Atonement: A Novel

This is exceptionally good and has a sting in the tale that leaves you entirely uncertain of what to make of what you've just been reading. Starting in an idylic 1935 this is full of mixed messages and confusions about what is seen and what is the truth of that seeing. We see this through the eyes of Briony, the youngest of the three Tallis children. She is 13 in 1935 and just at that difficult juntcure between childish enthusiam and the adult world. She has written a play for her three cousins from the North to perform with her in celebration of her brother Leon's return home. What she sees over the course of the next day and how she badly misinterprets what she sees will mark the lives of the family for the rest of their lives. She observes interactions between her older sister Cecelia and the charlady's son, Robbie and is entirely out of her depth. She also completely puts the wrong impression on how her cousin Lola gets to be in a particular state. What she then thinks she knows has happened (putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with a bushel of potatoes) is not what happened, and yet once it is said there is no drawing back. There are estrangements and marriages formed this day that persist for much longer. The main part of the book was excelllent, the sting in the tail takes palce in the epilogue. Here we discover that Briony has taken that talent for the inventive and become a novellist and what you have been reading is her novel of the events. And the way this is written makes you doubt a lot of what you've just read, particularly with respect to the relaitonship status of Cecelia and Robbie. Is Briony as unreliable now as she was then? Despite the passing of time? Has she made the relationship one way in the novel but did it end differently in real life? nd did she follow through on the novels seeming offer of retraction (and atonement) for the mistake that led to the rupture in family life? We're not to know, but that seed of doubt has been planted, most particularly by the seeming absence of certain people in the birthday party of the epilogue. It is really very well done, this undermining of everything that has been built up over the last 350 pages. I read this almost in one go, while travelling, and it was engrossing.

It's been a long time since I was surrounded by such a literary pleasure: I wanted to devour it, I wanted savour it. What an experience it's been to enjoy McEwan echoing Tolstoy in passing, and then without any warning at all, fluidly touching upon the hard problem of consciousness in a few paragraphs, only to let seemingly ordinary events unfold into the extraordinary depths of human psyche in turn. How easy the difficulty achievement seems, like a fugue of grandiose complexity, the laborious process behind it hidden by the harmonious performance, a feast for the mind to celebrate.There are books that I wanted to read more than once, then there are books that I managed to read twice, but this book made me go back to some pages and re-read some phrases, as if to prolong their effects. Again, and again my mind was stimulated in the most unexpected ways, my facial expressions reflecting some of the strongest passages I've witnessed recently. I'll always remember the abandoned hike from Calais to Istanbul, and Dunkirk's history that's dyed in fifty shades of vermilion.

A great book, really, the more I revisit it the better it becomes. The account of the retreat to Dunkirk was very gripping and the ending has a magnificent twist. Brings things into focus very well.

The mark of a good novel is knowing how it's going to end, but still being shocked and heartbroken when you get there.

I'm sure everyone has already said everything there is to be said about Atonement, a novel my mother proclaimed "the movie made me cry!" Well, mother, the book made your daughter cry. And I knew. I KNEW how it had to end, because there could be no other ending, and I still cried a river.

This book is incredibly human. I think every single person will relate to it, because we all make mistakes we wish we could atone for and sometimes...

we can't.

And we're forced to live with our guilt forever.

Is there anything sadder than that?

This book completely captivated me from the beginning. I think I cycled through every possibly feeling for Briony in the course of reading this novel. Gorgeous writing, even though this was a 370-page gut punch.

Simply brilliant!