With the new film version of Atonement starring Keira Knightley hotly tipped for Oscar glory at next year's awards, now is a great time to read this classic novel.
Praise and Awards for Atonement
Ian McEwan is no stranger to success. Despite losing out to Anne Enright in this year’s Booker Prize, he already has a number of literary awards under his belt, including the Booker in 1998 for Amsterdam. He is also that rare creature, a literary writer whose books actually attract healthy sales figures as well as praise.
Many regard Atonement as his finest achievement to date. Although the film version has only recently been released, the book was first published in 2001. It has of course been re-released to cash in on the success of the film (with a picture of Keira on the front, naturally).
The book received almost universal praise on its publication, with the great American writer John Updike exclaiming that it was “a staggering book — something no American could have published." High praise indeed, coming as it does from the celebrated author of the “Rabbit” series.
The book also scooped a number of prestigious awards, including the 2002 WH Smith Literary Award, the 2003 National Book Critics' Circle Fiction Award, the Los Angeles Times Prize for Fiction, also in 2003, and the Santiago Prize for the European Novel in 2004.
A Novel in Four Parts
So is the novel as good as these plaudits suggest? The story begins in England in 1935, where the feeling of a long, hot summer is effortlessly evoked through the eyes of thirteen year old Briony Tallis. As we see events through the viewpoint of a narrator who is by no means omniscient, not everything is immediately obvious to the reader, and the fact that Briony herself mistakes something that she witnesses sets in motion the chain of events which leads to her need to make atonement.
The next section of the novel focuses on the person whom Briony has wronged. Due to her mistaken testimony, the boyfriend of her sister Cecilia has spent three years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and is now fighting in the Second World War at Dunkirk.
The third section moves back to Briony’s viewpoint. She is now working as a nurse in London, and has realised she may have made a terrible mistake. The final part of the book remains with Briony – it is now 1999 and she is a successful novelist living in London. It turns out that the preceding sections are all from a book written by her, in which she changes key elements of the story to reflect what she would like to have happened, rather than what actually did. We are left uncertain whether she actually achieves her act of atonement or not.
Too complicated?
If the structure sounds complex, that’s because it is, and some of the criticism levelled at the film version accuses it of being too complicated for viewers to easily follow the plot. In McEwan’s expert hands however, the changes of narrative viewpoint and of time period are managed superbly well, and reduce a convoluted storyline to a simple tale in which both human goodness and frailty are exposed.
Atonement has now achieved the honour of being amongst the most successful novels of all time in terms of prizes received. So even if the film does win a clutch of Oscars, make sure you check out the book first.
Read about the novel which pipped McEwan to the Booker Prize this year, and how more Britons than ever are reading for pleasure.
