Atonement by Ian Mcewan Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Atonement
Book Review: A tour de force of characterization and introspection
Summary: 5 Stars
Ian McEwan's Atonement renders the story of the Tallis family during a crucial epoch-- the interwar period, 1935, just before WWII. The spotlight shines most directly on Briony, the early-pubescent daughter whose household will soon swell with the arrival of new family members. Briony has the insecurity and longings that remind a reader of Holden Caulfield, along with the latter's desire to set things right in her own preconceived way. Briony dreams of becoming a novelist but will later become a nurse to "atone" for the sins of her actions that lead to unintended consequences. In fact, true to the book's title, its characters in general atone in various ways for the often disastrous outcomes of their actions.Besides the depth of character development in the book, we the readers are also treated to a marvelously vivid set of images of a world gradually hurtling toward war. There is Briony's stripping in the fountain for Robbie Turner, and the latter's desperation several years later at Dunkirk, waiting in terror for an uncertain rescue as the Nazi death trap closes in around him and his compatriots. A worthy and in some ways superior follow-up to McEwan's Amsterdam.
Book Review: Can a writer achieve penance and atonement through writing?
Summary: 5 Stars
While Ian McEwan's novel seemingly centers around one day and evening when a series of unfortunate events cascades into tragedy for one family, this is only one layer in this mesmerizing book. Below the surface are questions about sin, human fraility, love and, finally, atonement. At the heart of the book is a young girl names Briony and her unformed views of the world which lead her to unfortunate conclusions. As McEwan describes her perspective: .."her life now beginning had sent her a villain in the form of an old family friend...that seemed about right- truth was strange and deceptive, it had to be struggled for, against the flow of the everyday..." Until I encountered this book, I had begun to wonder if there was truly anything new and original to be read in literature - or only a rehash of themes that had already been worked to death. But McEwan's book not only kept me glued to my seat until I'd finished every last page and read every single word (but slowly, so I could savor the best lines), but made me rethink my beliefs. It made me think about not only love, family ties and betrayals and truth versus fiction but left a reverberation that continues to echo through my days. If this sounds overblown and sentimental, I urge you to read this book yourself before coming to any judgments.
Book Review: Be prepared to stay up late!
Summary: 5 Stars
Though this book is only of average length, it has the feel of a big family saga, so completely does McEwan delve into the consciousness of his main characters as they attempt to cope with the long-term repercussions of a "crime" committed by a Briony Tallis, a naïve 13-year-old with a "controlling demon." Briony's "wish for a harmonious, organised world denie[s] her the reckless possibilities of wrongdoing," so it is doubly ironic that her attempt to "fix" what she sees as wrongdoing involving her sister and Robbie Turner, a childhood friend, becomes, in itself, a wrongdoing, one she feels compelled to deny and for which she will eventually attempt to atone.
Opening the novel in 1935, McEwan creates an intense, edgy, and almost claustrophobic mood. England is on the brink of war; Briony, a budding writer, is on the edge of adolescence; her newly graduated sister Cecilia is thinking of her future life; and Robbie is about to start medical school. The summer is unusually hot. Troubled young cousins have arrived because their parents are on the verge of divorce; Briony's mother is suffering from migraines; her father is "away," working for the government; her adored brother Leon and a friend have arrived from Cambridge; and Briony, an "almost only child," with a hypersensitive imagination, finds her world threatened.
Step by step, McEwan leads his characters to disaster, each individual action and misstep simple, explainable, and logical. The engaged reader sees numerous dramatic ironies and waits for everything to snap. When Briony finally commits her long-foreshadowed "crime," the results are cataclysmic, and the world, as they know it, ends for several characters.
Giving depth to his themes of truth, justice, honesty, guilt and innocence, and punishment and atonement, McEwan uses shifting points of view and an extended time frame. Part I is Briony's. In Part II, five years after the crime, Robbie, now a footsoldier retreating from the French countryside to Dunkirk, continues the same themes, seeing the crimes of war, not only between the combatants but against civilians and, at Dunkirk, by the Brits against each other. In Part III, Briony, atoning for her earlier crime by working as a student nurse, rather than studying to be a writer, brings the past and present together, tending the casualties of war. The ending takes place in 1999, at her 77th birthday party.
This is a totally absorbing, fully developed novel, the kind one always yearns for and so rarely finds! The characters, the atmosphere, the lush descriptions, the sensitively treated themes, the intriguing and unusual plot, and the rare entrée into the mind of a writer, both Briony and McEwan, give this novel a fascination few others achieve. It's hard to put this one down! Mary Whipple
Book Review: so disappointing
Summary: 2 Stars
I was so excited by the prospects for this novel, I ordered it from Amazon.UK. What a disappointment.The McEwan prose style is in full flower but the composition of the novel left me underwhelmed. The three principal aspects of the story are interesting in themselves but the novel felt like three novellas put together to form not a coherent story but something like a pastiche. The ending (I won't commnet!) has a bit of a contrived POMO feel to it...Book Review: POSSIBLY McEWAN'S FINEST WORK...
Summary: 5 Stars
...and that's saying a lot, because this author has produced some of the most well-constructed, intelligent and -- my opinion -- lasting works of our time. I knew after reading his last novel, AMSTERDAM (winner of the 1998 Booker Prize), that the follow-up would have to be something special -- and this incredible novel is definitely that. I've read that this novel just missed winning the Booker Prize for 2001.McEwan's characters are, as his readers have come to expect, expertly and completely developed here -- even without one of them acting as the narrator (until the last short section of this novel), it is as if we are INSIDE them, experiencing everything that they experience. Placing these characters within as story that spans more than 60 years of the 20th century, a story that is simultaneously timeless and excruciatingly evocative of its setting in place and time, he has delivered a work that is both immediately entertaining and filled with insight into the human character and struggle.
The author's research into the times covered by the book -- especially of the British experience of World War II, both at home and in the European theatre -- adds immense vitality and meat to his story. The horrors and emotions, the physical and mental suffering, and the pain and death of WWII are brought to life in such a way as to break your heart. The characters' actions -- and their consequences -- played out in these surroundings bring out facets of their humanity that have many revelations and lessons for us.
The young girl who sets things in motion -- thirteen years old at the outset of the book -- is Briony Tallis. Her family is well-off enough for them to live comfortably in a large house in the Surrey countryside. The youngest of three children, she is adored by her siblings and parents (although her father is a rather distant, frequently absent figure). She is intelligent and precocious, writing stories as a form of personal expression, which are well-received with kudos from her family. One day in the summer of 1935, she witnesses events she does not understand -- she is a child, after all, and lacks the emotional tools with which to deal with adult situations. Her reaction to the event is understandably skewed -- but it is her subsequent lie that sets the story rolling. The consequences of her actions change the lives of all those around her -- and her own as well -- forever. McEwan skillfully employs Briony's writing efforts to show us -- and Briony -- the power and responsibility that it embodies. By the story's end -- and I'll give away no more about the plot, you should savor it for yourself -- I was incresingly unsure what was real and what was a product of her fantasies and imagination.
The book is of moderate length -- at 300 pages -- but a quick, stimulating read. While it is very revelatory about human nature and the struggle -- internal and external -- of good and evil, it is extremely entertaining and compelling, another lasting literary contribution from this talented writer. Some of his other novels -- all of which I highly recommend -- include THE CEMENT GARDEN, THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS, THE INNOCENT, and THE CHILD IN TIME (winner of the Whitbread Prize in 1987). His writing is filled with darkness as well as light, always intelligent -- one of my favorite writers.