The call of the wild by Jack London

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Description

The Call of the Wild is a classic American Adventure originally published in 1903, in which the author Jack London explores the laws of wilderness and self-centered civilization. The story is set in Yukon, north-west Canada during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush when strong sled dogs were in high demand. The story lingers around the main character ‘a dog’ named Buck, who is half Saint Bernard and half Scottish Shepherd. He is stolen from his home and comfortable life in Santa Clara, a Valley of California, and sold into services as a sled dog in Alaska. 

The author portrays the instinct through Bucks’ eyes. Buck progressively reverts to a wild state in the harsh climate, where he is forced to fight back to dominate other dogs. By the end, he sheds the veneer of civilization, be dependent on primordial instinct and learned experience to emerge as a leader in the wild.

London shares his own experiences as a prospector in the Canadian wilderness. 
He did spend almost a year in the Yukon and observed life in the wild for collecting the material for the book.

London was influenced by European authors’ writing style in which themes of heredity versus unnatural habitats or the environment were explored. He used this genre to give a new vibrancy to American literature. 

Review

The Call of the Wild is definitely a short story but its gripping ability makes you finish it at once. It takes us on the journey to the wildlife of the great white North of America along with Buck which is definitely unforgettable. Buck- the dog, is the protagonist in this charismatic theme of writing.  

Jack London circumscribes the life of Buck from its natural habitats on the west coast to the harsh climate of the north. The journey from diligent and comfortable life in California to become a beast of the wild with learning to fight back for survival. It is definitely an action pack and adventurous story which makes the entire journey intriguing to prohibit having a long break.
Much of its appeal derives from its simplicity as a tale of survival.

The book’s great popularity and success made a reputation for London in the literature world.

Adaptation

• The story was serialized in the Saturday evening post in the summer of 1903; It was published a month later in book form. The book was a huge success and made a reputation for London.
• As early as 1923, the story was adapted to a silent film and after that, it has been adapted for several more cinematic projects.
• In 1935, A film to feature the story was the first 'talkie' with the expanded John Thornton's role.
• In 1972, another movie was filmed in Finland with the original name The Call of the Wild.
• In 1978, Snoopy TV special What a Nightmare, Charlie Brown was another adaptation of the story.
• In1981, An animated film titled Call of the Wild: Howl Buck was released.
• In 1996, another adaptation was a film called The Call of the Wild: Dog of the Yukon.
• In 1998, A comic adaptation was made for Boys' Life magazine. In this version, Yeehat Indians are omitted and John Thornton's killers are now the white criminals out of the concern of cultural sensitivities, who as before, are also killed by Buck.
• On February 21, 2020, a live-action/computer-animated film was released by 20th Century Studios. The film adaptation was titled The Call of the Wild which was directed by Chris Sanders.

About the Author

John Griffith London was an American novelist, journalist, and social activist who was born in San Francisco, California on January 12, 1876, as John Griffith Chaney. He was one of those writers who become a worldwide celebrity and possessed a large fortune from writing. He was a world-class pioneer of commercial magazine fiction and was also an innovator in the genre that have later known as science fiction. London was part of the radical literary group 'The Crowd’ in San Francisco and a passionate advocate of unionization, worker's rights, socialism, and eugenics. he wrote several works dealing with these topics, such as his dystopian novel The Iron Heel, his non-fiction expośe The People of the Abyss, The War of Classes, and Before Adam.

His most famous works are The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush as well as the short stories To Build a Fire, An Odyssey of the North, and Love of Life. He also wrote about the South Pacific in stories such as The Pearls of Parlay, and The Heathen.

He died on November 22,1916 at his home in Glen Ellen, California. His death was a matter of debate and still going on. Few considered it suicide as he was going through many illnesses and a poor recovery rate. His was cremated and his ashes were buried on his property next to pioneer children of wolf house.

Jack London

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Rating: 4.2/5

Author: Jack London

Publisher: Maple Press

Publishing Date: 1 September 2012

Language: English

Genre: Action/Adventure, Classic Fiction book

ISBN-10: 9380005454

ISBN-13: 978-9380005454

Pages: 140 

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On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Description

On the road is a 1957 novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, based on his real-life story of traveling across the country (USA) with his friend Neal Cassady. This novel is considered as circumscribing work of post-war Beat and Counter-culture generation of writers, with its protagonists living their lives against ‘the life beyond of jazz, poetry, and drug addiction’.

Jack Kerouac is the main protagonist of Sal Paradise and another protagonist is Neal Cassady as Dean Moriarty. Sal Paradise who is young and innocent is falling back after his divorce. He finds his travel mate Dean who is occult, energetic, breathless, and care-free. He has a good sense of adventure and lives in his own conditions.

They both meet and travel across the United States of America with a hedonistic and peppy life-style. They fulfill their search for self-pleasure through drink, drugs, sex, and jazz. They make it an exploration of personal freedom and a test of the limits of the American Dream which eventually becomes the lifestyle of the American youth.

The novel is largely auto-biography with a hint of fiction. The story contains five parts, three-part of which explicitly define road trips with Dean Moriarty to San Francisco. In this first section of three parts, the author is describing the conflict going in his mind about love and the zest of freedom. The exciting sensation of living on the road with just fifty dollars in his pocket.

And, the second part circumscribes their travel and the differences with their multiple companions. Sal becomes more philosophical and begins to find greater happiness in the simple pleasures of life such as listening to basketball games and music. Then, they go around searching for Sal's lost and homeless father.

Review

The book ‘On the Road’ is a well-written dream of America’s new generation of the 1950s which was learning and adopting a carefree life with the use of drugs and exploring the meaning of self-pleasure. The book is maven and it is different from its times classic writing ideas.

It is a Roman á Clef with two protagonists including the narrator himself as Sal Paradise and his travel buddy Neal Cassady as Dean Moriarty. Other key characters of the road journey are William S. Burroughs as Old Bull Lee and Allen Ginsberg as Carlo Marx.

In the book, the narrator shares his emotional fizzling out and finding a breakthrough of what he was going through. He found the Americana dream of being carefree and be on the road without caring about anything. No family, no money, just live with that what comes in the way. Eventually, he realizes that it’s not the life he wants to live.

This book is a whip-smart blend of Auto-biography and fiction that races towards the sunset with unbeatable exuberance and passion. It is one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century that brought the Beat Generation and becomes a mile-stone of the literary movement.

It has changed my life as it has done for anyone else — Bob Dylan

The book received a mixed reaction from media and critiques of that time. Some of the reviews were highly positive towards the book, however, not appreciated widely. That was discouraging for Jack Kerouac. He still received great recognition and notoriety for this work.

The Time magazine chose the novel as one of the 100 best English Novels from 1923 to 2005
It stood 55th in Modern Library’s list of 100 Best English Language Novels of the 20th century.

Adaptation

The film rights were bought by producer Francis Ford Coppola in 1980 for $95000. Coppola tried out many screenwriters and directors before setting down with Walter Salles as director for making the documentary starred Sam Riley and Garret Hedlund for Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty respectively. The film was screened at Cannes Film Festival in 2012 and was nominated for the Palme d’Or.
In 2007, BBC Four aired the documentary ’American Road’ presented by Russell Brand and Matt Morgan inspired by  Kerouac’s On the Road and It contained ample section of the original book. It was premiered at the AMFM Festival in California on 14 June 2013, when it won the award for Best Documentary.

About the Author

Jean-Louis Kerouac was (born in March12,1922) an American novelist and poet with French-Canadian ancestry roots. He is considered a literary iconoclast and a pioneer of the Beat Generation. He is recognized for his style of spontaneous prose. His work is based on different aspects of life such as Catholic spirituality, jazz, drugs, poverty, travel, Buddhism, and promiscuity.

He soon became a celebrity of underground Americana, he is the begetter of the hippie movement with other beats, notwithstanding the fact that he remained hostile towards some of its politically radical elements.

He died at the age of 47 in 1969 from an abdominal hemorrhage caused by a lifetime of heavy drinking. His work has become more popular and his literary prestige has grown since his death. His unseen and unheard work has been published. And, all his books are in print today including The Town and the City, On the Road, Doctor Sax, The Dharma Bums, Mexico City Blues, The Subterraneans, Desolation Angels, Visions of Cody, The Sea Is My Brother, Satori in Paris and Big Sur.

He was honored posthumously with a degree of Doctor of Letters from his hometown the University of Massachusetts Lowell on June 2, 2007.

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Rating: 4.1/5
Author: Jack Kerouac
Publisher: Viking Adult
Publishing Date: 5 September 1957
Language: English
Genre: Autobiography, Contemporary Fiction
ISBN-10: 670525126
ISBN-13: 978-0670525126
Pages: 320
Cost: 17,537 INR (Hardcover), 216.60 INR (Kindle Edition),

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

Description

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a marvel of ingenuity, an experimental text that looks longingly back to the great age of narration––"when time no longer seemed stopped and did not yet seem to have exploded." Italo Calvino's remarkable novel leads you through many different genres including a detective adventure, a romance, a satire, an erotic story, a diary, and a quest. However, the real hero is ‘you’, The Reader.

In this sense of comedy, the novel has two protagonists, both are  'The Reader and Other Reader', they ultimately end up getting married, and having almost finished 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveler'. In another sense, it is a tragedy, a reflection on the difficulties of writing and the lonely nature of reading.

The Reader (the hero of the book) buys a fashionable new book, which opens with an urge: "Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade." Alas! After 30 or so pages, The Reader finds that his copy is corrupted, and consists of nothing but the first section, over and over. He goes to return his copy to the bookshop, he discovers the volume, which he thought was by Calvino, is actually by the Polish (a writer from Poland) writer Bazakbal.

He is given the choice between the two versions, The Reader goes for the pole version as does the Other Reader (the second hero of the book), Ludmilla. However, this copy turns out to be yet another writer, as does the next, and the next one.

The real Calvino intersperses 10 different imitations of the work of the different genres –– stories of menace, spies, mystery, premonition–with explorations of how and why we choose to read, make meanings and get our bearings or fail to.

In the meantime, the Reader and other reader Ludmilla try to reach the end of the book together and develop a few romantic moments to give pleasure to each other. 'If on a Winter's Night' is blinding, vertiginous, and deeply romantic. The book makes both readers making love and reading each other because of the open space and time they have in their lives commonly.

The book was translated into English for the first time and published by William Weaver in 1981.

Review

If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is a 1979 novel by the Italian writer Italo Calvino. The modern style of narration is formed as a frame story with a Metaphoric narrative style. It breaks the thin glass of traditional writing aspects. It sets a high bar of ingenious, breathtaking, and inventive ways of writing. He is one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.

The book is about The Reader (you) who is trying to read a book called If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler. Each chapter is divided into two sections. The first section of each chapter is in the second person and describes the underlying situations, then readers (hero or characters of the book) go through to attempt to read the next chapter of the book.

The second half is the first part of the new book that the reader (you) finds. The second half is always with a new formation of the story. This remarkable novel sways you through scattered areas of writing, however, the real hero is you ‘The Reader’.

Reading Calvino, you are constantly assailed by the notion that he is writing down what you have always known, except that you have never thought of it before. This is highly unnerving: fortunately, you are usually too busy laughing to go mad... I can think of no other fine writer to have beside me while Italy explodes, Britain burns, while the world ends. –– Salman Rushdie

A devastating, wonderfully ingenious parody of all those dreary best-sellers you buy at the airport. It is a 'world novel': take it with you next time you plan to travel in an armchair –– Lorna Sage, Observer.

About the Author

Born on 15 October 1923 in Cuba, Italo Calvino was an Italian journalist and writer of short stories and novels. During the war, he was a member of the Italian Resistance and joined the Communist Party, although he later left in 1957. He is popular for his well-known fiction books 'Our Ancestors' trilogy (1952-1959),  'Cosmicomics'- a collection of short stories (1965), and the novels 'Invisible Cities' (1972),  'If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (1979), Marcovaldo and Mr. Palomar.

In 1981 he was awarded in prestigious French Légion d'Honneur. His work was well-liked in Britain, Australia, and The United States of America. He was the most translated contemporary Italian writer at the time of his death. He died in Siena on 19 September 1985.

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Rating: 4/5

Author: Italo Calvino

Publisher: RHUK

Publishing Date: February 20,1992

Language: English

Genre: Classic Fiction, Contemporary Fiction

ISBN-10: 9780099430896

ASIN: 0099430894

Pages: 272 (Paperback)

Cost: 261(Paperback)

The Black Sheep by Honoré De Balzac

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Description

Honoré de Balzac's elegantly crafted tale of sibling rivalry is a human comedy novel that was originally published in 1842. This french novel was translated into English with the title 'The Black Sheep' by Donald Adamson and published by Penguin Classics. 

It tells the story of two brothers Philippe and Joseph Bridau with extremely two different characters and their mother Agathe Rouget. Philippe is an elder brother who is their mom Agathe's favorite one and a superficially heroic soldier in Napoleon's Armies. He is a brave man but has a bitter figure with the habits of drinking and gambling. The younger one, Joseph, is a devoted Artist and fundamentally virtuous, yet his mother is not very happy to see him spending his life as an artist. 

Prejudiced mother Agathe is unaware that she is being manipulated by her favorite son who is throwing money in the drain. Phillipe leaves the army and comes back unemployed to his mother which becomes financial stress for them because of his substandard habits and lifestyle. He becomes estrange after stealing money from Madame Descoings. He gets involved in the anti-government conspiracy, thus he gets arrested.

Mother Agathe and Joseph go to Agathe's elder brother Jean-Jacques in the hope to get money for covering Phillipe's legal costs. Jean-Jacques and his border Max Gilet- the ex-soldier give them few paintings. The value of paintings is certainly lofty, only Joseph knows by sight. When Max comes to know about the value of those paintings, he thrust to get them back from Joseph. He tries to set up Phillipe for an attempt to murder, when he (max) is stabbed by Fario (a Spanish immigrant), in the sequence to get back the paintings. 

Meanwhile, Phillipe cooperates with authorities and gets a light sentence of five years under the supervision of the Police for plotting the conspiracy. He relocates to Issoudun in order to claim his mother's inheritance for himself. He challenges Max for dual with a sword and kills him. Then, Phillipe takes over Jean-Jacques and his household.

What happens next with both brothers? How and when would their mother know who is Black Sheep in the family? 

Review

The tale of the dilemma of French society, during the 19th century, has been served on the plate very well. How a mother can be influenced by her favorite child. In addition, the one with virtuousness tries to settle down things for his family even though he is being neglected throughout his journey. How characters are outwitting and killing people for the hale of the property and money. The life of being a Napoleon Soldier during the war has been explicitly spelled out. No story in the world is more stirring than this one. This is combining as it does the compelling readability of the blood and thunder with the deeper insights of literary art.

A dazzling depiction of the power of money and the cruelty of life in nineteenth-century France. The Black Sheep compellingly explores the nature of deceit. Donald Adamson's translation captures the radical modernity of Balzac's style, while his introduction places The Black Sheep in its context as one of the great novels of Balzac's renowned Comédie Humaine. 

Though for years, the work of Balzac had been overlooked yet it has gained popularity and respect in recent years. The Guardian listed 'The Black Sheep' twelfth on its list of 'The 100 Greatest Novels of All Time'.

Penguin Classics has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines with more than 1,700 titles. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by eminent scholars, contemporary authors as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Adaptations

The Novel has been adapted by different means at different times.

• The story was adapted to play with the name 'The Black Sheep' by Emile Fabre in 1903
• Movies called 'Honor of the Family' in 1912 and 1931
• the book was broadcast by BBC Radio 4 as its Classics Serial on Sunday, 17 August and Sunday, 24 August 2008 with actor Geoffery Whitehead as the narrator.
• The French film 'The Opportunists' is based on this novel.

About the Author

The eminent author Honoré Balzac (20 May 1799 - 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. He was a son of a civil servant and born in Tours, France. After attending boarding school in Vendome, he gravitated to Parish where he worked as a legal clerk and a hack writer using various pseudonyms in collaboration with other writers. Balzac became an exclusive fiction writer at the age of thirty and started writing a large number of novels and short stories. He entitled his collective work 'The Human Comedy'. He was one of the pillars of French romantic-action literature. Besides being a married man,  he married his lover of eighteen years in 1850 and died shortly after his second marriage.

The novel sequence La Comedie Humaine, which presents a panorama of the Post-Napoleonic French lifestyle, is generally viewed as his magnum opus. Balzac's extensive use of details, especially the detail of objects, to illustrate the lives of his characters made him an early pioneer of literary realism. He had written a number of novels, plays, tragic verses, short stories, and a collection of short stories. He had written many books anonymously and pseudonymously few of them are very popular in the world of English literature. 

Honoré De Balzac

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Rating: 4.1/5

Author: Honoré De Balzac (original), Donald Adamson (Translated edition)

Publisher: Penguin Classics

Publishing Date: 1842 (Original edition), 26 August 1976 ( Reprint edition )

Language: English

Genre: Classic Fiction, Humor, Literary Theory, History and Criticism

ISBN-10: 0140442375

ISBN-13: 978-0140442373

Pages: 352

Cost: 755 INR (Paperback)

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

Description

Henry Fielding's 18the century classic novel is based on the love story of Tom Jones and his neighboring squire's daughter Sophia Western. The Novel 'The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling', is well known as 'Tom Jones'. It is both a Bildungsroman and a picaresque novel. It was first published on 28 February 1749 in London and is among the earliest English prose work to be classified as a novel. It is a milestone in the history of English literature of the era.

The story regales its readers with the memorable character Tom Jones a romantic but a love child who was abandoned by his mom at the door of wealthy and kind squire Mr. Allworthy and his sister. They eventually find the supposed mother of the infant but she refuses to raise the boy. Mr. Allworthy mercifully keeps the boy and tells his sister to raise the boy in the household. They name him Thomas, ‘Tom'.

Thomas or Tom grows into a vigorous, lusty, and imprudent yet honest and kind-hearted young man. He has the charm to attract women thus he wins many hearts of the young women in the countryside. He has several romantic dalliances, but he falls in love with the wealthy squire's daughter Sophia Western and she also confesses being in love with Tom. He learns the truth about his identity in this discerning comedy of human foibles and self-discovery.

Meanwhile, Sophia's coarse father doesn't accept the relationship between Tom and Sophia, as Tom is an illegitimate child. Her father tries to arrange her marriage with Allworthy's nephew Billfill, who secretly loves her. After finding that Tom and Sophia are deeply in love, he grows angry and jealous; so that he tries everything, he could do to keep Tom away from Sophia. Sophia runs away and about the same time, Tom leaves home.

Slowly but surely, the novel begins to unveil facts and truth furiously as our hero, Tom Jones, finds himself embroiled in one moral dilemma of committing incest. Mr. Allworthy's nephew, Bilfil, conspires to turn the good squire against Tom. As a result, Tom is disinherited and kicked out. Chapter after chapter Tom gets his answer to all the questions. He gets to know who is his biological mother and father. The rest of the novel essentially follows the adventures of Sophia and Tom as their stories of being together, separate, and intertwine repeatedly. As Sophia runs away to avoid her marriage with Bilfil, will she be able to find Tom? Will the two lovers reunite?

The Novel ends in London, where all the loose ends are ship-shaped up and all the secrets are finally revealed. Tom Jones is essentially divided into three parts with the first being set in the countryside, the second in various inns on the road to London, and the entire third yet very stimulating part in London.

Tom Jones continues in Volume 2 and concludes with Volume 3.

Review

This comic novel by English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding is highly organized, despite the length. Samuel Taylor Coleridge argued that it has one of the 'Three most perfect plots' ever planned. It became a bestseller with four editions being published in its first year alone. The work is one of the most influential comic novels in English literature. It has continued to remain the bestseller for more than two and a half centuries after its first publications.

"Two hundred years have not dimmed Fielding's realism. His humor is closer to our own than that of any writer before the present century."-- Kingsley Amis 

The book Tom Jones is fun to read, your eyes and mind won't get tired of reading. The language of the work is prose to enjoy it without being tangled in the thoughts. The novel has a lot to make you laugh along with learning how English society was lampooned in the 18th century. Fielding's Tom Jones is full of gusto and glee though it's quite long, this is well worth reading. This novel gives you a taste of memorable characters. The description of the hero is very hale and hearty to imagine him clearly while reading the book. Young ladies of that time used to call their beaus 'Tom' because of Tom Jones.

Fielding breaks the cardinal rule of novel writing (show, don't tell) and pulls it off dominantly. He presents 360 degrees of contemporary British life while drawing characters from different backgrounds. However, the psychological depth of these characters has been criticized. 

Lan Watt claims that Fielding did not follow the 'realism of presentation' in detail. Instead, he argues that Fielding was more focused on the realism of assessment. The novel engages a broad range of topics with intelligence and 'a wise assessment of life'.

Adaptation

The Novel has been adapted as a plot of many romantic and dramatic movies, books, operas, and stage performances. 

Film

• In 1963 a film was released named 'Tom Jones', which was written by John Osborne, directed by Tony Richardson, and starring Alber Finney as Tom.
• In 1976, the film 'The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones' was inspired by the novel. 

Operas by

• Francois-Andre Philifor, 1765
• Edward German, 1907
• Stephen Oliver, 1975

A BBC adaptation was broadcast in 1997 which was dramatized by Simon Burke with Max Beesley in the title role.

The novel was adapted for the Stage by Joan Macalpine, and in 2014, by Jon Jory.

About the Author

A founder of the English novel and the creator of the novel of Realism, Henry Fielding (22 April 1707- 8 October 1754) was one of the greatest novelists and dramatists of the eighteenth century. He is also known with his pen name 'Captain Hercules Vinegar'.

His first play 'Love in Several Masques' was produced in February 1728. He wrote and produced a number of plays ranging from comedies to dramatic satires. Critiquing the political ideologies and the unjustified behavior towards writers by theater and publishing houses. Fielding's plays were influential yet critically received. He did begin writing novels at the age of thirty-three. His greatest novel, Tom Jones, was published in February 1749. It is the first few English Prose novels and is counted among the ten best novels in the world.

Apart from being a novelist, he holds a significant place in the history of law enforcement, having used his authority as a magistrate to found (with his half-brother John), what some have called London's first police force, 'The Bow Street Runner'. His younger sister, Sarah, also became a successful writer.

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Rating: 4.2/5

Author: Henry Fielding

Publisher: Fingerprint Publishing 

Publishing Date: 1August 2019

Language: English

Genre: Classic Fiction, Novel

ISBN-10: 938881097X

ISBN-13: 978-9388810975

Pages: 816  

Cost: 249 INR (Paperback), 699 INR (Hardcover), 16,02 INR (Audio cassettes)

Atonement by Ian McEwan

                                                                      

Description

Ian MacEwan's symphonic novel of love and war, childhood innocence and class, guilt and forgiveness provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose.

The story has three sets of the time period, first, in England 1935, second, World War II––England and France, Third, present-day England.

On a hot summer day in 1935, Briony Tallies, a 13-year-old girl with an extreme sense of imagination and precocious writing skill, witnesses a moment of flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, a son of their maid and childhood friend of Cecilia. Robbi and Cecilia both have come down from Cambridge and got involved in each other after a few attempts made by Robbie turner.

Robbie gives few love letters to Briony to give to Cecilia, with a promise of not reading them. Notwithstanding, Briony reads them and she falsely grasps the motive of the togetherness of her sister and Robbie. She sees both of them plunged for a couple of the time. Thus, she believes that she needs to save her sister from Robbie and manipulate the fact of the mystery without knowing the truth behind their cohesiveness –– brings about a crime that will change all their lives. 

By the end of that day, the lives of all three have changed forever. Cecilia and Robbie become the victim of the younger girl's imagination that no one has ever imagined at it starts. Briony becomes a witness to the mystery of their cousin Lola's rape. She accuses Robbie of the wrongdoing as she had seen him with her sister, even though she is sure that he is not the one who has committed this crime. By giving that false statement, she commits a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.

After being accused of wrongdoing, Robbie is arrested and is sent to jail. By the time Second World War has started, Robbie has spent several years in jail and he is released on the condition he enlists in the army. Cecilia has trained and become a nurse; he has cut off with her family. She has met Robbie only once before he leaves for the war in France.

In the third part of the story, the narrator made explicit the present time in England. Briony Tallies becomes a nurse and takes care of a wounded soldier. What happens next is the rest of the story. Do Cecilia and Robbie forgive Briony? How does she atone the crime she committed in her half childhood-innocence? What happens to Lola and her rapist, Paul Marshall?

Review

Atonement, the novel is widely regarded as one of the best works of Ian McEwan and is shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize. The story covers an upper-class gal's half-innocent mistake that ruins lives, her adulthood of shadow of that mistake, and a reflection on the nature of writing.

As it follows that crime's repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece.

Atonement is a subtle and beautifully written heart-touching story. A modern-day classic is truly deserving of the great reviews that it got on its first publication in 2001 and continues to be so popular even today.

All the characters are described explicitly which ease us to form the character virtually while reading the classic. The book successfully spellbinds its readers and makes them a fan of Ian McEwan's writing. It does well explain the self-regret and guilty and effort to atone the crime-like mistake.

"Flat-out brilliant...Lush, detailed, vibrantly colored, and intense." –– San Francisco Chronicle

"Subtle as well as powerful, adeptly encompassing comedy as well as an atrocity, Atonement is a richly intricate book... A superb achievement."–– Sunday Times

"Atonement is a masterpiece...it is also an elegy to a time which, however volatile, still had certainties."–– The Times

Awards

Ian McEwan's Atonement became successful to receive positive reviews along with few critical and negative remarks. It was nominated and awarded with the following awards:

Shortlisted

• 2001 Booker Prize for fiction
• 2001 James Tait Black Memorial Prize
• 2001 Whitbread Novel Award

Awards

• 2002 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for fiction
• 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction
• 2002 WH Smith Literary Award
• 2002 Boeke Prize
• 2004 Santiago Prize for the European Novel

In its 1000th issue, Entertainment Weekly named the novel #82 on its list of the 100 best books from 1983-2008. Additionally, Time named it the best fiction novel of the year and included it in its All-Time100 Greatest Novels. The observer cites it as one of the 100 greatest novels ever written, calling it a contemporary classic of mesmerizing narrative conviction'. In 2019, the novel was ranked 41st on The Guardian's list of the 100 best books of the 21st century.

Adaptation

A film adaptation, directed by Joe Wright from a screenplay by Christopher Hampton, was released by Working Title Films in September 2007 in the United Kingdom and in December 2007 in the United States.

About the Author

Ian Russell McEwan was born on 21 June 1948 in Hampshire, England. He is an English novelist and screenwriter. In 2008, The Times featured him ho its list of 'The 50 greatest British writers since 1945' and The Daily Telegraph ranked him #19 in the list of the '100 most powerful people in British Culture'.

He is the bestselling author of more than ten books out of seventeen, including the novels 'The Comfort of Strangers' and 'Black Dogs', both shortlisted for the Booker Prize. 'Amsterdam' is the winner of the Booker Prize and 'The Child in Time' the winner of Whitbread Award as well as the story collections 'First Love, Last Rites' won the Somerset Maugham Award and 'In Between the Sheets'. He also has written screenplays, plays, television scripts, a children's book, and the libretto for an oratorio. 

He currently lives in London. His first two novels earned him the nickname 'Ian Macabre'.

Link to buy more books on amazon : 

https://amzn.to/3MF6Kij

Rating: 4.2/5

Author: Ian McEwan

Publisher: Nan A. Talese; 1st USA edition

Publishing Date: March 12, 2002

Language: English

Genre: Romance, Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical British and Irish Literature

ISBN-10: 0385503954

ISBN-13: 978-0385503952

Pages: 368

Cost: $13.58 (Hardcover), $11.19 (Paperback)

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