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Title: Atonement: A Novel
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Manufacturer: Nan A. Talese
List Price: $28.95
Our Price: $5.96
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| Customer Reviews: |
| Atonement: A Novel by Nan A. Talese Literary Torture | Absolutely hated this book. I didn't read it all the way through, but I figure 260 pages of literary torture was enough. How this book has been so well received and turned out a movie is beyond my comprehension. This book was entirely inaccessible and boring. I hated the long winded laments on architecture and gardens and I hated and didn't identify with any of the characters. This has been the worst book I've read in a decade at least.
After finding out the ending to this book after getting half way through it, I realized that the end could never justify the means. Many people disagree with this, but I just can't be bothered to read the rest of this book as it's more effective than ambien at putting me to sleep. | | Atonement: A Novel by Nan A. Talese Loved it! | | One of my favorite novels ever, I read it before it was made into a movie. The story is so romantic and engaging, two lovers that have only a few minutes together to share in their whole lives because of a person's false accusation, three lives destroyed due to ignorance and childish egoism. I loved both the part in the Tallis' family house before the dramatic change of events and also the Robbie's efforts to reach Dunkirk (that was almost lost in the film). I couldn't see the end coming... I think that final twist in the story is what made this great book brilliant. I absolutely love Mr Mac Ewan's way of writing, so fluent, so natural and efficient. He is one of the most talented authors today as far as I am concerned. I hated Briony and at the same time I could get into her mind and understand why she acted as she did. I have been urging many of my friends to read it ever since, and those who did have thanked me since! I read On Chesil Beach lately, perfect writing as well. I like that Mac Ewan's novel get you into the process of thinking... all those what ifs... you're not done with his books even when you're through them, they stay in your mind, in your heart. Don't skip it just because you saw the movie, this book's just perfect. | | Atonement: A Novel by Nan A. Talese Sweeping, Epic, Sensational | First let me say, I truly loved the story of this book - which as you've probably recognized, was recently made into a film. Given that most readers at this point will be picking up Atonement because of the movie, I think it's fair to do a fair bit of comparison between the two. Both the book & the film play out in similar ways in that they both possess some shining, outstanding moments of brilliance and clarity, but for every four of those there was one moment that needed some polishing, hence my grade of 4/5 stars.
The story starts in the mid 1930's when a thirteen year old girl named Briony, known for being a bit fantastical and in her head, witnesses a series of events one day and misinterprets them to the entirely wrong, adolescent conclusion, and tells a lie that sets off a rapid chain of events that forever change the lives around her - most notably of her older sister Cecilia and her newfound love interest, their longtime childhood friend Robbie. The story follows the path of the lie and its far-reaching consequences through World War 2 up until the end of the 20th century.
Part of me wishes I hadn't seen the movie - given the very unique ending - but a bigger part of me is glad I had, as it made the book a lot easier to read than I suspect it would be for someone who hasn't seen the film. I was amazed at how good the film really was in its adaptation of the book, in terms of keeping in the majority of major dialogue sequences and accurately portraying the scenery as it is described in the book. Most importantly, it really did a great job of capturing what the book was about, the general feeling and sensations you got from the book were translated beautifully on screen.
The one main thing the book did better than the movie was the delivery of the story itself through Briony, especially her thought process as she witnesses the various events early on in the story. The prose itself is quite well written, although (like in the film) it tends to lag a bit and get off track from the core themes during the section set in the fields of WW2. There are excellent themes surrounding redemption and coming of age and lots of complicated moral questions that made the book more enjoyable to read than I had anticipated.
My final note would be that the film did a much better job at revealing its final twist than the book - it was acted in such an outstanding way that you felt the weight of the final revelation that much more, although it was strongly based on the excellent writing of McEwan in these final pages. Recommended for fans of books such as The Kite Runner. | | Atonement: A Novel by Nan A. Talese Absorbing, moving story | | I couldn't put this novel down and read it in two sittings. Of the books I've read in the past few months, this is my favorite. The characters are extremely well-developed, and the plot is engaging and deeply moving. I'm eager to read more by this writer who was new to me. | | Atonement: A Novel by Nan A. Talese So boring! | | I really thought this book was extremely boring. Moved way too slowly and there was honestly nothing in this book that made me WANT to finish it. I would not recommend this book unless you need something to help put you to sleep every night. | | Atonement: A Novel by Nan A. Talese Product Description | On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner, a childhood friend who, along with Briony’s sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge.
By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had never before dared to approach and will have become victims of the younger girl’s scheming imagination. And Briony will have committed a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will color her entire life.
In each of his novels Ian McEwan has brilliantly drawn his reader into the intimate lives and situations of his characters. But never before has he worked with so large a canvas: In Atonement he takes the reader from a manor house in England in 1935 to the retreat from Dunkirk in 1941; from the London’s World War II military hospitals to a reunion of the Tallis clan in 1999.
Atonement is Ian McEwan’s finest achievement. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, the novel is at its center a profound–and profoundly moving–exploration of shame and forgiveness and the difficulty of absolution. | | Atonement: A Novel by Nan A. Talese Amazon.com | | Ian McEwan's Booker Prize-nominated Atonement is his first novel since Amsterdam took home the prize in 1998. But while Amsterdam was a slim, sleek piece, Atonement is a more sturdy, more ambitious work, allowing McEwan more room to play, think, and experiment. We meet 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the summer of 1935, as she attempts to stage a production of her new drama "The Trials of Arabella" to welcome home her older, idolized brother Leon. But she soon discovers that her cousins, the glamorous Lola and the twin boys Jackson and Pierrot, aren't up to the task, and directorial ambitions are abandoned as more interesting prospects of preoccupation come onto the scene. The charlady's son, Robbie Turner, appears to be forcing Briony's sister Cecilia to strip in the fountain and sends her obscene letters; Leon has brought home a dim chocolate magnate keen for a war to promote his new "Army Ammo" chocolate bar; and upstairs, Briony's migraine-stricken mother Emily keeps tabs on the house from her bed. Soon, secrets emerge that change the lives of everyone present.... The interwar, upper-middle-class setting of the book's long, masterfully sustained opening section might recall Virginia Woolf or Henry Green, but as we move forward--eventually to the turn of the 21st century--the novel's central concerns emerge, and McEwan's voice becomes clear, even personal. For at heart, Atonement is about the pleasures, pains, and dangers of writing, and perhaps even more, about the challenge of controlling what readers make of your writing. McEwan shouldn't have any doubts about readers of Atonement: this is a thoughtful, provocative, and at times moving book that will have readers applauding. --Alan Stewart, Amazon.co.uk |
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