Rarely has such a great book had a more
misleading title. Despite her attempts, Briony doesn’t atone not so much for
her sins, but for her awfulness. I probably wouldn’t be so harsh on her if she
wasn’t rich and successful (like essentially all McEwan’s characters) – but she
is. McEwan takes the meanness and the fantasy of children to an extreme in this
novel. And the fact that elderly Briony in the movie is portrayed by the
wonderful Vanessa Redgrave is still not enough for me to find it in my heart to
forgive her.
There is really no need to point out that the
book is brilliantly written, this is McEwan after all. Clearly, I enjoyed the
sections set during the war (together with the huge research work that was
surely needed) more than the scenes of aristocratic life in the English
countryside. Atonement is a book that
has made me suffer like few others (similarly to Child in Time for 95% of its length) – but the end didn’t really
make me suffer, it just made me want to karate-chop Briony and her vascular
dementia (which she got at 70-something, after a life spent as a hugely successful
writer and a little time as a nurse – the poor thing can get lost).
I’m kind of surprised by how, having read the
book more than a year ago, I am still so mad at the spoiled little brat.
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