Atonement: A Novel

By Ian McEwan

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness that provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from the acclaimed Booker Prize–winning, internationally bestselling author.

On a hot 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 and Cecilia’s childhood friend. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives—together with her precocious literary gifts—brings about a crime that will change all their lives.

As it follows that crime’s repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece.

Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: May 20, 2003
• ISBN: 9781400075553

Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan (Aldershot, Reino Unido, 1948) se licenció en Literatura Inglesa en la Universidad de Sussex y es uno de los miembros más destacados de su muy brillante generación. En Anagrama se han publicado sus dos libros de relatos, Primer amor, últimos ritos (Premio Somerset Maugham) y Entre las sábanas, las novelas El placer del viajero, Niños en el tiempo (Premio Whitbread y Premio Fémina), El inocente, Los perros negros, Amor perdurable, Amsterdam (Premio Booker), Expiación (que ha obtenido, entre otros premios, el WH Smith Literary Award, el People’s Booker y el Commonwealth Eurasia), Sábado (Premio James Tait Black), En las nubes, Chesil Beach (National Book Award), Solar (Premio Wodehouse), Operación Dulce, La ley del menor, Cáscara de nuez, Máquinas como yo, La cucaracha y Lecciones y el breve ensayo El espacio de la imaginación. McEwan ha sido galardonado con el Premio Shakespeare. Foto © Maria Teresa Slanzi.

Reviews for Atonement

[thoughtsofjoylibrary · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Set in an upper-middle class English home, 13-year-old Briony witnesses an event that leads to the changing of numerous lives - including her own.I read and listened to this book. The manner in which the story unfolds did not hold my attention in the handheld version, so I switched to just listening to it. The actual plotline became ridiculous; however, there were parts that I found interesting and actually enjoyable, but for the most part, there was just too much blah, blah, blah for nothin'. (2.5/5)Originally posted on: Thoughts of Joy

[pwaites_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I would not have read and certainly would not have finished Atonement if it were not required reading for my English class. Not much happens in Atonement. I can enjoy books were there's not much happening, but in that case I have to enjoy the characters.I didn't enjoy these characters. They were not sympathetic, likable, admirable or even interesting. Heck, the book isn't even funny. It's just dull.In short, Atonement did not give me a reason to care. I will say that I liked the second and third section more, but they were incredibly out of joint from the first section. These three sections felt like different books entirely and did just not fit together.However, many members of my English class are in spasms of delight over this book, so presumably they're getting something I'm not. When I say that I don't like Atonement, I'm normally accused of only liking fantasy and books where things explode, which doesn't take into account how much I like Jane Austen or, say, East of Eden. There are plenty of interesting "literary" books where things happen or the characters are worth reading about. Atonement just isn't one of them.Originally posted on The Illustrated Page.

[kemilyh1988 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fuck this. Sad as the movie and Briony is still a bitch.

[ainjel-3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The mark of a good novel is knowing how it's going to end, but still being shocked and heartbroken when you get there.

I'm sure everyone has already said everything there is to be said about Atonement, a novel my mother proclaimed "the movie made me cry!" Well, mother, the book made your daughter cry. And I knew. I KNEW how it had to end, because there could be no other ending, and I still cried a river.

This book is incredibly human. I think every single person will relate to it, because we all make mistakes we wish we could atone for and sometimes...

we can't.

And we're forced to live with our guilt forever.

Is there anything sadder than that?

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A great book, really, the more I revisit it the better it becomes. The account of the retreat to Dunkirk was very gripping and the ending has a magnificent twist. Brings things into focus very well.

[emresevinc · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's been a long time since I was surrounded by such a literary pleasure: I wanted to devour it, I wanted savour it. What an experience it's been to enjoy McEwan echoing Tolstoy in passing, and then without any warning at all, fluidly touching upon the hard problem of consciousness in a few paragraphs, only to let seemingly ordinary events unfold into the extraordinary depths of human psyche in turn. How easy the difficulty achievement seems, like a fugue of grandiose complexity, the laborious process behind it hidden by the harmonious performance, a feast for the mind to celebrate.There are books that I wanted to read more than once, then there are books that I managed to read twice, but this book made me go back to some pages and re-read some phrases, as if to prolong their effects. Again, and again my mind was stimulated in the most unexpected ways, my facial expressions reflecting some of the strongest passages I've witnessed recently. I'll always remember the abandoned hike from Calais to Istanbul, and Dunkirk's history that's dyed in fifty shades of vermilion.

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is exceptionally good and has a sting in the tale that leaves you entirely uncertain of what to make of what you've just been reading. Starting in an idylic 1935 this is full of mixed messages and confusions about what is seen and what is the truth of that seeing. We see this through the eyes of Briony, the youngest of the three Tallis children. She is 13 in 1935 and just at that difficult juntcure between childish enthusiam and the adult world. She has written a play for her three cousins from the North to perform with her in celebration of her brother Leon's return home. What she sees over the course of the next day and how she badly misinterprets what she sees will mark the lives of the family for the rest of their lives. She observes interactions between her older sister Cecelia and the charlady's son, Robbie and is entirely out of her depth. She also completely puts the wrong impression on how her cousin Lola gets to be in a particular state. What she then thinks she knows has happened (putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with a bushel of potatoes) is not what happened, and yet once it is said there is no drawing back. There are estrangements and marriages formed this day that persist for much longer. The main part of the book was excelllent, the sting in the tail takes palce in the epilogue. Here we discover that Briony has taken that talent for the inventive and become a novellist and what you have been reading is her novel of the events. And the way this is written makes you doubt a lot of what you've just read, particularly with respect to the relaitonship status of Cecelia and Robbie. Is Briony as unreliable now as she was then? Despite the passing of time? Has she made the relationship one way in the novel but did it end differently in real life? nd did she follow through on the novels seeming offer of retraction (and atonement) for the mistake that led to the rupture in family life? We're not to know, but that seed of doubt has been planted, most particularly by the seeming absence of certain people in the birthday party of the epilogue. It is really very well done, this undermining of everything that has been built up over the last 350 pages. I read this almost in one go, while travelling, and it was engrossing.

[tess_schoolmarm · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Atonement by Ian McEwan is a bit of a dichotomy to me. On the one hand, it was over-written; meaning too much profuse and flowery language for the subject matter. On the other hand, it feels as if you have been punched in the stomach by the end of the book. I don't want to discuss it more so as not to give away the plot, but a Scripture verse comes to memory: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

[lkernagh · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite McEwan read to date! The story is divided into four parts. Part one swept me away, just like Virginia Woolf did when I read Mrs. Dalloway some years ago. McEwan has deftly captured techniques employed by Woolf: the sharply detailed day, the sifting of events and perception and the 'bird's eye view' the reader experiences of some, but not all, events. Absolutely perfect, so I found myself being jarred awake when Part 2 finds us suddenly 5 years forward in time, in France with the retreating English forces. While McEwan's technique remains more or less unchanged, the shift in setting - and narrator from Briony to Robbie - provides the reader with a sharply different experience, which, thankfully made it easier to slide into Part 3 and rejoin Briony, now a "nurse in training" in London. The overall effect of the story, including the capstone of the final part where we fast forward to 1999, is an exquisitely written, profound story of childhood awakening, love, war and the difficulty of absolution. So why no 5 star rating? A solid 5 star rating for Part 1, but the other parts did not enamour me to the same extent. Still, a wonderful read and a book I would highly recommend for Virginia Woolf and Mrs. Dalloway fans out there.

[sprainedbrain · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book completely captivated me from the beginning. I think I cycled through every possibly feeling for Briony in the course of reading this novel. Gorgeous writing, even though this was a 370-page gut punch.

[faradaydon_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Simply brilliant!

[ecataldi-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book is SOO descriptive! I honestly thought it pulled away from the story a bit. The first third of the book dragged on and on and I was bogged down with the descriptive details of every outfit, thought, vase, drink, and more. It definitely picked up in the second part but I wanted to quit reading long before I got there. In essence, this book is about a young sister who is a total jerk and joy-kill. She does something unforgivable and awful that impacts those closest to her and it has a ripple effect throughout the whole book. I wanted to like this, but I just couldn't get past the flowery pose. I bet the movie is better!

[mjharris_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A work of genius.

[lillis-5 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Really overrated.

[ugagirl_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Beautiful.

[bpeters65 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was a really good read. Although it begins rather slowly (I actually read 40 pages, left it for 6 months, then revisited it), once it hits it's stride, I was unable to put it down. It is truly a beautiful, devastating story. Well worth the 350 odd pages. It is a love story, but not what you would think. The description of his experience in Nazi occupied France, fighting to get home, is mesmerizing. Really, not just a novel for women.

[alisony-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm finding it hard to review this book, as I'm torn over how I feel about it.Told in 4 parts, Atonement is a cleverly construed idea of how a young teenager's total misunderstanding of a chain of adult events leads to a family being split apart. It ticked a lot of my reading boxes - a setting that shifted from a big English country house to the Dunkirk retreat and then to the London hospital war effort, all nicely tied together by the huge sense of loss affecting all the characters on the back of the child's error of judgement. A little bit Downton Abbey meets Brideshead Revisted, I definitely enjoyed it, but I can't help feeling a little bit disappointed by it.The second half of the book was excellent - a definite page turner with plenty to keep the reader sitting up into the wee small hours to finish it. But the first part of the book I found slow going. It took far too long to get to the main event of the novel, and I was well over 100 pages in before I started to care about the storyline and commit myself to finishing it. At the beginning the prose seemed unnecessarily dense and over descriptive, which I haven't found in the other McEwan novels I've read, and rather than build up suspense it just dragged on too much and felt boring in parts.If I was scoring this book on parts 2-3 it would be 4 stars plus, but part 1 was at least 50 pages too long, and part 4 felt a little rushed.3.5 stars - worth a read, but not destined for this year's hot list.

[ellemir-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A great book, one of the most interesting and depressing novels I ever read. Unfortunately I made the mistake of watching the movie first (not knowing about this book at that time), which spoiled part of the novel and especially the ending for me. That's the reason for changing the rating from 4 stars to 5, adding this book to my alltime favourites.

I was drawn into the book right from the beginning - the pre-war setting with its lush and carefree atmosphere, spoiled by the events during the course of a day, then the darker and more brutal scenery during the war - the author did a great job here.
The characters were great as well. The motivation for their deeds (and for the things they didn't do) were understandable and there was a lot of character development. The actions that seemed to be out of character were explained by the ending. Going into depth more would spoil the book for those of my friends who might be planning to read it (if they haven't read a synopsis somewhere else or seen the film).

I still sometimes think about some of the questions the book posed for me. Is there really a thing like atonement? Is it possible to forgive someone who spoiled the entire lifes of other persons, even if she did it without fully understanding what she was doing? A really good book - and definately on my list to reread.

[ameise1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a great story. Bryony's unwavering determination to be a writer has the fate of a family determined. A false accusation she made in her childhood has found the love of two people in a tough test, that she could not make it again later well. Even if she wants to apologize with this story, she can not keep her pride under control. She is aware that the truth only comes to light when all the protagonists are dead.This story has very grabbed me.

[knightlight777 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I found this book on a list of novels to read probably the 1001, but also it appears on a number of others. Not much of a fiction reader I thought it not a bad idea to take on this book and see what all the fuss was about. Throughout I found myself going back and forth between wanting it to be over and getting drawn into the drama.A depressing plot of a what can go terribly wrong when an overactive imagination and will moves against the real lives of people and the far reaching consequence. My interpretation in any event. We certainly get a lot to ponder on many aspects of life including our own by Mr. McEwan. History and cultural lessons are also on display in this novel. It is wrapped in a way leaving us or at least me hanging as to what really is atonement and is it really achieved in the end. Also the conclusion of forwarding many years to the author's concluding life left me with what we all must face, our ultimate decline. Our own real lives that are not quite novels.

[charlotte1162 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think it is generally believed that Ian McEwan's books are something similar to the idea of Marmite; you either love his writing style or you hate it. I myself have always been a huge fan of McEwan and this book, like all his others was beautifully crafted into an intensely thoughtful novel, which commands,of sorts, a sensitive respect towards both the characters and the ensuing events.
McEwan has a tendency to completely captivate his audience, I find myself once more congratulating McEwan's ability to capture the innermost feelings and thoughts of humans, unlike other authors, you certainly feel as though you have known the characters as intimately as possible. I found myself unable to stop reading the book and it was with reluctance that I actually closed the book to get on with other things in life, sleep being one example! There is a deep degree of atonement, and a sadness at the turn of events as the novel draws to a close, this is not a story with fairytale endings.


Moving away from the novel itself, I must also congratulate the adaptation into film, Atonement, the film is true to the book and captures the atmosphere of the novel perfectly. Both novel and film recommended!

[elizabethn_15 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

overated. Really.

[deldevries · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The first part is rather difficult to follow, but it is worth sticking with this book. The title is perfect for the story ... but that doesn't become obvious until the last part of the book. A masterful job of weaving first person perspectives from multiple characters. Near the end, this feels a bit awkward when the characters are in the same room - but only one POV remains.

[fatmashahin · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

BLARGH. Boring AND problematic. An unfortunate combination, really.

I didn't think much of Atonement when I first finished it. Most of it bored me, and I found the writing style to be incredibly convoluted and dense. To make matters worse, large portions of this novel felt completely inconsequential to me. Part 2 could be summarized as "Robbie goes to war. War is bad," and part 3 as "Briony does her job." Why we needed 100 pages of agonizing descriptions for each section is beyond me. The only part I even remotely enjoyed was part 1, and that was only because THINGS HAPPENED, things that were of actual consequence to the plot. (But that's not really saying much because the inciting incident of this novel was so ridiculously stupid I couldn't fathom how the characters could screw up so colossally.) So, to recap: part 1=okay, part 2=BORING, part 3=Mostly BORING. And then we get to the concluding section titled "London 1999" -- and what a horribly infuriating section it was. The cherry on top of the boring, meandering cake that was this book. Was the ending of this book A) Cheap, B) Gimmicky, or C) Manipulative? If you answered all of the above then DING DING DING WE HAVE A WINNER! This is what not to do when you want to end a story. I did not endure 371 pages of a glacially slow story for it to end like that. It felt like a violation of the reader's trust, and I certainly did not appreciate being thrown in for a loop like that.

Onto the problematic aspects of this book. First of all, and this is something many reviewers have pointed out, the story largely ignores Lola's rape. Atonement's biggest problem is that it gets so caught up in the injustice that Robbie's faced with that it completely disregards the main injustice of this whole conflict: someone got raped.

Some pertinent points:
#1: Don't get me wrong, Briony infuriated the hell out of me when she was so adamant on laying the blame on Robbie, but I also think that what she did kind of made sense. She got that creepy note from Robbie (it really was FREAKING CREEPY-- why couldn't he just keep that tidbit to himself ugh), thought he was attacking her sister, and then concluded that he raped Lola. Her conclusions were certainly faulty, but given the circumstances (creepy obscene letter, assault, rape), I think she was justified in being so distressed.

#2: Briony eventually realizes that she'd falsely accused Robbie, and Cecilia knows that Robbie isn't the one who raped Lola, and yet both of them sit on that information for YEARS without doing a single thing to help. Briony freaking knows it was Paul Marshall but she does jackshit about it, and then when she's told that Lola is about to get married to her rapist she's all like woops ma bad sucks for her I guess.

#3: Yes it's awful that Robbie went to jail for something he didn't do, but ALSO A 15-YEAR-OLD GIRL GOT RAPED SHOULDN'T WE MAYBE DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT???? OR AT LEAST THINK ABOUT IT AT ALL???

And don't even get me started on how much I disliked Briony. So selfish. So entitled.

Though I may make it seem as if I passionately LOATHED this book, I didn't. It was mostly just boring, and then once I thought about it some more, problematic. To say that I passionately hated this book would mean that it made me feel something, which it didn't. Which is I guess the crux of the matter when it comes to Atonement: it didn't elicit anything in me, and so it wasn't particularly memorable.

[glire-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

best. ending. ever.

[longhorndaniel · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The pace was actually sluggish for me at the beginning; however once I was into part 2 it picked up nicely. Really enjoyed the characters; and while I don't usually enjoy "switched" endings; this one worked really well and made the book more authentic as well as compelling. What I found interesting was that I saw the circumstances of Briony as tragic while my wife, who watched the movie (I have not yet) thought she was a brat.

[christinedux · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

During the summer of 1935 at the country estate of the Tallis family, one event changes the lives of almost everyone present. The novel itself is framed as a literary confession it has taken Briony Tallis a lifetime to write.

[cebellol · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really wanted to like this book. You'll notice I said book, not story. The story wasn't the problem, per say, although the very end left me completely unsatisfied and with an immense book hangover that had people at the airport asking if I was ok.

I loved the story; I really did. Robbie was everything I wanted him to be and more. Cecilia could have probably used a little more depth, but it was relatively tolerable since she didn't factor into the story as much as I'd anticipated she would. I think I still would have liked more background on her though. No. Maybe not more background. Perhaps "dimension" would be a better word. She felt very... flat as a character.

Briony, however, was the most insufferable little snot of a character I've ever had the displeasure to come to know in my literary adventures. I almost couldn't finish the book because of how much I hated her. She reminded me of every unflattering stereotype of the youngest child and an only child combined into one character. I couldn't have been happier when the first section of the book ended and I didn't have to deal with her 13 year old self for a few pages while we explored Robby's brushes with death in WWII France.

I wish I could give this book separate ratings, one for the story itself and one for the overall book. Despite the 3 stars, I give the book only 2. The story however is at 4.5 stars for me.

[nog_5 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was right: it is better than the overrated Amsterdam!

[vivienner_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

McEwan's writing is outstanding. He begins the story in the past, at a family gathering in 1935, then jumps ahead to WWII. His account of events at Dunkirk were graphic but the description of nursing that followed was, if anything, more horrific. And then comes the astonishing conclusion. Well-deserving of all the accolades.