Atonement

So we have started a book club! I am very excited about this new development. Not in the least because it is a great venue for some friends from college to get together and chat. And because we are us - we discuss books to our hearts content!

For our first session we chose the book Atonement by Ian McEwan. This was my top choice [earlier in the summer I had read On Chesil Beach - and really admired the book] so I was very excited about the entire experience.

I am actually writing about this because my friend Meghan has written a post about the book on HER blog. So I will do two things, first respond to her three points and then lay out three of my own. [P.S. I think i have just officially become a information literacy person because I just gave you a lesson plan]

So on to Meghan's points

1) I actually like the first section. Yes, by about the middle of the section I was getting annoyed and waiting for the ending but its language is incredible. McEwan is writing as a young girl who is trying to become a writer and this pervades the text. The vocabulary is ostentatious, and consciously so - the careful writing of a novice. But despite all of this McEwan is writing in the grand tradition of Evelyn Waugh, P. G. Wodehouse, and Anthony Powell and he matches them quite well. The pacing was laborious, but it was laborious as a long summer drifts along and as much as you wish it to be finished as soon as it is gone, you being to long for its return.

2) Unlike Meghan, I found the second section of the book rather unbearable. It was painful and angst ridden and I only wanted it to be over. While incredibly well done, I admired this part of the book I did not love it.

3) Yes, this book was very Meta. But I am particularly fond of Metafiction when it is done well. One of my favorite moments in a movie I saw recently [Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story] was when an actor named Steve Coogan played an actor named Steve Coogan [who plays Walter and Tristam Shandy] is being interviewed by Tony Wilson playing Tony Wilson [who Coogan had played in an earlier move - 24 Hour Party People]. Kinda mad but wonderful! [Plus the book The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman is the father of Metafiction] Through all of this I am actually trying to say that the Meta aspects appealing. I actually wondered if the controversy about passages of this book were anything more than another head game. Can we trust an author he seems to be asking us? Can we trust the author of the story we are reading? Can we trust Briony?

Now My Points:

1) The imagery in this book is amazing. One of my favorite scenes in this book describes the mother, who is fighting a migraine, listening to the sounds of the house over one afternoon describing the action that is occurring . In this way she attributes actions and motivations to sounds. I saw this as a parallel the the task of the author. Its just beautiful.

2) I have been wondering for some time if McEwan likes women. All of his female characters in this book are reprehensible. Briony is self-obsesses, pretentious, and a little stupid. The mother is an absentee parent who is ignoring that her marriage is disintgrating by hiding from her life. Lola is cruel and manipulative. Cecilia, oh Cecilia, she has her own set of problems blindness, impetuousness, and stubbornness. But on the other hand not many of his male characters are much better. The absent fathers, the sexual predator, the blind brother. Actually, the only really GOOD character is Robbie. But even he has some issues. So I am wondering if McEwan is saying something about class or just does not like people very much.

3) I loved McEwan's discussion of the author as God. What is the responsibility for those who write and publish? A chilling thought for those of us who blog isn't it?