symbolism, even study questions as commentary. Take Briony's comment when relieved to see Robbie at Cecilia's that Robbie's death would have been "outlandish, against all odds" and would have made no sense. Or the letter from the editor telling her the story was incomplete: "how might [her misunderstanding:] affect the lives of the two adults?" And while vivid her descriptions of light and shade she should create "light and shade within the narrative itself." To which you can't help but wonder about light and shade in the story and characters. In what other novel can the author analyze his own work and insert his own cues for study?

I was confused at the drastic abbreviation of Robbie's war tour--though I enjoyed considering the shrapnel as a physical expression of his hidden wound. It was so obvious why the section quit there, but I couldn't believe it ended there; I had to hold out hope however thin the thread. I thought Briony's atonement would come as a nurse on duty, and I held my breath waiting for the improbable meeting. Her interaction with the dying French boy showed how much she wanted that redemption from Robbie by consoling and listening to what cannot be fixed. How she longed for closure with him.

I doubt Robbie hated Briony. In her self-deprecation her interpretation is harsh. I think exasperation at a nosy child whom you adore but all of a sudden can't approach because her vivid imagination has turned to fear is sufficient emotion. I liked Robbie enough to think he could have forgiven her. If anything he was the one who was understanding and forgiving while Cecilia was ready to throw out her family to show her commitment to Robbie. I think Cecilia and Robbie were on the verge of forgiving Briony, but Briony could not allow herself to believe so without diminishing her guilt. She states "neither Briony nor the war had destroyed" their love. Even though she says so about her made-up gift of an ending, can't she see some redemptive power for herself, even in the "bleakest realism"?

I was so confused at the unexpected way the reunion scene between Robbie and Celia. It was so implausible and awkward and I wondered how the story had gotten off course and how Robbie had gotten there from France. His reaction was not anything like I expected, that after everything he had been through, he could still hold that much hate for Briony. And yet that was its intention. On a second read, it's one of my favorite parts as she gives us a glimpse of the verbal rebut she so longed for and some of the best layered meanings. I love how her novel sprouted from a desire to amend, but offered as a response to Robbie's invented request: "She knew what was required of her...a new draft, an atonement."

While Briony should take culprit for the loss of several years, she can't for their entire lives, for the years fate and the war stole away. And she can't even take full credit for those years. It was not her "crime" but her interpretation of one that fueled the problem. She spent her life in remorse, letting her decision shape her life and self worth. I think she more than paid her debt for what was a misunderstanding, a mistake, not cruel revenge. She got caught up in her perception and forced facts to fit her assumptions--ones she full-heartedly believed.

It is Lola unwilling to admit her part in the sexual encounter that should be atoning. Paul with his unrepentant spirit that should atone for another man paying for his crime. And even her mother making the improbable leap from inappropriate love letter to assault to break a servant's son connection with her daughter. Surely, she is just as guilty but seems unwillingly to accept her part in losing relationships with both her daughters. Briony is the only one in this story willing to atone for the tragedy. I didn't find her silence at the wedding cowardice: what good would it have served to ruin yet another couple's happiness? Her appearance was sufficient.

I wish Cecilia were more vocal the night they waited for his return. Sure the social class and unacceptable library behavior restrained her, but I wanted passion as proof of her love. Her silence annoyed and confused me as much as Briony's self-righteous witness angered me. But despite her hesitation that night, considering Cecilia's drastic reaction to her family, I want to believe the relationship must have been long-term, more serious. I'd like to think as her atonement Briony was as hard on herself as possible. I want to think that instead of unrequited love there was secret love undiscovered away from home but unable to pass inquisitive eyes. It doesn't atone, but it makes it less severe.

Briony's initial reaction to the fountain scene was that Robbie was proposing marriage. It could be accurate that Briony happened upon a lover's quarrel: Cecilia wanted to keep the relationship hushed from her parents and when Robbie was too personal in broad daylight she snapped. The letter could have been a joke from a guy asking for a moment alone with his girlfriend and in it his hesitance to jump from playful to committed. The story invented, while the most probable, was the most severe option she could conjure up and not the one I wanted to believe. I know I'm grasping at straws, but I want to believe Briony was wrong. The beauty of the story is I can.

The fact that I cared enough about the characters to want that for them, to simmer over it after I closed the book, reluctant to have it end, testifies to the power of the story. Despite my longing, I wouldn't necessarily consider the story of Robbie and Cecilia a complete tragedy. If one had survived to grieve and hate then yes, but to have such intense love (to have "a reason for life" as Cecilia put it) and be reunited after a short time gives their lives meaning and purpose and only makes it tragic for Briony left to regret the consequences of her rash judgment without ever hope of reconciliation. There in lies the tragedy: in a girl's life altered, not in the love story.
Some of my favorite quotes:
It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter there different minds and show how they had a equal value. That was the only moral a story need have.
The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.
(Robbie of meeting Cecilia) It would be worse, but he still wanted it. he had to have it. He wanted it to be worse.
Every now and then quite unintentionally someone taught you something about yourself.
(Robbie & Cecilia uttering each other's names) It sounded like a new word--the syllables remained the same, the meaning was different.
(Briony on guilt) How quite refined the methods of self-torture, invading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime.
Memories--bleached colorless through overuse.
With the clarity of passion
A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.
She was the sort of girl who lived in her thoughts.
It was common enough to see so much death and want a child, common therefore human, and he wanted it all the more. When the wounded were screaming, you dreamed of sharing a little house somewhere, of an ordinary life, a family line, connection.
Now was her chance to proclaim in public all the private anguish and purge herself of all that she had done wrong. Before the altar of this most rational of churches.
To Briony it appeared her life was gong to be lived in one room without a door.
What she felt was more like homesickness though there was no source for it, no home.

A lesson to us all: never put anything in print that one day might come back to bite you in the ass.

Having already seen the movie, I didn't particularly want to read the book (I've never read Mario Puzo's The Godfather, now have I?), but seeing as this book is a modern great, I felt it my duty to drag it from my book cave.
Pleasingly, McEwan writes with aplomb about the human psyche: of lust, loathing, immaturity and guilt; his prose is word perfect.
That said, the novel suffers from its own identity crisis, a mezze of Jane Austen, followed by a main course of Sebastian Faulks.
The author's genius, though, is in causing us to forget that his book was actually written in the modern day. Very clever!
One of our protagonists, Robbie, puts his lustful thoughts to paper in a way that would merely seem vulgarly juvenile in a modern-day text message: Been dreamin' bout kissing your c**t, yeah?
But when inscribed in ink, onto 1930s vellum stationery, the "C" word is both shocking and ruinous.

There is no doubt that McEwan is one of Britain's greatest literary gods, his beautiful prose had me purrrring with delight ... Ah, but here's the thing...

The story.
Nnnng, grmmmphh!
Oh, it just didn't keep me enthralled.
There, I've said it!
In addition, I have my own crazy theory that Briony might just be the author's imagined avatar of his younger self. : )

5 out of 5 for the writing.
3 out of 5 for the story.

The cover of this edition shows it truly as what it is: a classic. The story of deception, perspective, imagination, delusion and responsability is one of the best written by McEwan.

It tells the story of a particular day that changes the characters' lives forever. Briony is a twelve-year-old girl whose imagination drives her to create explanations for the things that she doesn't know about or understand. When she sees, through the window, the scene between her eighteen-year-old sister Cecilia and the maid's young son Robbie, you realise how Briony unconsciously sees the tension between them as something dangerous, a puzzle she must solve.

In times of the beginning of the war, in the house there are other visitors: Briony's cousins, the twin boys and their teenaged sister Lola, and a friend of the family, the chocolate manufacturer Paul Marshall. During the night, the boys run away as they fight with their sister and everybody seeks them through the darkness of the garden.

A terrible thing happens, being Briony the only witness. This event changes the flow of the plot completely, moving through time as it portrays an older Briony, now a nurse in the army, trying to atone for the mistake she made that night years ago.

What is to say about Mc Ewan's well-crafted writing, the quick-pace of the plot only slows to give us a glimpse of the characters' complexity, the reasons behind their actions, the decisions they make as History leads their days into chaos.

A surprise is waiting for you if you think you know where the story is going. You soon realise Briony is the best storyteller McEwan could use to tell his splendid story.

I watched the movie before reading the book, which was probably a mistake because I loved the movie and I felt that the book didn't measure up. Which is unfair, I know, but there it is!

What impressed me about the book was the powerful statement the author is making on the power of narrative - how much it rules our lives. It does not matter whether it is true or false: in fact, true or false has no say in it, because for each one of us it is entirely subjective. And when the person in question is a writer, sometimes the narrative proves too powerful for herself to control.

This is what happens to Briony Tallis. As a pre-teen, she unleashes forces larger than herself which play havoc with the lives of her near and dear. Forces she cannot contain, however much she tries.

What remains is... Atonement.

What a lovely reread this was! I first read this novel almost a decade ago, and the story has stayed with me. The prose is gorgeous, and again I was completely absorbed in this novel.

My favorite character is Briony, the young writer seeking atonement for a mistake she made as a child. And my heart aches for her sister, Cecilia, and her wronged lover, Robbie. I've only read a few of McEwan's books, but I like his writing style so much I want to read more. Highly recommended.

Favorite Quotes
"Was everyone else really as alive as she was?... If the answer was yes, then the world, the social world, was unbearably complicated, with two billion voices, and everyone’s thoughts striving in equal importance and everyone’s claim on life as intense, and everyone thinking they were unique, when no one was. One could drown in irrelevance."

"There did not have to be a moral. She need only show separate minds, as alive as her own, struggling with the idea that other minds were equally alive. It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding, above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you. And only in a story could you enter these different minds and show how they had an equal value. That was the only moral a story need have."

"At that moment, the urge to be writing was stronger than any notion she had of what she might write."

"From this new and intimate perspective, she learned a simple, obvious thing she had always known, and everyone knew; that a person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended."

چند روزی رمان تاوان رو تموم کردم و خیلی برای نوشتن ریویواشو فکر کردم هیچی به ذهنم نرسید،چون که خیلی ها هرچیزی که لازمه را درموردش گفتن و حتی اسپویل هم کردن.

من کتاب رو خیلی دوست داشتم،توصیفات جنگ و عشق خیلی زیبا و غم انگیز به تصویر کشیده.
و بیشتر از همه اینکه این کتاب چون نایابه خیلی گرون فروخته میشه و راستش خیلی ناراحت کننده ست برام اینکه هیچوقت این کتاب قرار نیست تجدید چاپ بشه.

Having recently seen and loved the magnificent film adaptation, I decided to reread Atonement, which quite impressed me when it was first published. And guess what? It was an even more rewarding experience the second time around. Knowing what was coming -- knowing the plot twist at the end -- helped me focus on the quality of the writing rather than on the development of the story, and as always, McEwan's prose completely sucked me in. He is, quite simply, one of the most talented authors alive, and he uses his gift to great effect here.

I'm not really going to go into the plot here, because the less the first-time reader knows about the book, the better. Suffice it to say that it is about an imaginative thirteen-year-old who witnesses a few things she doesn't understand, draws the wrong conclusions and ends up ruining the lives of two people near and dear to her. The first half of the book deals with the event itself and the hours leading up to it; the second half deals with her attempts to, well, deal with it -- atone for it, so to speak.

As always, McEwan excels at setting the scene. His description of a hot summer afternoon in a 1935 English country house is lush and sumptuous, his evocation of a young soldier's struggle to reach home after the disastrous 1940 battle of Dunkirk is haunting, and his look into the horrors of a war-time London hospital is gruesome in all its detail. Amazingly, McEwan manages to find beauty even in the most horrific scenes, which is one of the things which set him apart as a writer. As usual, though, it's the psychological stuff that is really outstanding. McEwan has a knack for taking his readers deep into his characters' minds, letting them share their most intimate, most uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Sometimes these thoughts are a little disturbing (those of you who have read his earlier works will know what I mean), but usually they have the effect of completely drawing the reader into the story. The latter is definitely the case in Atonement. By presenting the story from different perspectives and vantage points, McEwan provides the reader with a complete and engrossing view of a life-changing event and its aftermath. All the different perspectives ring true, and together they tell a marvellous tale of perception, loyalty, anger, secrets, lost love, shame, guilt, obsession with the past and -- yes -- atonement. And about writing, for more than anything else, Atonement is about the difference between fiction and reality, the power of the imagination and the human urge to write and rewrite history -- to write destiny and play God.

I've heard quite a few people say that they found the first half of the novel too slow and ponderous, wondering why McEwan felt the need to devote nearly two hundred pages to the events of a single day. Personally, I found that part of the book to be utterly brilliant in its rich, Woolf-like glory. As far as I'm concerned, the atmosphere of the first half is superbly drawn, with each character down to the most minor one being well realised and the tensions and suspense at work almost being made tangible. For me, it is the second half of the book which has problems (albeit minor ones), in that I found the jumps in time and perspective jarring and the (otherwise fascinating) chapter about Robbie's adventures in France somewhat unreal. Of course, there are good reasons for the slightly unreal quality of the Dunkirk chapter (which the film captured just brilliantly), but still, it didn't quite work for me; it felt a bit out of place. Thankfully, though, the rest of the book worked just wonderfully for me. Like other McEwan books, it left me with a haunting question -- 'What if...?'

As for McEwan's impressive insight into the mind of a thirteen-year-old girl, which other reviewers have called scary, I think that has everything to do with Briony's being a writer. She is hardly your average thirteen-year-old (I think even McEwan would have a hard time coming up with one of those!); rather she is a writer (a good one), and that, of course, is something McEwan knows all about. As a fellow writer, I greatly enjoyed seeing the world through Briony's eyes, and hope her author will live to her old age and write as many good books as he has her doing.

“How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all.”

Eu nem sei ao certo o que escrever...

Chorei imenso ao longo de toda a leitura deste livro, ao ponto de recear a próxima vez que o fosse ler. E porquê? Vi a adaptação cinematográfica há muitos anos e este foi um daqueles filmes que me marcaram imenso, tendo eu comprado o livro e pensado "quando me esquecer do que vi, leio este livro". Aconteceu assim? Não! Nunca fui capaz de me esquecer do que fosse acerca do filme. Então foi terrível ler o livro. Mas atenção, terrível porque é daquelas coisas que nos marcam de uma forma especial e que por isso mesmo adoramos e tememos ao mesmo tempo.

Foi a primeira obra de Ian McEwan que li e posso dizer que estou tentada a aventurar-me numa outra obra sua, qualquer uma. E o bom disto é que não assisti a nenhum outro filme adaptado a partir dos livros deste escritor. Sorte a minha...

I am really frustrated with myself that I can't bring myself to like this novel. The passage from Northanger Abbey that precedes it was promising; anything referencing Jane Austen should be worth reading. However, despite the fact that his style is interesting, that every sentence attempts to make an impact, I feel as if it is trying too hard. A comparison to Austen's writing style is ridiculous, because even though McEwen attempts the same focus on a brilliant turn of the phrase, his style in no way comes close to Austen's clarity.

I also found the plot to be faulty. Yes, his detailed description of one afternoon if for the most part gripping, but what happens before and after is lacking. I want to believe that Cecilia and Robbie are in love, but there's not enough there to substantiate that. The description of their secretive letter-writing seems to serve as an indication of their close relationship, but I find it hard to believe that the almost racy yet purposeless Cecilia (as she is characterized in the first half), who was planning on staying at her parents' home all summer because she didn't know what else to do, now has purpose, drive, and patience to wait for Robbie like a good housewife. I can't reconcile her earlier flightiness with her later responsibility.

Another issue is the novel's lack of focus. Is the point the consequences of a child's mistake? Or is the point the unfortunate results of fate and war?

Overall, there are too many issues that are unresolved or lacking development (i.e. Cecilia's personality, Robbie's turmoil with class, Leon in general) to make me like this novel. Even the observations on writing that make up so much of the introduction do not carry through the rest of the novel. I will reread it, however, and see if my opinion changes.

A stunning,  lyrical saga about love, war, guilt, forgiveness, and of course, the uncertainty inherent in our vantage points and hence our perceptions. Briony, a fanciful thirteen-year-old is so consumed with her version of the narrative that she cannot grasp the lasting damage it would cause and the lives it would destroy. A crime is committed by her in the haze of adolescent immaturity, which proves fateful for those who unwittingly get dragged into it. Is redemption possible for this unlikely perpetrator? And what about the adults who unthinkingly condone her actions? Do they have a share in the guilt like they have a share in the deed? And can making amends later – after maturity prods one to examine past decisions – change anything, apart from quelling the unrelenting pangs of remorse? Can one stitch back the broken shell that a person becomes?

A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended.


The first part of the novel traces that ill-fated day in 1935 when Briony's confusion between fantasy and reality changes everything. The tone of the narrative modifies according to the shifts in the points of view – an indulgent, gently humorous flavour for the young, much-loved child Briony which subsequently transforms to bewilderment and self-consoling as her story takes an ominous turn; a dazed, wistful mood for the lovers and finally solemnity and reflection for the events that follow in the second and third parts. Oh, I revelled in the glorious writing and the polished prose which laid bare the inner worlds of the characters. Each sentence is beautifully crafted, almost too perfect, and portrays, in the author's words, "the crystalline present moment through the onward roll of the conscious mind". There are trivial drawbacks to this focus on capturing the present, on reproducing all that one thinks, feels, and sees – sometimes descriptions of moss, algae, and migraines usurp the attention reserved for finer emotions but I'm not complaining. I'm in awe of the strikingly beautiful compositions of McEwan and some of the other contemporary English writers that I've had a chance to read: The Line of Beauty by Allan Hollinghurst, On Beauty by Zadie Smith, and The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. 


My heart is bursting with things to say about this book of rare, timeless beauty but however desperately I try to convey them, I fall short of words. As a feeble excuse for my ineptitude, I wanted to drench your screen with lovely phrases from this very quotable masterpiece but you must have already come across them. I wanted to tell you about the hopelessness of war and even the perspective it bestows on us, of making all concerns seem tiny and forgettable, of reminding us of the importance of love. Instead, I will tell you that a nurse who was tending to the injured in the Second World War described the highs of her work as  "moments of impersonal tenderness and elated, generalised love".. Isn't that something to remember? And on a lighter note, an astute observation by the author might make you smile "Communal singalongs had a faintly coercive quality".


Lastly, in one hell of a twisted Epilogue, McEwan suggests that as a writer, it is essential to impart hope. What good would more bleakness do? There's enough of it around us. I agree.