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'.
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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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