Atonement by Ian McEwan
Atonement is one of those glorious novels that has gotten into my very bones; I do not remember a time when I didn't know this story — and its movie adaption (which is sublime, by the way). I mean, realistically, I first read this particular McEwan book back just before the movie was released, though I cannot recall if at the time I knew about the then-upcoming movie or not. Regardless, the very essence of this particular weave is to pull apart the idea of storytelling...and wind it back into its ball of yarn.
Starting on a scorching summer day in 1935, Atonement unveils the life-altering consequences of thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis's misunderstanding. When Briony witnesses her sister Cecilia's flirtation with Robbie Turner, a servant's son, her naïve perception and her still self-important and vivid imagination steers her to the center of a crime that reverberates through the chaos of World War II and into the later years of the twentieth century. This gripping novel explores the repercussions of a single event, delving into the depths of human emotions and the lasting effects of guilt, punishment, and forgiveness.
Like the war that preceded it, where everything is ascribed to and traced back to a seemingly isolated incident, the truth lies not in one single night, but rather in the culmination of ideas, influences, and circumstances that lead to a monumental collision. It is not in that one night that Briony begins to learn the power of words, but rather the night she starts to feel the power — the godlike control — in the hidden shapes of stories themselves. Stories and characters with pasts and futures, molded by the particular arrangement of words to shape all potential interpretations.
The storyteller doesn't come into being, but rather has clearly existed before McEwan's pages even started — it is the reader who arrives late, who plays catchup the entire time. What feels like the set-up for an all too familiar Britishy story, set just before and into the inevitability of World War II, is quickly repositioned as something else. Something filled with the tension of the late afternoon on a very hot summer day in which the story itself begins.
Briony's transition into adulthood hinges on a small collection of moments she misunderstands from the beginning — whether it's a grandiose purposeful and self-dramatizing misunderstanding remains to be seen — and she has unwittingly sentenced herself to forever examine and re-examine this moment, her interpretation, and the role she assigned for herself...a role that constantly shifts and moves by her hand. The complexity here lies in the moments hidden from the reader — the off-page portions of the lives being lead and decisions being made. The reader must contend with what's been decided.
The brilliance of a re-read, that I'm lately finding out, is that when the novel is as brilliant as Atonement the seeds are there from the beginning — and what is to come is no longer the point. The re-read frees up your mind to focus on a deeper understanding of the characters, the circumstances that brought them here, and the certainty of their paths.
Audiobook, as narrated by Jill Tanner: Tanner did a wonderful job, especially considering the challenging task of capturing multiple points of view and portraying characters of different ages. Her tone possesses the necessary depth to accommodate the demanded variety, while also adapting to the subtleties that underscore McEwan's nuanced writing.
