Ian McEwan<\/b><\/i>
\nThis is the first McEwan I\u2019ve read (although I have owned Amsterdam<\/i> for a long time without reading it. I enjoyed Atonement<\/i> enough to root through my home library and find Amsterdam<\/i>, but not so much that I\u2019ll do it any time soon.<\/p>\n
\nAccording to the reading guide, Atonement<\/i> is the story of Briony Tallis, who \u201cwitnesses a moment’s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia’s childhood friend. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives\u2013together with her precocious literary gifts\u2013brings about a crime that will change all their lives. [The story] follows that crime’s repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century.\u201d
\nWell, yes, but\u2026
\nThe novel is divided into three main parts, followed by an unconvincing epilogue. Part I \u2013 the crime scene \u2013 is set in the toney English countryside in 1935; Part II focuses on Turner\u2019s turn as a soldier; and Part III is told from the perspective of Briony, working as a trainee nurse in war-torn London, five years after her \u201ccrime.\u201d The epilogue, told in the 1st person, is 55 years later, and is meant to inspire \u201coohs\u201d of discovery \u2013 it\u2019s been Briony writing all along, this is a true story, oh, but it\u2019s not true, blah blah blah. A narrative twist at the very end \u2013 what a novel concept.
\nThe middle of the book is awesome \u2013 Parts II and III made me laugh and cry and think. McEwan\u2019s descriptions of wartime, whether on the front on in the hospitals, are humbling and powerful. Part I and the epilogue were less inspired or inspiring.
\nWhile reading Part I, I found myself counting adjectives. For example:
\n\u201cmurmuring into the tight whorl of the girl\u2019s ear\u201d
\n\u201cher wish for a harmonious, organised world\u201d
\n\u201che had a neutral, vaguely inquisitive air\u201d
\n\u201cHis footsteps quickened in the still summer evening to the rhythm of his exultant thoughts\u201d
\nand so on\u2026
\nGranted, the epilogue, and bits of the finale of Part III, explain all of this by making it clear that the narrator is the adult Briony, whose writing style is heavily influenced by Woolf (and it is reminiscent of To the Lighthouse<\/i>, certainly) but, at least in Part I, is still that of a 13-year old girl. Thus Part I is told with sweeping, adjective-laden majesty, more concerned with atmosphere than plot. Part I leaps from Briony\u2019s point of view to her sister\u2019s to Turner\u2019s and back again. This leaping around would have been more convincing if the writing style had switched perceptibly to accommodate the new perspective \u2013 I find it hard to believe that Robbie Turner\u2019s writing style would have produced just as many florid passages as Briony\u2019s.
\nThe narrative settles down considerably in the middle, and it is immediately evident \u2013 and the only reason I continued reading past Part I.
\nRecommendation: Definitely, but be prepared to wade through some torrid prose to get to the good stuff. Also, be prepared for a mental groan of predictability and \u201cbeen there, done that\u201d at the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ian McEwan This is the first McEwan I\u2019ve read (although I have owned Amsterdam for a long time without reading it. I enjoyed Atonement enough to root through my home library and find Amsterdam, but not so much that I\u2019ll do it any time soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-readings-and-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golding.ca\/maggie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golding.ca\/maggie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golding.ca\/maggie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golding.ca\/maggie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golding.ca\/maggie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.golding.ca\/maggie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.golding.ca\/maggie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golding.ca\/maggie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.golding.ca\/maggie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}