Forgive Me, Please! (Atonement - Ian McEwan)

Member Name: Mauri

Product:	Atonement - Ian McEwan
Date:	08/04/03 (755 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautifully written, Great story

Disadvantages: Can seem slow to start

The terms masterpiece, classic, work of genius are so overused these days that they have become little more than anther tool in the armoury of the publisher’s PR department.

We simply can’t tell what the long term effect of a book will be, whether it will still be important decades or centuries from now. Bearing this in mind if I had to make a guess then I think ‘Atonement’ stands a very good chance of passing the test of time and becoming worthy of being classified as a classic for the new millennium.

THE STORY

Briony Tallis is a young girl on the threshold of becoming a teenager. Three distinct parts of her life are highlighted from the mid 1930’s when she and her wealthy family live in an idyllic country setting, through to the start of WW2 and later into the 1990’s towards the end of her life. Two other major character appear Cecelia, Briony’s elder sister and Robbie Turner a long standing friend of the girls who since the disappearance of his father has to a great extent been adopted by the family as one of their own.

We begin in a long hot summer of 1934, the Tallis family are gathered at the family home, a large estate in the country. Cecelia has just finished her degree at Cambridge and is now wondering what the future holds for her. Robbie also down from Cambridge is on the verge of entering medical school and Briony excited by the arrival of her older brother Leon is busy setting up a play with the help of her visiting cousins Lola and the twins Jackson and Pierrot.

Briony like many girls of her age is concerned with romance and has an idyllic vision of what love should be like, she fancies herself as a writer and the play she intend to perform is suitably a melodrama involving a tragic love story that in the end resolves itself with a happy ending.

On the afternoon of Leon’s arrival there is tension in the air. Briony becomes frustrated with her attemp
ts to put on the play, Cecelia is worried about what path her future should take and Robbie who is helping to landscape the garden of the country house is preparing himself for the big step of staring medical school. The stifling heat makes the situation worse and then suddenly something happens, witnessed by Briony that will irrevocably change all their lives forever.

In the second part of the book we move on a few years to the start of WW2 and we find ourselves with the English soldiers in France at the time of the desperate Dunkirk retreat. Without telling you how the stories are connected I’ll simply say that the reader becomes a witness to the horrors of the war and the events leading up to Dunkirk through the eyes of three soldiers, leaderless and lost in enemy territory desperate to stay alive in the face of German bombardment.

The final segment of the story although not actually the final part of book takes back to war torn London just before the Blitz takes place. We find Briony, now a young woman working as a trainee nurse facing the horror of treating the multitude of casualties that flood into the London hospitals after the Dunkirk retreat has been completed. Briony has seemingly sacrificed the possibility of studying at university and the possibility of developing a career as writer in order to devoted herself to caring for others in part to atone for a tragic mistake that she made years earlier that led to the ruin of those she loved.

The end of the book takes the form of an epilogue, which on the surface aims to answer the many questions that the narrative poses but in the end leaves many questions unanswered.

MY OPINION

‘Atonement’ is really three stories in one longer book within yet another novel! It is a tribute to Ian McEwan’s skill as a storyteller that this complicated structure appears seamless and easy to accept.

Each part of the book offers up a different pleasure
and each is in sharp contrast with the others.

The first part on the face of it is a traditional eighteen-century novel. An idyllic setting, the beautiful English countryside, a wealthy family gathering on a hot summers day, but soon we sense that not is all is quite right. It is too hot, the country house is ugly and the wealth of the family is newly acquired, there is unhappiness and deceit just below the surface of every aspect of the scene that is being set. This part of the story is an attempt by McEwan to explore the psychology of the characters; it provides an effective insight into their thoughts and their motivations reminiscent of classic authors of the past such as Edith Wharton, Fitzgerald or Austen. The detail present here is essential for the rest of the story to be effective. As you read the elegant descriptive prose you can’t avoid an uncomfortable feeling, which increases slowly but surely, mirroring the pace of the story, as each character is delved in to more deeply. Then with just one word everything changes. As if waking from a dream you are thrown into a stark reality that is difficult to accept of understand. The pace of the narrative increases and you are kept of the edge of your seat waiting for an outcome.

McEwan has structured this part of the novel perfectly, no sentences, no words are wasted. By the end of the first 50 pages you feel as if you know the characters by the end of 100 pages you are totally immersed in their story.

I feel McEwan uses the setting to make a point about the changing of the society that occurs with the onset of the war and by making the wealth and tranquillity of life at that time very superficial he is also telling us how fragile the peace and security that we all like to feel can be.

The scenes having been set McEwan moves us on with uncompromising realism to the war itself. The retreat of Dunkirk so often described in the past as a glorious episode of the war is see
n here as an unmitigated tragedy for those involved. As the French army collapsed against the German forces, the British soon are also overwhelmed by superior firepower. The line of command seems to collapse and soldiers spread across Northern France made a desperate run across country to reach the Channel beaches and the possibility of survival and a return home. This journey was not easy; the Germans chased and attacked the retreating soldiers and any civilians with them killing many, injuring many more. The death and destruction is described with a realism and insight reminiscent of Hemingway at his best. This is not a war about troops, weapons or military objectives but about people doing what it takes to stay alive about bodies being left to decompose by the side of the road about families being torn apart by senseless acts of violence. Considering what is happening in the Middles East right now this part of the book has an even greater resonance for the reader.

As the story moves on to the post Dunkirk scenes in London we see another aspect of war, the aftermath of battle. We see this through the eyes of the carer the hundreds and thousands of mostly young women who have to cope with situations that they would be totally unprepared for. In many cases there is little for them to do but give comfort to dying soldier often no older than them. There are a number of very moving scenes that McEwan uses to counter the horror of the previous sections and that he also uses to bring the character of Briony (only eighteen at this stage) to maturity.

The prose is beautiful throughout. The narrative whether emotionally charged, harrowing or descriptive is always gripping. The story is littered with episodes that will cause the reader to reappraise his view of events and a few unexpected twists to completely destroy any preconceived ideas of where story is leading. In the end a resolution is achieved and in a strange way you are brought back to where you
started, at the same time the conclusion is not clear and McEwan as succeeded in instilling doubt about the final outcome and about the nature of the novel itself.

As the title suggests the book is about atonement for ones mistakes but the way a person can achieve this is at issue and whether one can ever be successful is also brought into question.

This is a book that will appeal to many different tastes; it is a love story, a war story, a coming of age story and mystery. On another level it is a serious piece of literature and McEwan not only gives us an very enjoyable and challenging read but also test the accepted assumptions of the traditional novel by playing with the relationship between author and reader.

‘Atonement’ is certainly McEwan’s best novel and for me ranks as one of the best books I have read recently. I can certainly recommend this, go out and read it!


‘Atonement’ is available in paperback (384 pages) Published by Vintage ISBN: 0099429799 you can buy it from Amzon.co.uk for £6.39 (+p & p).

Thanks for reading and rating this opinion!

© Mauri 2003

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