Book/Film Review of Atonement by Ian McEwan (for those in the first two rows who have not read the book, or seen the film – there will be spoilers!)
I’ve never been so fully engrossed in a novel since Birdsong, and this being another focus on the Second World War (a subject matter I find most interesting to read about), Atonement is a brilliant and poignant masterpiece. This is the second work I’ve read by Ian McEwan (the first, Enduring Love). In a plan to confuse and dispel readers, McEwan has written a very thought-provoking and challenging book.
Establishing the conclusion of the novel, Atonement turns out to be narrated by a character in the story: Briony Tallis. This leaves some questions; is the whole story just a fantasy fabricated by Briony, or is this a true account? Is this the book, the final draft that will get published when she dies?
Her first-hand experiences are somewhat abundant, with depictions of some beautifully poetic scenery and vivid imagery, which at times helps to create a certain tension in a climactic moment where you just want to read past it, but this sometimes wears thin. This is something the publishers at Horizon in the book comment on Briony’s draft as being “static”, and leaving “no sense of forward movement”.
That letter is, in fact, rather useful if you want a good in-depth analyse of the book. “The crystalline present moment is of course a worthy subject in itself, especially for poetry”. Is this McEwan digressing his own literary techniques? Or is he purposefully writing in the style of his own character that writes stories “owing to the techniques of Mrs Woolf”? Genius.
The story is quite depressing to some extent, in that the two main protagonists meet their death at the peak of their lives. This, however, is veiled by our narrator. There is hope and the message she conveys to the reader is that love prevails through hope. The two lovers are kept alive by the storyteller, to atone her crime of wrongly accusing Robbie Turner of attacking an innocent girl; this being her “act of kindness”, despite the unforgivable act which dearly cost them.
There is a lot of realism in the form of graphic imagery, real-life places, and the subject of war. The authenticity of the war depiction is as close as you can get, particularly in the hospital scenes, where we get to comprehend the graphic injuries of the soldiers, via Briony’s first-hand experiences. Disease and death also affects reputable characters throughout the book, which is what makes reading McEwan novels so unique – expect the unexpected!
There was a passage I really liked where Briony compared every novel she had written to writing a modern piece of music, and that wonderful satisfaction of holding your own creation in your fingertips. She wrote a story, and though the age of characters and plots was over, much like the age of tonality and structure is over in music, she elucidates, “A modern novelist could no more write characters or plots than a modern composer could a Mozart Symphony”. It’s like you’re just rewriting the rules of past techniques, so all you can do is let art be art and let the imagination work itself through real sensations, and real human emotions of the human mind: “the conscious mind as a river through time”. This quote alludes to the closing pages of her novel, which will exist only in the mind. All great stories are generated by the creative human mind. This is a story of that process, and there is of course, much beauty in that. Love is the essence of the novel, not just between Cecilia Tallis and Robbie Turner, but for family relationships, for country, for art, and for storytelling.
The end really delivers home. There’s a sense of despondency felt about the growing up and growing old, the loss of loved ones, the loss of innocence and youth, and the decline of health, but then there’s the experience, wisdom and memories that comes with old age, which half balances that out. I feel that because Briony has lived to old age, she has had to endure the guilt of her crime, and perhaps the only way out of that was to live a fantasy life in her storytelling. This, she explains, would let “the lovers survive and flourish”. I would like to have found out more about what happened to Briony after the war, up until 1999.
I spoilt my own surprise by watching the film before reading the book because by the time I reached the part where Briony meets Cecilia and Robbie at the flat, my mind was fixed on the obvious, right up to the end. I desperately wanted to feel surprise, pathos, or something heartfelt, when she repentantly declares, “Robbie Turner died of Septicaemia at Bray Dunes” and “Cecilia was killed in September of the same year by the bomb that destroyed Balham Underground”. It’s a brilliant and powerful twist, and it struck me while watching the film, and it would probably tug the heartstrings of anyone reading the book for the first time. Nevertheless, I cannot disguise any sense of suspicion to wonder whether Briony is actually telling the truth here. Is she lying to conceal their whereabouts? To keep them alone, together, as lovers? But then she says, “what sense or hope or satisfaction could a reader draw from such an account?” The truth is imperfection. Death is an inevitable oblivion. Only in the mind can a happy end be told, until that mind withers, then one will only exist in the imagination.
I think Joe Wright’s adaptation really did the book justice. Firstly, I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing the roles of Cecilia and Robbie, other than Keira Knightley and James McAvoy. It’s like McEwan had them in mind when he was writing the novel, for instance, when Briony describes Cecilia and Robbie in the flat – these are the most vivid descriptions. I also liked Wright’s interpretation of Briony’s final testimony, with the TV interview regarding her book, instead of the letter. The music couldn’t have been more suited than Dario Marianelli’s magnificent score. Together, ‘Elegy for Dunkirk’ and Wright’s direction of that famous war scene surely marks as that one of the best unedited sequences in film history. I was enchanted to hear Clair de Lune added in the soundtrack, as it is one of my favourites, and I feel it gives a perfectly fitting aura to the film.
There is a fair amount of 'Englishness' akin to Atonement and I will always keep a devout soft spot for this book. It is set in the beautiful setting of Surrey (my home county) and namedrops a few places in London, with its war history and noble landmarks. Also, I loved Briony’s wistful imagination, her eye for detail and the way she leant all her weight on one foot – I occasionally do that. Though I am frustrated by her poor decision-making – she was foolish not to tell the truth about the incident, and live a lie for a whole five years.
Atonement begins the first chapter basked in a theme of innocence, portraying not so much “The Trials of Arabella”, as Briony writes, but the trials and tribulations of growing up. The story ends on a theme of experience, and the emancipation of death – this is evident in her mood telling the news of her inveterate illness. Suffice to say, Briony is the indirect cause of Cecilia and Robbie’s deaths, not just physically, but in love, so she goes about putting it right – by re-establishing their love as it always was, or how it was meant to be. She knows nothing will be enough to convey her regret, except her conjured fantasy, and that’s what will be remembered. And in answer to this review’s title, as 77 year old Briony puts it: “I gave them happiness”.
