Atonement

Atonement cover
Author	Ian McEwan
Country	England
Language	English
Publisher	Jonathan Cape
Publication date	2001
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	371 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0224062522 (first edition)

Atonement (2001) is a novel by British writer Ian McEwan. It is widely regarded as one of McEwan's best works and was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize for fiction, an award he had already won for his previous novel Amsterdam. In addition, Time magazine named it the best fiction novel of the year and included it in its All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels,^[1] and The Observer cites it as one of the 100 best novels written, calling it "a contemporary classic of mesmerising narrative conviction."^[2] Atonement is one of the most celebrated and honoured books of recent years; as well as being shortlisted for the Booker Prize: it was it was also shortlisted for the 2001 James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the 2001 Whitbread Book Award for Novel; it has won the 2002 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction; the 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction; the 2002 WH Smith Literary Award; and the 2004 Santiago Prize for the European Novel.^[3] McEwan utilises several stylistic techniques in the novel including metafiction and psychological realism. Atonement contains intertextual references to a number of other literary works including Henry James' The Golden Bowl, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Shakespeare's The Tempest and Twelfth Night. In late 2006 Lucilla Andrews' autobiography No Time for Romance became the focus of a posthumous controversy when it was alleged that McEwan plagiarised from this work while writing his novel Atonement. McEwan professed his innocence.^[4][5][6] Several high profile authors leapt to his defence, including John Updike, Martin Amis, Margaret Atwood, Thomas Keneally, Zadie Smith, and (in what was seen as an incredible coup) the reclusive US novelist, Thomas Pynchon.^[7][8] Indeed, John Updike has gone on record as saying that Atonement "was a staggering book - something no American could have published."^[9] A film adaptation directed by Joe Wright from a screenplay by Christopher Hampton was released by Working Title Films in September 2007 in the UK and in December 2007 in the US.

Plot summary

Atonement is a complex novel told from several points of view and divided into four parts.

Part one

The story opens on a hot summer day in 1935. Thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis has written a play for her brother Leon, with the characters to be played by her cousins, 15-year old Lola and 9-year old twins Jackson and Pierrot. Briony's sister, 23-year old Cecilia Tallis, has returned home from university and is now confronted with her confused feelings towards Robbie Turner, the son of their housekeeper, who was taken under the patronage of Cecilia's father Jack, and, like Cecilia, studied literature at Cambridge University. While trying to help her water some flowers, they break a vase and pieces fall into the fountain. Cecilia strips to her underwear and jumps into the fountain to retrieve the fragments in front of a startled Robbie. Briony Tallis also witnesses this event from an upstairs bedroom, although she is confused as to its meaning. Their brother Leon arrives with his friend Paul Marshall, an aspiring businessman who plans to sell chocolate bars to the Army. Leon invites Robbie to dinner, much to Cecilia's annoyance, as she is still confused as to why Robbie upsets her so much. Robbie, meanwhile, returns to his bungalow to write a letter to Cecilia. After finishing it, he adds a lewd suggestion on to the bottom, using the word cunt. Although he then writes another version of the letter to give to Cecilia, it is the first that is inadvertently delivered to Cecilia via Briony, who reads it and is convinced, in her fertile imagination, that Robbie is a "maniac". Upon reading the note, Cecilia realises her love for Robbie, and they declare their love for each other in the library. Briony interrupts their lovemaking, which she interprets as an attack on her sister. During dinner, the twin cousins run away, leaving a letter, and people begin searching for them in the extensive grounds of the estate. In the dark, Briony comes across Lola being raped by an unknown attacker. Briony convinces herself that the rapist is Robbie, and Lola acquiesces. The police arrive to investigate, and when Robbie arrives with the rescued twins he is arrested solely on account of Briony's testimony. Apart from Robbie's mother only Cecilia believes in his innocence.

Part two

We follow Robbie Turner in France during the Dunkirk evacuation of 1940. As a result of Briony's accusation, Robbie spent three years in prison before enlisting in the army. He has been in contact with Cecilia through letters, and she has promised that she'll wait for him. They've only met once since his arrest, a fleeting half hour spent in awkwardness, but they shared a kiss before Cecilia had to leave. At the end of part two, Robbie is still in Dunkirk, his fate unknown.

Part three

Briony is now working as a trainee nurse in London during the weeks leading up to and following the Dunkirk evacuation. She now believes it was Paul Marshall who raped Lola in 1935, and feels guilty for accusing Robbie. During the course of this section, it becomes apparent to the reader that Briony sees her work as a nurse as a sort of redemption; she effectively sent Robbie to a horrible war, and now she is nursing soldiers like him. During a crucial scene, Briony pretends to be a girl from the village of a very young French soldier who has been fatally wounded and dies in her arms. Briony attends the wedding of Lola and Paul Marshall, but lacks the courage to speak out against the marriage. She then tracks down Cecilia and promises that she will try to atone for what she has done. Robbie is with Cecilia, and together they outline the legal procedures Briony will need to follow in order to exonerate Robbie.

Part four

The fourth section, titled "London 1999", is written from the perspective of Briony, now a successful novelist in her 70s. She is dying from vascular dementia. It is revealed that she is the author of the preceding sections of the novel, which are to be published only after the death of Lola and Paul Marshall. In the last few pages, we learn that, although they are reunited in the novel, Cecilia and Robbie were never actually reunited – Robbie dying of septicaemia on the beaches of Dunkirk (most likely a result of infection from the piece of shrapnel which embeds itself in his stomach, and is mentioned many times during Part Two) and Cecilia being killed in The Blitz – and that Briony never went to see them to make amends for her lie, though the speaker is very evasive here. Though the part about Lola's marriage to Paul Marshall is true, she never had the courage to go see Cecilia, who was mourning Robbie's death. The novel ends with a meditation on the nature of atonement and authorship, and the conclusion that Briony appears to reach is that no amount of authorial fantasising (or, for that matter, wretched work as a nurse) can actually make up for the crime she committed as a child of 13. It also shows the differing views on fiction and how it can be damaging beyond belief and can be good in that it offered Cecilia and Robbie a chance for happiness in the written world that they never achieved in life.

Objects and places of significance

The Trials of Arabella

The Trials of Arabella is a play written by Briony Tallis in 1935 with the intention to teach her brother Leon to be more serious when it came to relationships. The play inevitably never gets performed due to the lack of cooperation of Jackson and Pierrot, and the further complications that follow. The Trials of Arabella is later performed in 1999 during Briony's 77th birthday by various young grandchildren.

The Tallis Estate

The Tallis Estate is located in the Surrey Hills in England, being the family home and also the site of the Tallis family party for Briony's 77th birthday. It is at The Tallis Estate that the key moments of the exposition of the story take place. The first part of the book completely takes place on this estate.

The vase

The vase is an important motif in the book. It originally belonged to Mr Tallis's brother, who received it as a present for saving the inhabitants of a town near Verdun during the first World War. Although it is very valuable, the Tallis family decides to keep using it, thus honouring its owner's memory. The vase causes the first “real” encounter between Cecilia and Robbie (who seemingly keep ignoring each other since their return from university), when, by the fountain, they fight over the vase and break off some shards, and Cecilia undresses to get them out of the fountain. This incident also leads to (the different versions of) Robbie's apologetic letter. The subject of the vase comes up again when Briony visits Cecilia and Robbie and mentions that the vase has been broken; Cecilia is clearly unsettled by the news.

Dunkirk

The second section of the book contains detailed descriptions of the Dunkirk evacuation, in which Robbie takes part, and gives an impressive account of his war experiences. In the fourth part, Briony is shown gathering information and obtaining opinions about the war in order to give as realistic a description as possible in her book.

The hospital

Both Cecilia and Briony become nurses and are trained at the same hospital in London. Briony (who could have had a comfortable student life at Cambridge) presumably chooses hard and lowly work to atone for her wrongdoing. In the hospital, Briony comes in contact with the harsh reality of war, and, some experts may argue, the hospital represents Briony finally growing up to the realisation of her mistakes.

Literary criticism

• Finney, Brian (2004) "Briony's Stand Against Oblivion: The Making of Fiction in Ian McEwan's Atonement." Journal of Modern Literature 27(3), p68-82.
• Harold, James (2005) "Narrative Engagement with Atonement and The Blind Assassin." Philosophy and Literature 29(1), p130-145.
• Schemberg, Claudia (2004) "Achieving 'At-one-ment': Storytelling and the Concept of Self in Ian McEwan's The Child in Time, Black Dogs, Enduring Love and Atonement" Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

References

External links

• Summaries and Analyses
• Atonement on McEwan's official website
• Atonement on InÉdit
• Complete Review review
• Ian McEwan on Mostlyfiction.com
• Salon review
• Ian McEwanon Blogcritics.com
• The most honored novels: Atonement has received numerous honors and is near the top of the list
• On ABC Radio NationalInterview with Ramona Koval
• Photos of the first edition of Atonement