Atonement by Ian McEwan

Briony is a successful novelist, but one with a burden. She told a lie when thirteen which had tragic and disastrous consequences. She has had to live with that all her life and turns to her writing to help her come to terms with her pain. This novel is the result. Much of it is true. Some of it is fantasy, relieving her of the burden that lives of happiness were sacrificed to her simple act of childish defiance.

Regarded by some as best in class¹ this was the first of Ian McEwan’s works that I read and I am still hoping for that same sense of sheer wonder that it evoked in me from his other works. Enduring Love comes close; but for me Amsterdam, which won the Booker Prize is no match at all. And this was with me in total ignorance of all the literary references scattered throughout the novel (see Brian Finney’s review²).

Trevor Smith Aug 2005

Notes

1. Jonathan Yardley's writing in the Washington Post: Atonement "is the finest book yet by a writer of prodigious skills. [. . .] there is no one writing fiction in the English language who surpasses McEwan, and perhaps no one who equals him"
2. http://www.csulb.edu/~bhfinney/McEwan.html 
3. http://www.ianmcewan.com/