SOURCE: Schwartz, Lynne Sharon. “Quests for Redemption.” New Leader 85, no. 2 (March-April 2002): 23-5.

In the following excerpt, Schwartz praises the engaging fictional world of Atonement, but objects to the novel's concluding postmodern conceit.

Good news: In a world turned surreal, realism in literature lives on, at least in Britain. Both Ian McEwan, prolific and experienced, and Andrew Miller, a young author of two previous novels, offer new works that seduce, absorb, illuminate, and comfort. By “comfort,” I'm not suggesting that their visions are complacent or reassuring—far from it. But their painstaking exploration of private dilemmas in the midst of public turmoil validates the struggle to find coherent meaning. That remains a worthy aspiration, both writers remind us, even if the results are forever out of reach.

McEwan, with eight novels, two story collections and several prizes to his credit, is always fresh and arresting. Whether his theme is...