Atonement
Ratings298
Average rating3.9
“How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all.”
My first McEwan book; read it after seeing the film which is the reverse of what I usually do. It didn't matter in this case because I was so taken by his style of story telling.
The first 1/3 of the book was incredibly slow. I stuck with it in hopes that I would be rewarded. The second 1/3 was amazing and, at times, hard to read due to the subject matter. The last 1/3 was just ok. Overall, I was not invested in the characters and didn't care what happened in the end.
the movie was better and not just because of Kiera Knightly and James McAvoy, although I am literally obsessed with them.
I wanted to throw this book across the room after I've finished reading.
I loved how full circle it becomes and I do love the twist. It's just so frustrating. It's funny, I was pretty bored at times with this and I had trouble reading it at first. Then it became engrossing and I couldn't take my eyes off it. It's interesting just how meaningful the mundane stuff can be. 4/5 will not read again.
I wish one could rewrite history, and it would be so. On the other hand, all our choices have led us to what we have today. I often think about what I would do if I could wake up back in 1984, having all I know now in my head, all my memories, all my knowledge. There are things I wish I had done differently. I am still pretty pleased with what I have right now.
Now, would Robbie and Cecilia's life have been much different? Robbie would still have gone to war, being young and able-bodied. Now, he would have had a higher rank, and he might have been a medic, and maybe survived, but - maybe his fate was to die. Cecilia might still have been a nurse and died the way she died. Though I wish Ian had given them a child.
But - a good book. Quick read. I'm glad I've read it.
BTW, the green dress... Did you know it has a Wikipedia page :-D
so unromantic compared to the movie. which works in some ways. briony seems to loathe the book's subjects, somehow? like she still blames robbie and cecelia, as well as herself of course. a bit of a mind-fuck i won't lie
the movie was better haha
I didn't really enjoy this book, but I must admit it is well written and powerful.
La primera mitad del libro es excelente, el personaje de Briony niña es fascinante. Luego, para la segunda mitad, solo tenemos un montón de descripciones sobre la segunda guerra mundial, ya muy vistas y bastante aburridas, y algo de la vida de Briony joven, quien es patética y aburrida. Es una lástima que el autor no haya mantenido la forma de relatar la historia hasta el final. El cierre de la historia –aunque inesperado- tampoco es la gran cosa. En general muy bien escrito, excelente arranque, pobre desenlace.
I've enjoyed this audio book (but found out at the end that it was the abridged version). I will eventually read/listen to the full version since I've enjoyed this version and I'm interested to find out what I've missed.
This is one of the only books, if not the only book that I think I like less than the movie. I try my best to read a book before watching the corresponding movie but in this case, I saw the movie so long ago, I knew it wouldn't make reading the book any more slow for me.
The pacing is excruciatingly slow. Details upon details that I don't care about and will never remember. Such a good story within a story but the environmental details make it SO boring at times. I think I know more about the characters' environment that I know about the characters themselves and that's just not my cup of tea. But if you're here for that, definitely read this book.
I just don't know what else to even say. I expected a lot more from this novel. I watched the movie once years ago and all I could really remember was that I loved it. It was moving. The book, not so much. I really felt sort of disappointed and empty when I finished reading because I WANTED to love it. I wanted to feel the weight of everything said and done. But it was so bogged down in scenery, how could I?
I'm giving it 3 stars because the story is so well thought out.
This book was beautifully written and fun to read. The author artfully combines facts and fiction with shameless honesty. His greatest achievement is providing an experience for the reader. He made me feel like I was “there” by engaging all of my senses throughout the story. I am glad i had to read 20th century reads.
2.5 stars (audiobook version)
It's difficult to rate this.
Plot summary: young girl has a crush on the local boy. Local boy loves her sister, not her. Young girl witnesses a crime. In her frustration/anger she blames her crush. Their lives are forever altered.
Positives:
- I enjoyed the writing and thought it was well done. The descriptions were marvelous and really set the tone.
- the POV of a teenage girl. I was surprised how well done this was. Especially considering it was written by a man
- the moral: Our actions carry great consequences. Jealousy and lies have the opportunity to destroy entire lives.
Negatives:
-Timelines. Having seen the movie first, I knew what was going to happen. Even so, I found some parts confusing as the timeline jumped around.
-Length. The book drags. Entire paragraphs devoted to things of little importance. More than once I thought “ok, where is this going?” and nothing would become of it.
Neutral:
- “The book is much better than the movie!”- Was it? I picked up this book because I expected there to be vast changes that didn't make the film. I didn't see much difference at all. In fact, I felt like the movie followed the book to a T. Yes, in the book the reader can get inside Bryony's head, but the film had some wonderful visuals and music to accompany the story.
Read my review on my blog here: https://theconsultingbookworm.wordpress.com/2017/04/09/atonement-ian-mcewan-book-talk-1/
I had to read this for my A Level English class as a crime novel, and I was really pleasantly surprised with how good this was because I don't usually like the crime genre. I really enjoyed how this book was split up into parts to define sections of the character's lives, and how the crime impacted them, it is really gave a sense of her they were trapped in their altered lives and how they would never change.
Also, the ending of this book was such a surprise when it really shouldn't have been, if you look back throughout the novel and read it from the narrative that focuses on Briony there are a lot of mentions to fantasy, novels and literature - oh how clever McEwan is.
The one thing that let this book down from was Part 2 of the novel as I felt it distracted from the narrative of the novel too much, I would have loved to have had more of Briony's/other character's lives mixed into it. However, I understand why it was down even if it was a pain when I just wanted to know what was happening back at home.
I highly recommend this as it's so clever and a thought provoking read.
The prose was great at points but I never cared much about the story or characters.
Тринадцатилетняя Брайони живет в мире собственных фантазий и детских увлечений. Такие представления о мире толкают ее совершить преступление против любви своей сестры и юного друга семьи Робби. Сама того не желая, путем глупой ошибки и наивных заблуждений, Брайони разлучает влюбленных и обрекает себя на вечную вину, которую невозможно простить.
Книга вызывает многоступенчатое восприятие. Первая часть создает впечатление социального романа, где описывается жизнь отдельно взятой семьи, с различиями в характерах членов семьи, со сложностями межличностных отношений. Первую часть книги хочется читать не переставая.
Вторая часть описывает тяготы Первой мировой войны, и тут уже читать становится тяжело, перед читателем разворачивается картина военных действий со всем неприглядством и печалью.
Третья часть как бы аннулирует первые две части, деактивирует их важность и значительность. Все приходит к мысли, что ничто не вечно и любые события проходят, а обиды забываются, хотя память о прошедших днях необходимо хранить незапятнанной.
История глубокая и серьезная.
Great read classic English WWII setting, McEwan writes so well, fantastic.
Review from The Literary Snob
Openly, I admit that I belong to the faction of those who make every attempt to read the book before watching a film adaptation. I will not go so far as to say that every film is worse than the book it attempts to reenact — personally, I thought both adaptations of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were an improvement — but, even with the expectation that a movie will not compare with its predecessor, I vehemently avoid watching a film adaptation of a book I have not yet read. There are many benefits to taking this approach, but I learned a new one with my most recent read: It can lead you to a amazing book you wouldn't have read otherwise.
I had no interest in reading Ian McEwan's Atonement. From a distance, his novels seemed to hold some promise, but nothing about them demanded my immediate attention. And with a bookshelf filled with titles that beg for me to open their covers, any book that ask for less is not likely to appear in my Goodreads account. What changed my mind was Keira Knightley. Like her “twin” Winona Ryder, I've been impressed with how Knightley can make a great literary character seem so real — that's not to say that the film isn't outright atrocious (Ryder's Jo March was amazing, but 1994's Little Women was a horrible adaptation). So, I decided that if I was going to see the film, I had to make it through the book.
As I began, I was worried that I may be wading through little more than a world of Austenesque British romantic realism and childhood plays for 351 pages; quickly, however, I was being swept up into a child's imagination and an intrigue that could lead in many different directions. Centering largely on inventive 13-year-old Briony Tallis, perception becomes reality as adult actions are misconstrued. What results is an innocent man being punished and a young love affair being torn apart. The story moves quickly as one scene is played out in many different perspectives and vantage points. It is further propelled by the underlying sense throughout that something is out of place, a feeling that is confirmed in the book's final pages.
From the British countryside to war-torn France and the streets of London, McEwan excels in his descriptive settings. He more than succeeds in creating a novel which embraces scenes equally lush and inviting as they are repulsive and haunting. Some readers will find the first half of the novel, which embodies the lush, multiple perspective portion of the text, to be somewhat tedious; and I wouldn't completely disagree with this statement. Upon completing the work in its entirety, however, I believe I had felt enough excitement and couldn't imagine a beginning that better set the mood for the rest.
McEwan does an amazing job in developing Briony from a girl most would find annoying, if not outright repulsive, to an young woman whom we feel sympathy toward as she realizes how badly she has hurt two of the people most dear to her. Unfortunately, the characters of Atonement are not all so perfectly written. Without much back story, it is unclear why many of the lead characters make the choices they do. I found the young couple, comprised of Briony's sister Cecelia and hired hand Robbie, to lack a certain believability. Their actions were effective in propelling the novel forward with images of romance and heroism, and this seemed to be their purpose, but I had hoped to find some deeper meaning. What is it in Cecelia that convinces her so quickly that Robbie is the one? Why are they so sexually charged on their first meeting? Why is Robbie so sympathetic on the battlefield? It wasn't Robbie or Cecelia that I cared for, it was the idea of the rudimentary love they shared and the driving force for hope. This lack of depth in these primary characters seemed out-of-place in a novel that so effectively weaves a psychological web that it was impossible for me to not become tangled up in it.
Through it all, I believe Atonement effectively makes its point. Perception and imagination are the creation of the author, the one who can and will play God — this is the separation of fiction and reality. Which left me asking, which of the two is more real? Which the more powerful?
Despite its couple of setbacks, I consider this novel great enough to be placed amongst my list of favorites.
“Read” this via book on tape over too many weeks, which made the story seem to drag. It's entirely possible the book was draggy on its own. Didn't love the ending.
Not at all sorry I read it, but wouldn't recommend you wreck your car to hurry and get a copy.