With this, completing 5 of 339 from The Rory Gilmore Reading List.

5/5 stars

Do you know when people say that you are one person before you began reading a book and a different person after you finished reading that book? Yeah, I felt that with  Atonement.

Once upon a time, there lived a thirteen-year-old girl named Briony Tallis who wished to be a writer someday. While she is working on The Trial of Arabella, she is sent as a messenger to hand over a letter to her sister. On her way, she opens and reads the letter which changes her life forever. THE END.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the book was written by  Ian McEwan. Need I say more? So, yes there is more to the story.  McEwan totally blew me with his splendid writing skills. My fondness for historical fiction is growing day by day. He did a commendable job in portraying how a thirteen-year-old girl's mind works. Briony is innocent. She thinks she knows the difference between right and wrong. As she grows up she slowly develops an understanding of her misinterpretations as a child.

n  'The problem these fifty-nine years has been this: 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 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. 'n

Written from the third person's POV, there are three parts to the story. Part one dealt more with the detailed interior lives of the members of the family. Part two and three talked about the aftermath and involved more on the World War II side. I felt so emotionally connected to the MC. She is lamenting over her fault. It's so heartbreaking to see what guilt can do to a person.  McEwan gave an emotional experience of watching a character grow and develop.

The writing was flawless. The only issue I could notice was that it moved really slow for the first part. But, I guess that build-up was needed for the richness in the latter half of the story. I immediately went and watched the movie adaptation of Atonement and I must say I liked it. This is my first book by  McEwan and I'm sure I'll seek out others by him.  McEwan, you've got yourself a fan.

Review Posted : 03 Feb 2022.

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Atonement opens in 1935 at an English country estate, continues in rural France during the retreat to Dunkirk during WWII, and moves to a hospital in London in 1940. It mostly takes place during WWII, though it is not about the war itself. It is a story of the lives of Briony Tallis, her sister, Cecilia, and her sister’s beau, Robbie. Briony makes a terrible mistake that devastates the lives of these young people and their families. At the time of her error, Briony is thirteen years old. She is an aspiring writer with a vivid imagination, which is, in part, the cause of her misjudgment. Her mind is filled with the stories in her head, and her ambition to be a writer influences her judgment, so she “sees” events that coincide with what she believes to be true. This is the story of Briony’s atonement for her grievous error, trying to overcome almost unbearable remorse and guilt.

It is a literary novel containing many levels of complexities, which the reader gradually discovers. Some of Briony’s lessons will be imparted to the reader through this multi-layered structure. It is difficult to describe this process without spoiling. The writing is elegant and insightful, containing beautiful descriptive passages as well as an in-depth portrayal of human nature while under duress. The final section contains an epilogue set in 1999, and as with many epilogues, it may have an adverse impact on the reader’s enjoyment. I felt the epilogue was critical to impart the full picture and reveal all the complexities referenced above. I found it exquisitely written and brilliantly crafted. Recommended to fans of modern classics and lyrical writing, providing the reader is able to handle a good deal of sorrowful content.

“Tutto ciò che voleva era lavorare, fare un bagno e dormire, finché non fosse stata ora di lavorare di nuovo. Ma era inutile, lo sapeva bene. Per quanto sgobbasse, per quanto umile fosse il lavoro che svolgeva, e per quanto zelo e fatica ci mettesse, per quanto avesse rinunciato a chissà quali illuminazioni intellettuali, a chissà quali insuperabili momenti sul prato di un college, non sarebbe mai riuscita a rimediare al danno. Lei era imperdonabile”.

A dispetto del titolo, non c'è nessuna Espiazione.
Non esiste alcuna possibilità di un rimediare a determinati errori.
Non esiste "perdono"...né da parte di chi ha subito, né da parte di chi è stato causa di tanto dolore, di sconvolgimento, di distruzione.
"Perdonarsi" è ancora più difficile che perdonare...si può convivere con i sensi di colpa, si può diventare bravissimi a sopportarne il peso, ci si può fingere distratti, occupati, perfino accidentalmente felici, ma il mostro è sempre lì, insediato tra le pieghe della tua pelle.
Una trama intensa , a tratti commovente , gli
affreschi psicologici e relazionali dei protagonisti mirabilmente descritti , e la figura di Briony, artista poliedrica e camaleontica che vive un duplice tormento interiore , la propria colpa , ed il cercare di espiarla .
McEwan mi ha fatto riflettere, in maniera brutale. Ma non potevo negare quello che con le sue parole stampate mi diceva: siamo capaci di trasformarci in veri e propri mostri. Capaci di errori madornali; errori come quelli di Briony, gravi eppure così piccoli se paragonati al supremo errore della guerra, ma che lasciano i loro strascichi lungo tutta una vita.

Atonement is an incredible story of ignorance and youth.
Younger sister Briony catches her sister in the thralls of a passionate embrace - being unsure of the meaning of this situation it leads her to accuse a young man of one of the most hideous acts.
The story follows the three characters as they lead separate lives, forever tainted by this one accusation. Briony is unable to find peace when she finds how wrong she was as a child, and how everyone's lives could have been different, had she come forward.
It follows Briony's path of redemption and atonement - with an ending that is so heartbreaking and dramatic, I will forever ache whenever I think of this book.

This is where a 2.5 star rating would be ideal. I am extremely ambivalent about this novel--first the pluses: the writing is gorgeous; McEwan has some of the best prose out there. Every line has meat to it, nothing is throwaway, and every visual is so vivid that the reader is transported to a specific time and place. Secondly, (what everyone praises the novel for), the commentary McEwan is making about the novel itself--the fact that it is written, that characters and plots are manipulated by the author, and how a real character emerges (eventually) while at the same a written story exists too. This is very difficult to write about without revealing anything about the plot, but as one reads the novel, it becomes clear what McEwan is trying to do. Finally, the references to other literature (including some of the best novels--Clarissa, Lolita--and novelists--Elizabeth Bowen is directly mentioned, Henry Green and Virginia Woolf are obvious influences) is fluid, never forced, and is done to showcase a love of literature.
At the same time, there are downsides to McEwan's endeavor--how to write a novel that is commenting on its obvious falsity (its construction as fiction), while at the same time trying to convey reality. This is perhaps an impossible task, and I'm left with the nagging feeling that the novel wants to have its cake and eat it too. The characters and situations are so obviously phony that it becomes distracting in the first part of the story. I was drawn in by the fantastic writing, but then found myself wanting to hurl the novel across the room at some of the ridiculous choices by both the characters and the novelist. Namely: 1) The main plot twist makes little realistic sense. Absolutely zero would fly in a mystery novel let alone real life; 2) The characters in the first part are boring aristocrats who we don't care about (check out a Henry Green novel; except in his novels, the reader continues to laugh at them, there is no attempt at emotional attachment); 3) The 'mystery's' solution is obvious to the reader before the crime even happens; 4) Briony (part 1) is an insufferable narrator (as kid narrators, To Kill a Mockingbird excluded, so often are); 5) The novelist's choice to name a sexually, precocious teenager 'Lola' (too obvious a reference). But these choices are meant to be ridiculous--reality is only supposed to set in in the epilogue. At the same time, I marveled at how real parts 2 (Robbie at war) and 3 (Briony as a nurse--some of the hospital scenes are the best I've ever read) seemed to be. Then the question became for me--if they seemed real because of the way the scenes were written (the gore again in the hospital), but could not have been real because the characters and overall plot of the Tallis family are so fake, isn't that cheating? I haven't reached a conclusion yet, but something is still bugging me about the conception of it. Ultimately I prefer novels that go the opposite route--Paul Auster's Oracle Night for example--that start out real and quickly become fake, or throw out the idea of a realistic, consistent plot entirely (only in the conclusion does David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas come together), rather than the never-ending 'is it real? is it fake?' push-and-pull of Atonement.

Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003.

n  The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.n

In the heat of a 1930s Summer, a family reunites at their country home for what may be the last time. Cousins have come to stay, a sister has returned from University and a brother is returning from America with a new friend in tow. Briony, the only child left at home, is furiously writing a play to be performed, but what she witnesses-and is exposed to-will force her to make a decision that she will regret for the rest of her life.

This book reminded me strongly of Evelyn Waugh, though I think that's purely based on the surroundings and era (and mostly the house). Whilst Evelyn had a whimsical style to his writing, Ian McEwan is positively overflowing with flowery prose that leads nowhere and brings up memories of terrible books they made me read for college.

Atonement is a relatively easy read, if you can take so much description and little plot. None of the characters are anything except a piece of personality and don't go beyond their one trait and I felt nothing for all of them. They all had their one job and, whilst they did this one job well, that was that and there seemed nothing beyond their doing their one job.

We begin in a wonderful countryside house, which is described to death and the plot simmers along nicely. There's a play being written, and the cousins coming down from the North are being forced to act it out. There is youthful petulance, coming-of-age rebellion and adults avoiding responsibility and, in truth, the scene is set nicely in the first few pages. But then this setting of the scene continues for around half the rest of the book and it soon becomes clear that the plot is far away and we're not entirely sure if it'll be seen at all.

Setting the book during the war seemed like a pointless endeavour, if only to include some kind of treacherous battle scenes to add to the overall lack of drama up to this point. I suppose the book needed to be set somewhere and some time, but the overall affect was unimpressive. I found the whole thing lacking, in truth. The book, whilst it shifted to another city and even country, was just too small. Everything was cloying and felt like it was happening in one tiny bubble. I prefer big worlds and big plots, not just a single thread moving through a mire.

The main thing that irritated me about this book, is that it was full of needless cliffhangers that were seemingly pointless to anything except to expunge the pathetic attempt at a plot beyond the story arc. Nearly every chapter ended with something along the lines of "and oh my if this character hadn't done what he's about to do in the next chapter then his life would not have turned out the way it did", as if McEwan is unsure of his plot and needs to plead with us to keep reading. "What, what Ian, what's going to happen? I must must must read on if you say something interesting is coming along, because so far we haven't had much, have we, Sir?"

I am grateful, however, at the vague pleasure I got from the book as I read it that kindled within me a notion of the kinds of books I do and do not like. I feel, having read this book, that I could spot a book I dislike from the first few pages now, whereas before I'd probably have to get through it all just to know. So, of course, I will now not be wasting more hours on books that seemingly go nowhere, even after the first half, than I need to.

“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.”

This is the first book I've read by this guy, and I really enjoyed it. You know who I'd recommend this book to, but I don't think it'd fit in that little box up there? Okay, you know how sometimes you're craving a certain kind of musical style, like sixties soul, say, or classic British punk, but you don't actually want to listen to old music, you want to listen to something that's, like, of the now? There're a few (okay, not many) bands out there that don't just do hollow retro imitations, but sort of take what they love from the classics, and somehow make that new and fresh and appropriate to our time. I'd say this book is like that: it's the perfect thing if you're after an exquisitely written modernist novel, only you don't actually want to get into the musty old canon, and would like something new. Honestly, I think this actually works better with fiction than with music.... In any case, this guy can sure put together a sentence, let me tell you! Beautiful, beautiful sentences. They made me a little ashamed of myself. Actually, they made me a lot ashamed, but I was enjoying it so much that I didn't feel bad.

I'm a little hesitant about putting this in my book report, because I really do recommend this book and I'd like you to read it, but I have to say that I did find the last chapter hugely disappointing. It did have one instant where it went a ways toward redeeming itself at the end, but on the whole it was kind of like.... I don't know. It didn't ruin the book or anything, but it made me feel like Ian McEwan might be something slightly less than the incredible, sublime sentence-crafting god I'd been picturing him as. I mean, I guess he looks pretty ordinary on the back photo, which should have been a tip-off. Isn't there some culture's artistic tradition that's like that, where they purposely don't finish or add imperfections in their statues, to remind humanity that nothing we make can all that great? Well, the little coda at the end of _Atonement_ kind of hit me like that. To be sure, the author is extremely talented... but he is mortal, like the rest of us.

Yeah, the ending is dumb alright.

Worse than dumb, it's poorly executed. I understand why he felt he needed it, and the impulse was a good one. However, its function should have been accomplished with the grace and style all previous chapters had, and in my opinion it wasn't. It was just off, to me: like a great restaurant with mediocre desserts.

Anyway, it was still a great book. I'm curious if other people agree with me about this, or if I just sound cranky. I was just looking at other Bookster reviews, and everyone else seems to be like, "I didn't really take to this book until I got to the fabulous ending!" So obviously there's no accounting for (everyone else's) taste.

Sometimes when I write these reviews, especially when they're of novels with widespread popularity and critical acclaim, I start to feel like a real curmudgeon. Is there anything really wrong with Ian McEwan's “Atonement?” Is it not a compelling story well told? Is the writing not clear, succinct, and free of pretentiousness? Does McEwan not draw the reader into a well-imagined world and hold him there until the last page? The answer to all these questions is yes. Yet still, yet still...

Maybe it's all the acclaim that “Atonement” received when first published and the literary prizes it either won or was shortlisted for, or maybe it's the comparison I'm drawing – unfairly, to be sure – with some of the classic novels I've been reading lately, but I just don't see why McEwan's book has been held up as one of the great works of literary fiction of recent years. (Or maybe everything else from the last several years is that much worse?) My chief problem with “Atonement” is it just never feels fully real, like great novels do. I could never picture Briony, Cecilia, Robbie and the book's other characters existing beyond their words and actions on the page. They never become something more than characters in a novel – never become real living, breathing people, as is the case with truly great works of literature. The whole book just feels far too mannered, too neatly composed, too written.

Spoilers to follow here, so skip the next paragraph if you haven't yet read “Atonement” and plan to.

Does this maybe speak, though, to McEwan's genius? After all, in his nod to the art of metafiction, McEwan makes the novel not really his novel at all, but rather one written by his character Briony Tallis, so that all but the last section of the book, which is told first-person by Briony, becomes a novel within the novel. A defender of the book who accepts everything I've said up until this point might rightfully argue that the novel-within-the-novel's weaknesses speak to the who the character of Briony actually is, and to her shortcomings as a novelist. If that were McEwan's intention, it's kind of a brilliant move: a good novelist purposely writing in an average way because the character actually telling the story is herself an average novelist. OK, but even if I accept this argument – and even though I made the argument myself, I'm not sure it holds water – I still don't want to read an entire novel that's simply average, even if it's intended to be.

Spoilers over.

Getting back to my original point, though, why do I feel the urge to demand that every piece of literature – even one well-loved, and with critical regard – need be as brilliant as one by, say, Nabokov? (Though, to be fair, McEwan is asking for this comparison, as Nabokov mastered the metafiction toyed with in “Atonement” back when McEwan was just a wee lad.) Can't some literary novels just be an enjoyable read without achieving a place in the pantheon of great literature? Isn't there, alongside Nabokov and Bellow, a place for writers such as John Irving and Ian McEwan? (And is that too insulting to McEwan? Too flattering to Irving?) And, finally, have I become, as a reader, too much a curmudgeon?

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.

It seems either you hate this book or you love it. My rating of one star shows where I stand. I completely respect others who think differently from me.

The book annoyed me from start to finish. I was annoyed by
- the behavior of the upper-crust British family about which the story revolves.
- the absence of details concerning the trial.
- the excruciating description of body injuries in the war scenes.
- the melodrama of Briony's impending death.
- the ending which diverts into a discussion of how the novel should conclude.
- the posh, wordy writing style.
- the fact that Briony thought she could attain atonement through a novel.

It is very hard to discuss the above points without revealing the events of the story. Underlying my dislike of the book is the absurdity of the notion that the words of a thirteen-year-old child are taken as proof for a verdict. Children make errors. They cannot and should not be expected to fully understand the adult world around them. Much more attention should have been focused on others' guilt.

This is a love story, a war story, a book about what can be achieved through a novel, and of course about how to make amends. Can one atone for one's mistakes? Of course one cannot always do that! Life is like that.

I do think the author accurately depicts the upper-crust British lifestyle between the wars and the horrid reality of war. Yet for me the writing was too melodramatic and too florid. I dislike haughty wording. I prefer a more simple style. This is a matter of taste, but I believe if the wording annoys you every step of the way you will have difficulty enjoying the novel.

I did smile sometimes at the imagination, passion and precocity of the young Briony.

One word about the audiobook narration by Carol Boyd. She is easy to follow, but the text itself can be confusing to hear rather than read. I had to re-listen to sections to make sure I understood whose thoughts or words were being expressed. This is in no way the fault of the narrator.

I loved everything about this novel—the storytelling, the inner dialogue which rang so true, and the structure of telling a story in a kind of wave form: the plot moved forward like the tide hitting the beach, then was drawn out in an undertow, going back in time, then flowing in again as another point of view of the same time, and thus it keeps progressing and surprising. What tension, what detail, what a wonderful portrait of a child writer awash in the drama of her fantastic certainty and imagination. I wager anybody who writes will remember themselves through the character of young Briony, whose self-aggrandizing fantasies and need to be the hero of her own drama lead to tragedy. She embodies a time of life that some of us grow out of and then hate ourselves for … until we mature enough to realize that everybody does this stuff and we forgive ourselves for being human. But in this astonishing masterpiece, McEwan, whom I would call a “writer’s writer” because of his ability to reveal that very private process that is usually unspoken, takes us well past that … to atonement.

Usually I’m bored by a lot of inner dialogue. I’ve come to associate it with Women’s Fiction where mostly I find it to be overwriting. I had no problems with whole chapters of inner dialogue in this book—perhaps because so much of it was the kind of psychological searching for who and how we really are that I’ve always done. Plus, the writing is spectacular.

This is my second Ian McEwan book. The first was his hysterically funny n  Nutshelln. Atonement is nothing like Nutshell. I guess I’m going to have to read all of McEwan’s books. (Thanks, Goodreader Fred J.)