Atonement – true to its meaning, is about the atonement of the protagonist Briony Tallis. It splendidly portrays the perceptions of a thirteen year old child and the subsequent consequences of her preconceived notions and the aftermath that changes her life and the life of her sister Cecilia’s and the life of her sister's beloved, Robbie Turner’s.
The novel starts of with Briony’s attempt to write a play, Trials of Arabella, for her brother Leon, whom she adores. The characters in the play would be played by her cousins – Lola, and her twin brothers - Jackson and Pierrot. So absorbed was she in her play, that she failed the basic courtesy of enquiring if any of her cousins were tired of the long journey they had to make. But as the rehearsals take shape, she has a sinking feeling about the play, as her cousins enact the characters lifelessly. To let lose her frustration, she chooses to stay alone in her room.
Cecilia, just completed her college in Cambridge and is trying to think about her future. She walks out into the garden holding a vase filled with flowers, to fill it with water, where she notices her childhood friend, Robbie Turner, gardening. She loiters a little longer, wondering how to proceed further towards the fountain. For some unfathomable reason, she was often awkward in his presence. Though they studied in the same college, they hardly had any communication and whatever little communication they had, it was filled with discomfited moments. Robbie, too, could not quite understand why he was tongue tied in front of her. In an attempt to make a conversation, Cecilia speaks first. In the follow up that leads to a strange intensity of tension between them, Robbie offers to fill in the vase with water, for which she refuses. When Robbie, true to his male ego, tries to take the vase from her hand, Cecilia, holds to it in an attempt to ward him off and in the pointless struggle that follows, the vase is broken, part of which falls into the fountain. Cecilia, saying that he was an idiot, strips in front of him to retrieve the broken vase. Robbie, stunned by her actions, gapes at her. After she retrieves the vase and puts on her clothes, the ridiculousness of the situation hits her, and she runs back to the house, embarrassed. Robbie looks at the water, touching it, trying to steady his heart beat and looking to check if there are any more pieces of the vase left in the fountain. Unknown to them both, Briony, who watches this incident is stunned to see her sister stand half naked. The situation from her bedroom window, looks like Robbie was threatening Cecilia, and as the scene unfolds, it makes little sense to her.
On his way back to his home, Robbie meets Leon and his friend Paul Marshall. Leon, invites him home for dinner. When Cecilia knows about this, she is irritated, but for reasons she could not quite comprehend. Robbie, on the other hand, though worried about the irritation of Cecilia, could not quite say a “no” to the invitation. In the comfort of his home, as he was thinking about the incident that unfolded near the fountain, he started to compose a letter to her, to apologize for his behavior.
While going for the dinner, with his letter in hand, he notices Briony in the field and calls out to her. He asks if she minds delivering a letter to Cecilia personally. Briony takes the letter and runs back home, and locking the door behind her, opens it and is aghast at the words! Robbie on the other hand, realizes that the letter he composed to Cecilia, the formal note of apology, was still on his desk and that the improper words, those that should never have left his fantasy, were in the letter he handed to Briony. He unsuccessfully calls out for her and realizes that it was too late!
Briony, though gives the letter to Cecilia, is shocked and in tears and in desperate need of counsel and she speaks her mind to Lola, who happens to say that Robbie is a maniac. The thirteen year old kid in Briony takes that word too seriously and is determined to save her sister. Cecilia, after reading the letter, though, clearly understands her feelings towards Robbie.
When the door bell rings, she answers and finds Robbie, who is embarrassed and who apologizes for the inappropriateness of the letter.
"The anticipation and dread he felt at seeing her was also a kind of sensual pleasure, and surrounding it, like an embrace, was a general elation - it might hurt, it was horribly inconvenient, no good might come of it, but he had found out for himself what it was to be in love, and it thrilled him."
Cecilia draws him into the library, where she confronts her feelings for him and they make out in the library, against the book racks. The transformation she feels in her and in him, somehow, changes the dynamics between them and she realizes, then, that something beautiful has happened and it changed the way they perceived each other!
"Nothing as singular or as important had happened since the day of his birth. She returned his gaze, struck by the sense of her own transformation, and overwhelmed by the beauty in a face which a lifetime's habit had taught her to ignore. She whispered his name with the deliberation of a child trying out the distinct sounds. When he replied with her name, it sounded like a new word - the syllables remained the same, the meaning was different. Finally he spoke the three simple words that no amount of bad art or bad faith can ever quite cheapen. She repeated them, with exactly the same emphasis on the second word, as if she had been the one to say them first. He had no religious belief, but it was impossible not to think of an invisible presence or witness in the room, and that these words spoken aloud were like signatures on an unseen contract."
Briony, walks into the library, hearing the noise and afraid for her sister thinking that Robbie is physically abusing her and is shocked to notice them in that state.
In the dinner that follows, with the obvious tension between him and Cecilia, and Briony’s clear hatred (mutual hatred, I dare say :D) for him, he sits uncomfortably, thinking about eloping with his sweetheart after dinner. During dinner, the twins, unhappy about their stay and confinement, run away from the house. While the entire family starts searching for them, Leon and Cecilia as a pair, Robbie and Briony set out on their paths, alone, to find the twins. Briony, suddenly notices her cousin Lola, strangled by a man and is shocked to notice them. Lola, was in no position to say who it was, Briony on the other hand, convinces herself that the person was Robbie. In the events that lead to the investigation, she gives her witness that she saw Robbie holding Lola down and as a further proof of Robbie’s perverseness, hands the letter he wrote to Cecilia to the investigators.
Not knowing the drama that unfolded, Robbie returns with the twins and is immediately arrested for abusing Lola. Cecilia is the only one, who trusts him and says that she would wait for him and what happened between them was their little secret.
Thus, the perception of Briony changes the life of her sister. And in the events that follow, one is left wondering, if only, Briony could have understood the love or, if only, the events unfolded as they should have, but, alas, they did happen in a certain sequence and the melodrama that follows, touches the reader. And as Briony, completely grasps the meaning of what she had done, on that fateful day, that changed the lives of three people, she asks for atonement from her sister, a good eight years later.
The novel has beautiful passages, splendidly written, which reach out to the reader and perhaps, the following statement from an adult Briony, serves for an apt conclusion to this post:
"Every secret of the body was rendered up -- bone risen through flesh, sacrilegious glimpses of an intestine or an optic nerve. From this new and intimate perspective, she learned a simple, obvious thing she had always known, and everyone knew: that a person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn, not easily mended."
… certain things can never be mended and however sincere an apology is, there can never be a complete retribution and above all, time that is lost can never come back, nor can the dreams of the young man, who aspired to do medicine and who is confined to the army, not with dignity and honour attributed to a soldier, but with a choice between jail and army.
Ian McEwan does a fantastic job with his characters and the prose just brings to life, even the dullest of routines. The novel is rich in its prose and the command of the author is not lost on the reader. It paints a world and draws the characters to perfection and the reader, is there, in the novel, witnessing the events as they unfold. The beauty of a novel is in portraying the magnitude of the place and environment to the reader’s eyes and though it is largely left to the reader to imagine the surrounding, Ian McEwan simplifies the process of imagination by bringing in vivid details that cling to the reader and portrays a picture as he perceives it to be! Not an easy task!!!
Lovely book, easy to read and very touchy!! Not easy to put down, once one starts it and absolutely irresistible.
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