Atonement
CDN$ 15.33
Painful - This has got to be the most painfully slow, go nowhere book I have ever read. Normally I would have abandoned this 1/4 of the way through but with all the hype around the movie, I thought I would pick up so kept persistent and read...and read..and read...right to the bitter just-as-boring end. And I have to say I absolutely didn t like Briony - she was pathetic.
And now it s a movie... and I m not sure why... - I thought I would be in a minority in my opinion about this book, but there are few opinions posted here on the Amazon.ca board. I read the book last year, after being drawn by many great reviews of the book, and simply, was not impressed, and was later amazed that a major motion picture was being made based on the novel. I missed something, that s how I feel. I was engaged in the first section. There are three distinct sections. The main character is a young girl who is strong willed and everything happens in the context of her misunderstanding what is happening around her, mainly the relationship between her older sister and the help , and her child single mindedness causes that man to be blamed for a crime he didn t commit. (And pretty much obviously couldn t have committed.) Then, it s much later, the war is on. The family was pulled apart by the the young girl s accusation. I believe she says she had tried to take back the accusation, but to no avail. She and her sister never talk. Her sister has removed herself from the family and... We read about her life as a young nurse, a profession she followed her estranged sister into... and we read about the young man in the middle of the war, having volunteered for military service in exchange for early release from prison (for a crime he didn t commit), and we are concerned the lovers may never be together again. I was drawn into this, but, I was at first put aside that he went to jail for a crime he didn t commit, and that as just a stated fact... no big deal... The romance between the man and the sister, I feel, the reader has to read into it. When they first admit to themselves they have this love, is just pages before he s carted off for the crime, and then we read how thier love is something they are still fighting and waiting for when she is a nurse and he s in Europe and in the war when things are going badly. In the end, the main character is older and we learn that the steps she took to apologize to her sister and the man, her beloved, never actually happen, and I closed the book feeling she was never all that sorry for what had happened, more trying to get from under the guilt directed at other from others. (Less sorry for having commited the crime, than being sorry at having been caught.) So she wrote a little story to put things right literate-ly, and she doesn t have to deal with it anymore. And not deaing with it really.
A very special book - This is not the type of mystery book you go through in one night. It has to be read slowly, re-read again and again, to absorb the feelings it conveys. Around 1940 a very imaginative 13-years old girl mingles with her sister s life and love. Her family is slightly dysfunctional and they live far removed from reality. May be I should have seen the movie first but I could not resist reading the book and this one for keeps.
Magnificent novel - I am re-reading the book for the third time now and it never gets tired. This is such a beautiful, heart-breaking story that you cannot afford to miss reading it if you are a literature buff, or just appreciate really great fiction.The details and lushness of the imagery are breath-taking. A very detail specific book, but that is one of the things I appreciated in the book. I can t say too much or I ll spoil the story, but I highly recommend it.I would also recommend the movie, it s excellent. Especially the performances by lead actors James McAvoy and Keira Knightley.