Atonement by Ian McEwan is a novel that explores guilt, redemption, and the tricky nature of truth. The story is divided into three parts, beginning in the 1930s at an English country estate and continuing through World War II and beyond. The second part of the book describes a character's experiences as a soldier during the war.

The story starts with Briony Tallis, a young girl who lies about a situation between her sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of the family's housekeeper. Briony's false accusation against Robbie has devastating consequences for everyone involved. She spends the rest of her life trying to make up for the wrong she did, leaving readers to wonder if true forgiveness is ever really possible.

The third part takes place in 1999, with Briony now an author. In her book, also titled "Atonement," she writes about the events of her life and reflects on the impact of her actions as a young girl.

The novel moves slowly at times, contains rough language, and deals with how a single lie can spiral into something much bigger.

How is it that every one of you has always strong, must-be-said-at-all-cost, life-changing opinions about every single book ever written, but nobody, NOBODY, told me a word about how much this book will have wrecked me?
Because I was so close to putting this thing back on the shelf, and I can't believe I’d have missed crying in my room, in the dark, at 2 a.m. on a weekday. You guys didn't want me to have fun!

It's so poetic when you finish a book and then proceed to describe all the shades of your sorrow, but sometimes being sad is not enough.
I'm desperate. Hitting-the-wall-with-my-head, pulling-my-hair, screaming-all-the-air-in-my-lungs type of desperation.
And angry. Oh, making me read a book without a purpose is in my top 5 of the most dangerous things to do to me if you want to be hit. Like, what is wrong with you? Who hurt you when you were a child? What have I done to you to deserve this pain?
And for those of you who think I'm dramatic, why don't you try reading a very much annoying story, just for it to develop into one of the most traumatizing love stories you've ever read?

Four parts, four stages of life, four ways in which Ian McEwan proves to be an amazing writer.
I feel I'm out of my comfort zone with this book, this is a proper adult book - even if I’m kind of one -, so there's no need for me to tell you how good McEwan is just by making you want to punch a kid and cry your heart out in a matter of pages.
But if you feel demotivated and you're trying to figure out why so many people read this story, let me tell you there's a reason. Just trust the process.

Do I want to watch the movie now? No.
Do I need to watch it? Yes. That green dress is being hunting me since the library scene, and I just know I didn't make it right with my imagination. Why be happy when you can be miserable?

↠ 4 stars

I have mixed feelings about this book. I struggled with boredom while reading the initial chapters. I literally forced myself to continue reading. The story starts moving only when about 100 pages into the book.

When I completed the first 3 parts, I was kind of disappointed with this book and thought I will give 3 stars and was wondering what all the hype was about! That was until I read the last section. It was heartbreaking. Those few pages made me re-think about the 3 stars. They compelled me to reward this novel with 4 stars. It deserved it.

All Briony Tallis wanted was for her elder brother Leon to enjoy the play she had written and was planning to enact it with her cousins, when he returned home after college. All her plans were ruined by her rude cousins who fought with her. Sad, she begins to wander around her house, with her thoughts. She spots her elder sister Cecilia and their cleaning lady's son Robbie in a situation she cant comprehend. Her vivid, wild imagination prompts her to immediately write a story. She thinks that Robbie has set his mind to do something evil and she needs to protect her sister.

When a family tragedy occurs, Briony decides to take charge and accuse Robbie of a crime he has not committed. This turns the life of a lot of people upside down. As Briony grows up, she realises that she has made a mistake. The rest of the novel is about how she tries to atone her mistake and whether she succeeds or not.

What I loved about this book:

Character development: Even though the initial chapters were boring, McEwan has done a great job in writing the thoughts and perspectives of each character. The thoughts of Briony who wants to be a writer, the anguish of an ill mother when she thinks about her daughters, the thoughts and actions of Robbie and Cecilia.. All these were written with perfection.

Conclusion: As heartbreaking as it was, this is the point in which the novel turned from an average book to a spectacular one.

Originality of Plot: The story idea was original and realistic.

Things that disappointed me:

Beginning: It was dragging. I guess it needs editing. Those initial chapters were required to build the story, but they needn't be so lengthy.

Part 2: After the story started moving, the book was really interesting. But when I reached part 2, I just didnt understand why it needed to be so long and it felt so disconnected from part 1.

Portrayal of Briony: I believe that Briony was almost innocent, considering her age and what she witnessed. But all through the book, I felt McEwan was trying to portray her as someone evil and mischievous. The young villain of the story. But her motives were honest and just. I dont know why the police and investigators didnt do a good job. They could have asked where each of the characters where during the search.

*Spoiler Alert*
( An afterthought on this point. Maybe Briony was portrayed as a lying, unreliable witness and a cruel girl by the author because she is the writer of the story and it's all that she can do under the given circumstances: make herself look like the bad guy, as a small penance for ruining the lives of her sister and Robbie.)

Missing pieces: I wish McEwan had written a bit more about the interrogation and what was going through the minds of each of the family members after the "tragedy". Also how Cecilia acted after the arrest of Robbie.

That's all I can think about now! I'm eager to hear the thoughts and opinions of other readers about this book

5/5

Una scrittura coinvolgente. Una storia emozionante. Che si può volere di più da un libro?
Non conoscevo Mc Ewan, all’inizio ho trovato qualche difficoltà a prendere confidenza con lo stile di scrittura, a volte ridondante ma efficace. Poi sono stata sbalzata dentro la storia e non ne sono uscita fino alla fine.
Il libro è diviso in tre parti: la prima parte si svolge tutta in un pomeriggio, nel 1935, nella villa inglese della famiglia Tallis. E’ la parte più lunga, ed è quella in cui tutto accade.
In questa prima parte Mc Ewan tratteggia-pennella potrei dire- i personaggi, come un pittore impressionista, dipingendoli là, nel giardino e nella villa: Briony Tallis, una adolescente di tredici anni che si trova in quello “spazio transitorio che estendeva i propri confini imprecisi dalla nursery al mondo degli adulti”; sua sorella maggiore Cecilia, incaricata di fare le veci di sua madre Emily, alle prese con tormentose emicranie; Leon, il fratellone amato che finalmente torna a casa con un amico, industriale della cioccolata; Robbie Turner, il figlio della domestica dei Tallis, bello e intelligentissimo, che ha studiato a Cambridge grazie alla generosità dei Tallis; tre cuginetti lentigginosi e dai capelli rossi, sbarcati contro la loro volontà a villa Tallis a causa del divorzio dei loro genitori, Lola e i gemelli Pierrot e Jackson.
Me li sono visti davanti, pennellati magistralmente, chi più in profondità, chi solo nei contorni, ma comunque sempre con maestria, come in un quadro.
Nella seconda e terza parte l’atmosfera cambia completamente: per rimanere nell’ambito artistico, direi che il quadro che mi si è presentato dinnanzi potrebbe essere “Guernica” di Picasso: urla, disperazione, morte. E’ scoppiata la seconda guerra mondiale e Robbie si trova in Francia con l’esercito inglese, in una marcia da incubo verso Dunkerque.
L’ultima parte è quella in cui il lettore trova spiegazione del titolo del libro, è il racconto del rimorso dovuto ad una “colpa” inespiabile.
Il finale è geniale, e la lacrimuccia è uscita.
Il collante tra le pagine è un amore grande, grandissimo, più forte dell’ingiustizia e della guerra, intenso e … bellissimo.
Il legame tra le tre parti è perfetto, quasi calibrato geometricamente, in una costruzione finale che potrei paragonare a un ricamo, dove ogni punto è collegato strettamente con l’altro per formare un’opera d’arte.
Mc Ewan è non solo un fine conoscitore dell’animo umano, ma ha la grande capacità di trascinare il lettore e renderlo partecipe di ogni emozione descritta. Almeno questo è quanto è accaduto a me.

If Briony has million haters, then I'm one of them.
If Briony has one hater, then I'm THAT ONE.
If Briony has no haters, that means I'm dead.

A book that had me thinking about the story for days on end. Part One was very slow and I actually found it boring. The story begins in 1935 and focuses on a 13 year old girl, Briony who believes she witnesses something "sinister" between her older sister Cecilia and the housekeeper's son Robbie. The story continues with Briony's accusation and the ramifications it brings to Robbie's and Cecilia's lives and ultimately her own. I really enjoyed the second and third part of the novel when Robbie went off to war and Briony became a nurse. The ending was poignant yet fitting.

read this as an assigned book for literature class, and it got me wondering if literature professors really like everything that they teach, or if they are just straight up lying to our faces.

i think if i haven't seen the movie i’d like it more, as the main intrigue was no longer an intrigue to me. by the way, the movie adaptation is very much accurate to the book, as well as much more vibrant, so better watch it. it also has James McAvoy in it and the book doesn't, so.

the style of the novel is very much postmodernist, as authors tended to write about modern topics with 19th century flow. too many details, thoughts and reasoning, some useless and not particularly relevant things. the book was very tiring, lulling and never once emotionally unloaded me.

1. 1935. the Tallis family estate
the author is trying his best to prove that this Briony just has a huge imagination, floating in the clouds of her own inventions. this is not an excuse for her actions at all. naturally, as an aspiring writer, she observes the people around her. the problem is that Briony not only watches, but also interferes. both openly and secretly. the reason why Briony commits slander is not self-interest or an attempt to attract attention, but rather another nasty motive: I decided that this is how it should be. a king and an executioner.

2. the period of World War II. Robbie at the front
the main plot here is the description of the survival of an individual in the meat grinder of war, and a losing war at that. the Nazi army captures France, the British, who came to the aid of the French, retreat en masse. including Robbie.

the events themselves are cruel and tragic, only it seemed somehow emotionless. horror, fear, anticipation of occupation are described in words, but for me it all remains words. it seems that the narrator himself has no idea what he is talking about. which is funny, considering the fact that postmodernist historiographers thought that authors should not write about history in a fictional way.

3. the period of World War II. Cecilia and Briony
the “sanest” part of the book. the main emphasis in this part is on Briony. she no longer seems to be an egoist or a scoundrel, however i still don't like her at all.

the suffering of soldiers dying from severe wounds is really tragic and disturbing to read. death in a hospital bed is perhaps the only thing that the author described more or less realistically. at least this is the only thing i believed in.

4. nowadays. Briony's 77th birthday
the old lady is celebrating her birthday, and at the same time she tells us that it turns out that we were reading not a Ian McEwan's book, but her debut novel! how sweet. she mumbles something about atoning for a childhood misdeed? mkay. and here i was utterly torn: not only is the novel boring, but also idiotic. Atonement, damn it. she's suffering, you know. turns out that she hasn't learned anything in her entire life: what she did in childhood, she does as a crusty old gooner—pretends to be a god. she was rubbish to me on the first pages and she remained so at 77 years old.

and the last, but not least—in addition to the stupid plot, the author's style was wildly irritating. sharp, abrupt sentences. lifelessness and emotionlessness of words. an attempt to make the reader believe the author's fantasy even when it contradicts his own perception of the situation and description. an incredibly drawn-out introduction.

The subject matter of Atonement is literature itself, but it is much more. First, the writer is one of its characters; second, because Ian McEwan’s novel creates a world where subjectivity and objectivity interfere mutually. The characters are full of life and the language, even if elaborate and subtle, does not go around or makes inroads into itself.

The narrator and protagonist, Briony Tallis, emerges in the beginner as a pre-adolescent that dreams to arrange the world in her texts, as in the play she is writing. Her love for order, for the careful design according to her spoiled desires, is translated into an impulse to write that hardly depend on the theme.

n  n   

“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.”

n  n
Her cousins, Lola, and the twins will be the actors, with which she plans to awe the assembled family, that include her parents, her older sister Cecily and the son of the housekeeper, Robbie. On that day of 1935, Briony sees Cecily and Robbie in a game that culminates in a fateful scene. Briony believes she sees something that profoundly perturbs her. The development of the story doesn’t let the reader stop. When, later, Lola is raped by a man that was not seen, Briony, without any grounds, makes a ‘deduction’ of who committed the crime.

Here we are, therefore, in the territory of Jane Austen, cited in the epigraph, or Henry James, George Eliot, and many other English authors: social tension versus sexual stress, pride and prejudice conflicts, mere misunderstandings that adopt dramatic dimensions. McEwan considers the simple distortions that physical acts, such as vision, can suffer when clouded by moral bias. Briony is attracted to Robbie and envies in Cecily her independence and, and in her anxiety to wipe out her shortcomings recreates the world in her own way, succumbing to prejudice and threatening her already reduced capacity to accept reality.

But, more than that, what McEwan shows is how a writer can worsen weaknesses such as vanity, cowardice and credulity, sentiments that derive from the solitary and fallible condition that is above all human. Briony, with an absent father, a sick mother, a distant brother and an adult sister, fills her solitude with words that want to arrange everything, as she organizes her room.

n  n   

“But hidden drawers, lockable diaries and cryptographic systems could not conceal from Briony the simple truth: she had no secrets. Her wish for a harmonious, organised world denied her the reckless possibilities of wrongdoing. Mayhem and destruction were too chaotic for her tastes, and she did not have it in her to be cruel. Her effective status as an only child, as well as the relative isolation of the Tallis house, kept her, at least during the long summer holidays, from girlish intrigues with friends. Nothing in her life was sufficiently interesting or shameful to merit hiding; no one knew about the squirrel's skull beneath her bed, but no one wanted to know.”

n  n
She is emotionally deprived as all of us, but a few degrees above the Richer scale: her need to be praised, her inability to deal with her environment, her surrendering to a fantasy of perfection – it is as if she were an immature child, seeking protection from life itself.

However, the novel goes beyond an intimate recounting. In the second half, McEwan throws the reader into the Second World War, with memorable descriptions of the United Kingdom’s empire ultimate whisper at the battle of Dunkirk. McEwan uses this as background to show us Robbie’s feelings. Among dead and wounded, he drifts with his head down and wrapped in his own sentiments to protect himself and to dream he will be exonerated for having survived in a battle where so many had died.
n  n   

“Now he reduced his progress to the rhythm of his boots -- he walked across the land until he came to the sea. Everything that impeded him had to be outweighed, even if only by a fraction, by all that drove him on. ...He knew by heart certain passages from her letters, he had revisited their tussle with the vase by the fountain, he remembered the warmth from her arm at the dinner when the twins went missing. These memories sustained him, but not so easily.”

n  n But what rots and sustains him is his hate for Briony:
n  n   

“In that shrinking moment he discovered that he had never hated anyone until now. It was a feeling as pure as love, but dispassionate and icily rational.”

n  nAbove everything:
n  n   

“Let his name be cleared and everyone else adjust their thinking. He had put in time, now they must do the work. His business was simple. Find Cecilia and love her, marry her and live without shame.”

n  nThe ability of McEwan is very well known, but in Atonement he arrived were he had not reached before and where few living authors – maybe Coetzee, Philip Roth and a few others – were able to arrive. The force of his narrative comes from its plot and its magnitude as well as from its richness and structure. The story is strong, but who narrates is not subservient to its hierarchy and its rhythm: it’s a subject that lets it flow and, at the same time, chooses the moments and the way to reveal its parts. McEwan does not need to resort to fragmentation and mysticism to deal with the battle between affection and speech, tolerance and freedom, a clash so in evidence nowadays.
____

13-year old Briony witnesses something she doesn’t fully understand and so begins a set of circumstances that leads to lifelong consequences that impact on several lives. The novel splits easily into three parts, the main event, its result, and the final atonement, and although I found each part too long and drawn out, I was just about won over by it all the end. It is by no means my favorite McEwan, but it certainly was a worthwhile read.

Is there word beyond 'amazing' that I can use? Some word beyond 'enthralling'? I need them. I'm reaching for them. But I literally just finished the book and I'm so much in awe of it I just can't. It's perfect. It's perfect in every image and line and mirror and echo. Ian McEwan is such a master of language and storycraft.

I devoured this book in a day. Less than a day. Ignoring all other work to do so. And it was TOTALLY worth it.

I can't think of what to praise first this point, so I'm going to go in random order. I'll start with the language. It's enthralling. It's that that draws you into the story. The story moves rather slowly, really. Half of the book takes place on a single day. But it is the language that makes you not care. The wordchoice is enchanting, just so. Gorgeous imagery interposed with just the right touch of magic to keep it beautifully fresh. He weaves his images throughout the text, having them pop up again and again, subtly. For instance, a pair of boy's pajamas becomes a symbol of war and horror as well as innocence ruined and then vague oppression and doubt renewed throughout the novel. A finger becomes a sense of self and changed identity at various points. It's just gorgeously done.

The storycraft is so perfect too. I love how he chooses to do it, switching from perspective to perspective, but always with the center on this delusional little girl, and the echoes of her own storymaking. It is story that screws over them all in the end. But it is story that resurrects them too. I loved his inward musings on writing, and his critique of his own writing within the text. It's a bit of a breaking of the fourth wall that's done with a rather sad irony, but it still brought a smile to my face.

I really enjoyed the themes that he explored too. Eventually I'll post some of my favorite quotes to give an idea of the beauty of the language and ideas that he explores as well, but in general... I think my favorite idea that he dealt with was the idea of order as a kind of childishness. As a kind of little, small denial of the world. The entire book shows the folly of order and what it does to our souls and minds. (quotes to come on this). I also loved his treatment of the all consuming nature of guilt. Atonement. Atonement indeed.

Amazing. I cannot recommend this enough.

I feel that perhaps I have sabotaged this book somewhat as I read it directly after finishing Love In the Time of Cholera, and perhaps in retrospect should have read a poetry book or some non-fiction in between. Clearly anything I would have read after finishing a Masterpiece would pale in comparison but I decided that the critical raves this book had received and high praise from people around me should be enough to encourage me to see it through to the end.

Here is why I found this book lacking without giving too much actual plot away to those who would want to read it themselves.

I found all of the characters completely devoid of any true personality or any reason I should care or feel connected to them. The details described in the book do a lot for physical surroundings but we know nothing of Cecila except she went to college and chain smokes, so I don't particularly care about anything that happens to her, besides the fact that much of her life is lived outside what information the book provides. Briony is a terrible child, a narcissistic teenager, and and at last a harmless grandmother who I don't especially care about at any of these three points in her life. The only character with the least bit of humanity seems to be Robbie who is still somewhat confined to his role as the "victim". All the lovely descriptions of ponds and hospital wards and French war-torn villages could not make up for the fact that none of these characters were the slightest bit interesting to me or seemed to connect to anything. They simply floated through long locational descriptions being powerless to the world around them and unfortunately for me I didn't need 350 pages to get that point. It could have easily been accomplished as a short story or novella. I just kept feeling that the book had all this great detail but didn't focus it on anything that it shoud have.

I know this may sound exceedingly harsh and once again I do chalk some of this up to reading Atonement directly after a much better novel it had no hope in eclipsing or even paralleling in its structure but I also know how quickly and easily I fall in love with characters. How quickly I can get pulled into a good story and I sincerely feel that although I wouldn't call this book a complete waste, that my time would have been much better spent elsewhere.