Book Review – Atonement by Ian McEwan

Some stories stick with you. Whether they are told through literature, art, or film, a story can be so full of detail and compelling characters that you will remember it for the rest of your days. Atonement is one of those stories.

If you haven’t seen the film adaptation or read this book, it follows characters Briony, Cecilia, and Robbie as they navigate a years long story filled with war, grief, and guilt. Briony, only a girl on the precipice of her teen years, misinterprets something she sees happen between her older sister, Cecilia and Robbie who is the son of a local servant. When their cousins visit and one of them is raped, Briony witnesses her attacker in the dark of night. She believes that attacker is Robbie out of misunderstanding and a bit of immature jealousy and he is convicted and sent to prison. When he gets out early under the provision that he serve in the army during WWII, Robbie and Cecilia try to make plans to be together after the war. Briony, now an adult with a full understanding of what her lie did to her sister, to Robbie, and to their families, has become a nurse. She discovers that her cousin is now getting married to the very man that actually raped her. Briony struggles to make things right, but finds herself a coward. Instead, she writes a book about what happened, but gives the characters the happy ending that they didn’t receive in real life.

The film is one of my absolute favorites. It is rich with detail and wonderful acting. The score features the insistent ticking of a clock as if Briony’s actions are a ticking time bomb about the destroy their lives. And Kiera Knightley’s green dress on that fateful night – a character in and of itself. Imagine my adoration for the book when I realized upon reading it that it has all of these things and so much more.

This novel is rich in expressive detail in every paragraph. Each page offers up something beautiful and profoundly sad. Briony is irredeemable and she knows it, but she writes her story anyway near the end of her life. She leaves in names and places knowing that her cousin and her rich rapist husband will probably sue when the book is released. They too remained silent when they knew Robbie was innocent. They were complicit. That is her penance. Her punishment for her cowardice. For keeping Cecilia and Robbie apart.

I was surprised how true the movie is to this book. The only real difference is how the viewer finds out Briony’s book had a false happy ending. In this novel, she simply just thinks on how giving her sister and her lover the happy ending they never had served a better purpose than having their lives end in real world tragedy. In the movie, she gives an interview about the release of her book. The information is the same, but just handled differently. Beyond that, one of the purest adaptations of a book that I can think of. The book makes me love the movie even more, and vice versa.

This book, like the film, will be with me always. That is the wonder of art. Sometimes, it just stays in your mind and your heart. It gives you peace in your own self reflection.

5 out of 5 stars.