This Mass Market Paperback Book item from Anchor was reviewed on 7-Oct-2008.
Search ISBN:0307388840 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Atonement Reference Book. Classifications : Contemporary General Literature & Fiction 4-for-3 Books Store Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books Literary General Literature & Fiction 4-for-3 Books Store Custom Stores Specialty Stores Books Histor . Click the following link to view the cover of Atonement. Related topics: Contemporary. General. 4-for-3 Books Store. Custom Stores. Specialty Stores. Books. Literary. General. 4-for-3 Books Store. Custom Stores. requestid: d4a76dcc-80e7-4d11-aedd-f9deda1661f5
requestprocessingtime: 0.0638060000000000
salesrank: 1340
numberofitems: 1
packagedimensions: 11868557417
1) Mass Market Paperback Book Atonement by Anchor. Ian McEwan is a sensual writer. He sculpted the narrative with beautiful imagery on an English estate. I found it to be purposeful, from cover to cover. There is a reason why the novel is written in 4 parts. Once you get to the last few pages, the structure of the novel makes sense! It stands out as a significant work of art compared to contemporary literature which is mostly superficial. There are thought provoking themes that lie beneath the story lines: shame, guilt, cognitive development, truth, perception, social class, forbidden love, and more. I will savor this novel for years to come.¤ 2) Mass Market Paperback Book Atonement by Anchor. For starters: I´ve never read any McEwan before, and generally do not care for modern writers, but I was absolutely floored by his prose. The writing is amazing.
His portrayal of naive, pre-teen Briony is dead-on and eerie, and, even though she is far less developed, I could identify some with Cecelia´s feelings of being a bit lost and out-of-place at home after the relative independence of college.
I´ve read a lot of reviews that are impatient with the slow pace, especially of the first part of the novel. While I agree that it is a novel that immerses the reader fully in descriptions, I think such criticism is a little unfair. It is not a novel that should be read in anticipation of getting to a juicy ending; it´s a novel that should be read with the mindset that getting there is half (most of) the enjoyment.
While I didn´t especially *like*, or closely identify with, any of the characters, I thought they were reasonable (I don´t like most real, live, people that much, either). I didn´t think Briony was horrible so much as she was ignorant, confused, and self-centered, as are most 13-year-olds; I include myself in that, as embarrassing as it is to remember it. I thought she was an excellent characterization of an adolescent at an awkward place in life, with an incomplete view and as-yet poor understanding of the world.
The ending was complicated. No, I don´t think anything she did later could actually atone for the mess Briony made. On the other hand, she was 13 and acting out of ignorance more than viciousness. And, frankly, I thought the title referred more at her attempt to atone to herself, to lay her conscience to rest, than to actually achieving any sort of atonement in the eyes of the rest of the world. I think it should not be taken too literally.¤ 3) Mass Market Paperback Book Atonement by Anchor. Overall, I liked the book but do consider it over-hyped. I enjoyed the first part and didn´t have a problem with the same "scenes" described from different people´s perspective that some people seemed to have. Actually, I thought that worked very well. I thought the characters were very well drawn out and you could understand (may not agree but understand) their motivations.
If you´re expecting a twist or deep secret, don´t. There isn´t one. Most people will figure out what is going on and who did what right from the start.
For me, the book falls apart in the second section. It is still well written and very descriptive, perhaps overly so as some have pointed out. But I did think I got a feel for London at the beginning of WWII.
Spoiler Alert.
I don´t necessarily like happy endings but the ending is unsatisfying. The man who actually molested a child ends up marrying her and evidently lives happily ever after. You don´t really get much sense of where Briony has been other than that she is losing her memory. BTW, I thought this was a nice touch. Evidently she is being tortured by what she did and, short of death, this might provide her some relief. And the hero and heroine die during the war. The book ends where it started with Briony´s play. Didn´t see the point of that. Interestingly, the movie took this scene out completely and replaced it with Cee and Robbie frolicking on the beach near the cottage she had arranged fro them to go to after Robbie returned. I guess the movie producers thought that the ending was too much of a downer and put in that fantasy scene.¤ 4) Mass Market Paperback Book Atonement by Anchor. Websters Dictionary defines atonement as reconciliation, reparation for an offense or injury:satisfaction.
Briony Tallis is a brilliant, fanciful and immature girl of just 13 or so as this book begins. Briony Tallis is a brilliant, celebrated, accomplished writer of 77 as this story ends.
As a reader, I did not understand the title before the last chapter titled "London, 1999".
From the beginning I found this book bumping along with a sluggish story line. Filled with Briony´s personality, this story was rather mishapen. I wasn´t sure I liked the book. I set it down many times from lack of interest and boredom. Not familiar with the story, I vaguely remembered it had been a movie-never saw it, and thought, never WILL see it.
I hate to not finish a book, so I kept on with reading a few pages each night before bed. (hint, hint)
Somewhere, about three quarters of the way through, the book offered redemption. No pun intended.
The interesting thing is, I couldn´t care about the characters. Not until Briony is eighteen and training as a nurse in WWII England does the story start to reveal the treasure.
I can´t reveal the ending of this book. It is for each reader to find on his or her own. It may be different for each person, but I found this novel to have been a surprise. I didn´t like this story half way through, I have ended the book with a new opinion.
Briony Tallis must atone for her life altering mistake.I like that this author did not make it so simple. Satisfaction complete.
¤ 5) Mass Market Paperback Book Atonement by Anchor. I decided to read this book because of the enthusiasm and hype that has surrounded it. I took it with me to read while on a plane trip. The only reason I was able to get through the first 100 pages was because I had no appealing alternatives as I was trapped next to the window for my several hour airplane ride.
As others have said, the book is overwritten. While there is a lot of descriptive language, it is overdone and often irrelevant. At times it felt like the author wanted the reader to know how many words he knew or could use to describe something that was quite simplistic. The characters, except for Briony, are mostly absent, and Briony is just plain unlikeable. I had read that Ian McEwan did an outstanding job of infiltrating the psychology of the characters--I wholeheartedly disagree. The characters were barely present, therefore hard to care about or empathize with.
The "mystery" of the book was easy enough to figure out. After finally making in through the first part, I was intrigued and wanted to keep reading. While I thought the "mystery" wasn´t really a mystery at all and an obvious conclusion, I was hoping for some great twist or turning point -- hoping that I hadn´t figured out what really happened on the night around which the story was built. Unfortunately, there was no such twist, just disappointment that the truth was so obvious.
Then, in hoping that Briony might recant, I continued to keep reading. Again, disappointed with the anticipation of something that never came to fruition.
The parts of the book are abrupt transitions from one another. Each part requires the same determination as the first one to keep going even when it seems like the story isn´t. When I finally was able to get interested in the new section, the book abruptly transitioned to the next section.
I read the book before reading any reviews, and was somewhat relieved to see that I wasn´t the only person who was so sorely disappointed with the book. With all of the hype surrounding the book, I surely thought there must be something that I was missing.
I always try to take something away from the experience of reading a book, and there were a few instances throughout that caused me to stop and really think. One was when Briony was relating to her cousin and realizing how others and our reaction to others often help us to learn about ourselves. It is through how we relate and respond that we can learn something about ourselves that we didn´t previous know, or hadn´t thought about.
Another example was the depiction of the experience of Briony telling her story and then feeling trapped in her story with no space to modify it or turn back from it. This made me think about how often this probably happens with situations of similar magnitude as well as seemingly insignificant situations.
These are two examples of how I was able to use the book and relate it to life beyond the book.
Overall, two stars.¤ 6) Mass Market Paperback Book Atonement by Anchor. On a summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment’s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives and her precocious imagination bring about a crime that will change all their lives, a crime whose repercussions Atonement follows through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.¤ 7) Mass Market Paperback Book Atonement by Anchor. Ian McEwan´s Booker Prize-nominated Atonement is his first novel since Amsterdam took home the prize in 1998. But while Amsterdam was a slim, sleek piece, Atonement is a more sturdy, more ambitious work, allowing McEwan more room to play, think, and experiment. We meet 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the summer of 1935, as she attempts to stage a production of her new drama "The Trials of Arabella" to welcome home her older, idolized brother Leon. But she soon discovers that her cousins, the glamorous Lola and the twin boys Jackson and Pierrot, aren´t up to the task, and directorial ambitions are abandoned as more interesting prospects of preoccupation come onto the scene. The charlady´s son, Robbie Turner, appears to be forcing Briony´s sister Cecilia to strip in the fountain and sends her obscene letters; Leon has brought home a dim chocolate magnate keen for a war to promote his new "Army Ammo" chocolate bar; and upstairs, Briony´s migraine-stricken mother Emily keeps tabs on the house from her bed. Soon, secrets emerge that change the lives of everyone present.... The interwar, upper-middle-class setting of the book´s long, masterfully sustained opening section might recall Virginia Woolf or Henry Green, but as we move forward--eventually to the turn of the 21st century--the novel´s central concerns emerge, and McEwan´s voice becomes clear, even personal. For at heart, Atonement is about the pleasures, pains, and dangers of writing, and perhaps even more, about the challenge of controlling what readers make of your writing. McEwan shouldn´t have any doubts about readers of Atonement: this is a thoughtful, provocative, and at times moving book that will have readers applauding. --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk¤ Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 4-Nov-2008, 03073888409780307388841, 710-430-400-490-460-350-200-961-021-X4B-8 
Atonement, Book, Image © Anchor
|
