Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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59 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ian McEwan's masterpiece, 28 Sep 2007
I bought my copy of Atonement around five years ago and I never seemed to get around to reading it, even though I am a big fan of Ian McEwan's work. I knew that the release of the film version is imminent, so I decided to take it with me on holiday, so that I could set myself the goal of reading it before the film comes out. When I started it I could not understand why it had taken me the best part of five years to get around to reading it. I was totally engrossed by every aspect of the book; it is very atmospheric, it has a strong narrative drive, the characters are brilliantly drawn and you care what happens to the main protagonist.
In the hot summer of 1935 thirteen year old Briony Tallis is trying to stage a play to welcome her older brother home, but her cousins are proving not to be up to the task. As she sulks in her room she notices that her sister Cecilia has stripped her clothes off and jumped into a fountain, apparently at the behest of the cleaning lady's son Robbie. Her vivid imagination transforms this scene into something very different, and when that night something truly terrible does happen, she completely misconstrues it, with consequences that will dramatically change the lives of Cecilia, Robbie and herself. McEwan brilliantly captures how a child's mind works and the ways in which a naive young girl can totally misunderstand adult passions.
The second part of the book is set during World War 2 and Robbie is desperately trying to get to Dunkirk. Cecilia and Briony have both become nurses and are dealing with the casualties of the conflict. McEwan's writing is consistently superb throughout this book, but the war scenes are incredible, being totally pervaded by a sense of danger. You have a real sense of the terror and confusion that the British forces must have experienced as they retreated from France. There is an intense immediacy to the writing in the war scenes and it is hard to believe that McEwan has no direct personal experience of being in a war zone. The horrors of war are graphically brought home, as well as the capacity of the soldiers to exhibit compassion or violence.
All of the characters are still living with the repercussions of Briony's actions from that sultry day of 1945. How will Briony atone for her crime and the promising lives that she has destroyed? She is desperate to re-establish conflict with her estranged sister and make amends to both her and Robbie. We see her character grow, develop and mature and the manner in which she attempts to redeem her earlier actions is revealed in an extraordinary twist. The whole novel is a testimony to the power of writing and the effect it can have upon our lives. If you haven't already read it, read it now because it is one of the best books written in the past decade, and is easily the best novel to come from the pen of England's finest living writer.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
atonement, 13 Jan 2008
i have read ian mcewen books in the past, enduring love and the child in time. they were good books. i bought atonement in a charity shop about a year ago and after reading the outline on the back of the book i couldnt muster the enthusiasm to read it. i saw the film advertised with its images of war and decided it might be worth reading. i must say this is one of the best books i have ever had the pleasure to read. i could not put it down. i was at work in the canteen reading about briony in the hospital i was laughing at the soldier having shrapnel removed the next i was close to tears as i read brionys meeting with the young french soldier. a true modern great, i would recomend this book to anyone
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bravo! Superb., 7 Jan 2008
Reading this is like experiencing the beauty of contemplating a giant landscape - the style embodies a unity, a symmetry, a homogeneity - a gently throbbing and satisfying rhythm of oneness as one's gaze roams and hovers over page after page.
Every one of life's moments encapsulates a myriad of philosophical, psychological and historical components - all having threaded their way though particular configurations of circumstance to culminate in that moment. McEwan is a master of splitting the atom of these moments - unpacking for our wonder and delight these bundles of reality, in a style that is delicate and precise - a hallmark of his craft.
In a human narrative each of these moments is seen differently from the perspective of the various players. It is another feature of McEwan's craft that he burrows in and explodes each of these, subsequently weaving the understanding gleaned back together into a more refined understanding of the greater picture.
Beyond these exquisite niceties, a novel should naturally also be a good yarn, and McEwan is a wonderful story teller, maintaining a fine balance between fancy and feasibility. As a reader I experience the tension between wanting uplifting, happy outcomes and being prepared for gritty reality checks. Without giving too much away, in this book McEwan gives us both, with the slightest of sleights of hand - and in the last two pages of the book at that! With similar dextrous economy, the portal to this denouement is presented in the cypher of a set of initials and a date at the end of part three (of four).
The book is something of a saga, spanning 64 years and several generations. McEwan gives us a good feel for each of the periods covered. The 80 or so pages treating of the war have been researched in a novel way and the representation of war is a relief from war of the movies - even the better ones. Here we get the true horror and terror. Also a terrific flavour of the societal context in which this war was experienced in Britain. Towards the end he also gives us an insightful portrayal of an elderly mind surveying its life from the closing end of its journey.
The love story at the heart of 'Atonement' echoes Lawrence's portrayal of the oppositions and physicalities at the heart of romantic involvement. Indeed the male of the story likely read the word at the centre of the storm here unleashed in a student reading of Lady Chatterley.
In the end atonement is made - and McEwan and we accept it.
A personal note: For certain reasons I have been unable to muster the mental wherewithal to take up a book and read for nearly 2 years. I finally felt up to giving it a try, and 'Atonement' was the book with which I tried. Not only did the book turn out to be a good one with which to return to reading, but I read it over just 3 days.
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