Atonement by Ian McEwen (#44, Contemporary Literature)

I am always sad to say that the reason behind me reading a book has to do with seeing previews for the movie but that is what brought me to read Ian McEwen's Atonement. I wanted to know what the horrible crime is that drives the lovers apart. I am also a sucker for movies/books about war.

I had multiple emotions while reading this book. The beginning is so maddening that I wanted to just stop reading it. The character Briony, an insipid little wretch who destroys everyone's life, is quite possibly the most annoying fictional character I have ever read. I wanted to reach through the book and punch her several times. Part One is told from varying perspectives, at varying overlapping intervals that is both aggravating and interesting. The reader knows a lot more than the characters and at times it just becomes too much--knowing everything and watching the characters flounder around and get caught up in one misunderstanding after another.

I enjoyed the book much more after I got out of the disaster of Part One. McEwen's account of the Dunkirk evacuation of 1940 is haunting and without frills. The hospital scenes where Briony nurses the influx of wounded from that evacuation turns your stomach and breaks your heart. Briony is must more the center of the story than either Robbie or Cecilia. They are what makes the story but it is Briony who we spend the most time with and learn to both pity and hate. The ending didn't surprise me, although it would have had I not read the summary out catlike curiosity on wikipedia before reading the actual book. I think I would have been a lot more involved and a lot more upset about the deceitful ending.

I have closed out Nonfiction and Contemporary Lit categories, I have one Classic yet to read and then it is five Reader's Choice and my quest to read 50 books in one year will be complete. There is still a chance I might not make it, there is still a chance a bad pick could upset my progress but now is not the time to doubt my voracious appetite for the written word. It will be done.