Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12174 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-06
• Released on: 2007-11-06
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Amazon.com
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

From Publishers Weekly
This haunting novel, which just failed to win the Booker this year, is at once McEwan at his most closely observed and psychologically penetrating, and his most sweeping and expansive. It is in effect two, or even three, books in one, all masterfully crafted. The first part ushers us into a domestic crisis that becomes a crime story centered around an event that changes the lives of half a dozen people in an upper-middle-class country home on a hot English summer's day in 1935. Young Briony Tallis, a hyperimaginative 13-year-old who sees her older sister, Cecilia, mysteriously involved with their neighbor Robbie Turner, a fellow Cambridge student subsidized by the Tallis family, points a finger at Robbie when her young cousin is assaulted in the grounds that night; on her testimony alone, Robbie is jailed. The second part of the book moves forward five years to focus on Robbie, now freed and part of the British Army that was cornered and eventually evacuated by a fleet of small boats at Dunkirk during the early days of WWII. This is an astonishingly imagined fresco that bares the full anguish of what Britain in later years came to see as a kind of victory. In the third part, Briony becomes a nurse amid wonderfully observed scenes of London as the nation mobilizes. No, she doesn't have Robbie as a patient, but she begins to come to terms with what she has done and offers to make amends to him and Cecilia, now together as lovers. In an ironic epilogue that is yet another coup de the tre, McEwan offers Briony as an elderly novelist today, revisiting her past in fact and fancy and contributing a moving windup to the sustained flight of a deeply novelistic imagination. With each book McEwan ranges wider, and his powers have never been more fully in evidence than here. Author tour. (Mar. 19)Forecast: McEwan's work has been building a strong literary readership, and the brilliantly evoked prewar and wartime scenes here should extend that; expect strong results from handselling to the faithful. The cover photo of a stately English home nicely establishes the novel's atmosphere

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Set during the seemingly idyllic summer of 1935 at the country estate of the Tallis family, the first section of this thought-provoking novel ambles through one scorchingly hot day that changes the lives of almost everyone present. The catalyst is overly imaginative 13-year-old Briony, who accuses Robbie, her sister's childhood friend and their housemaid's son, of raping her cousin Lola. The young man is sent to prison and Cecilia, heartbroken, abandons her family and becomes a nursing sister in London. In the second part, McEwan vividly describes another single day, this time Robbie's experiences during the ignominious British retreat to Dunkirk early in World War II. Finally, readers meet Briony again, now a nursing student. She is aware that she might have been wrong that day five years earlier and begins to seek atonement, having clearly ruined two lives. In a story within a story, McEwan brilliantly engages readers in a tour de force of what ifs and might have beens until they begin to wonder what actually happened. The story is compelling, the characters well drawn and engaging, and the outcome is almost always in doubt. The descriptions of the retreat and the subsequent hospitalization of the soldiers are grim and realistic. Readers are spared little, yet the journey is worth the observed pain and distress. Well-read teens will find much to think about in this novel.
Susan H. Woodcock, Chantilly Regional Library, VA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Stunning Historical Fiction
This book left me reeling in awe. Essentially three novellas tied together by the two main characters (lovers who come of age in pre-WWII England), it spans 70 years in an intricate manner that propels the plot forward.

A slow start will lead to a rich reward for those who have the patience. The movie Atonement (HD DVD and DVD Combo) [HD DVD] is a less-than-perfect adaptation and doesn't come close to capturing the majesty of the book.

love, rape, lies, war, injury and redemption
All right, here are reasons to read, or not read, Atonement, depending on what your preferences are. The bad news first.

What you may not like:
1. While Ian McEwan does wonderful things with imagery (see below), it becomes a bit much at times, especially when he is detailing landscapes.
2. If you are not one who enjoys reading a novel that takes place on the battlefront, beware. About eighty pages center around a character's (who is a soldier) trek through France as it is being attacked by the Germans. 3. Having questions that you don't feel are being resolved. And I'm not just talking about the ending; throughout the novel I felt slightly frustrated at times that I was being left out. Granted, that's how life works, you're not always privy to every piece of information.
4. The last section seemed rushed, to me. On one level, I felt McEwan was trying to hurry up and tidy up the novel, but I again felt left out of the loop in some regards. The premise for the last section was interesting, though, I just had a problem with the execution.

What you may like:
1. Ian McEwan is an outstanding writer. He develops interesting, multi-faceted characters, beautiful descriptions and an intriguing plot. His writing isn't generic or typical of the genre; you can tell his syntax is carefully crafted, he's trying to create something more than just words on a page.
2. There is definitely a feeling of drama to this novel. You have love, rape, lies, war, injury and redemption all in one novel. Because of McEwan's style, it's drama that flows and weaves between characters, places and time periods.
3. The two main female characters, who are sisters, are strong, independent women who refuse to rely on their wealthy parents. Their mother is a perfect contrast; not as modern as her daughters, she doesn't understand their desire to become educated and explore the world.
4. The male characters are a diverse sample. There's rich and poor, motivated and unmotivated, honest and deceitful, kind and malicious.
5. The concept of justice isn't unrealistically portrayed. Unfortunately, the wealthy often prevail, although that doesn't mean there's no hope for the common man.

All in all, I recommend it!

Atonement
One of THE most boring books I have ever read. Yes, the descriptions are lovely, yes the atmosphere is "lush." But there is virtually no action, and when something actually happens it is so stifled in pretentious adjectives that it is difficult to discern what has actually gone on.
A total waste of time. I hope the movie is better.