An Honest Review of Atonement
When I read Ian McEwan’s Booker Prize nominated novel
Some books are meant to give you delight only when you purchase them, but then they sit around on the shelf, book-ended for the other, more interesting reads.
Atonement has been on my bookshelf for an appalling length of time. It’s a coveted piece of fiction, and many of you may have read it. The legendary status arrived after the movie was screened. I purchased it because of some global trend — what can I say, except I was a conformist. And as a befitting plight for a conformist, I paid in guilt.
I never watched the movie. I went to good length to avoid the spoilers. But everytime I picked up the book, it promptly put me to sleep. The lengthy syntax brought me to my knees. And then some. When the quarantine began, I decided to tackle Atonement the way I did Constitutional law.
You put your head down, and you get it over with.
The story starts with an over-imaginative young girl, Briony, who witnesses a few confrontations between her elder sister, Cecelia, and the house help’s son, Robbie. Then, she sets rolling an atomic-bomb-disaster that reverberates through time, ruining multiple lives for the rest of each life. No more spoilers.
Its an excruciating read, but only in parts. The novel is divided in three distinct timelines: 1930s England; 1940s Europe (the IInd World War); and the 1990s London (present day).
The Writing: If you like fast paced, gripping books — do yourself a favour and watch the movie. What’s interesting, though, is that the writing style varies between the three parts.
The first part is methodically detailed to the point where you begin to wonder where the author is going with this. He drones on about every character’s thoughts every minute, even the irrelevant ones. That’s my biggest beef with the novel ~ after investing so much in Emily and Leon Tallis, we never find out what becomes of them.
The second part is all about Robbie’s journey during the war. Again, the devastation is caught in extreme detail. I found this to be the worst part, and yes, I was strongly tempted to just skip pages. Again, the author describes Robbie’s friends in grave detail, but forgets about them in the end.
The third part was the most interesting. We see how the blast-from-the-past and the war shapes each character’s trajectory. There is one gratifying, blistering scene of confrontation between Briony, Robbie and Cecelia. Wait for that one: it’s divine.
The ending of the novel binds the heart heavy. The story keeps twirling around Briony’s atonement for screwing everybody’s life, but more deeply, the story wants to ask if we can ever atone for our life altering misdeeds, however unintentional they may have been.
The Characters: Utterly unlikeable, and if that doesn’t bother you — good for you. Briony is annoying for a little person, her cousins (the twins) frippery and dull. Even Cecelia is a confused young woman who is scrambling within the estate with or without clothes. Robbie is the only interesting character; one whose thoughts bear some semblance of clarity.
What’s Good: Briony’s guilt bleeds on every page of the last part, and finally, she atones in her own curious, yet historic manner.
A bittersweet reunion with the extended family in the same family where everything went to shit is a straight tear-jerker, and McEwan succeeds, finally, in enveloping the reader in his spangled shroud of desolation. Then it ends.
There’s confusion from the start, but the fog lifts towards the end.
Perhaps, that’s what the author wanted to show by writing this convoluted, long saga: That you can never atone. You only live the rest of your days, knowing what you did.
