Making Atonement

Atonement by Ian McEwan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A book I picked up last summer, but couldn't push past the first 20 pages. This summer, my Fondling the Details summer book club gave me the motivation to push through the beginning, and the result was well worth it.

As evidenced by the title, the novel deals with the idea of atonement. In the end, Briony is not able to find atonement for her sin. She concludes that "[Atonement] was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all" (McEwan 351). The idea that it is not always (or ever) possible to make up for the past resounds very truthfully. And sadly. In our discussion, we discussed the (lack of) religion in the book, aside from Briony compare herself as a novelist to that of God (a god who is more a creator than anything else). We also discussed that in Christianity, Jesus is the atonement for sin, that no human being CAN make atonement. I think I may have been the only one (at the book club meeting) who actually believes that, but it was an insightful discussion nonetheless.

And to end, one of my favorite passages: "The hard soles of his shoes rapped loudly on the metaled road like a giant clock,and he made himself think about time, about his great hoard, the luxury of an unspent fortune. He had never before felt so self-consciously young, nor experienced such appetite, such impatience for the story to begin" (McEwan 86). What a fantastic description of that adreneline rush of those moments where life's fullness overwhelms you and feels endless, like "an unspent fortune."
View all my reviews