Why did I wait so long?
19 August 2008
I'll admit it: sometimes my devotion to NOT reading books that seem inordinately popular bites me in the ass.
A few years ago at the library EVERYBODY was checking out Ian McEwan's book Atonement (it also won the National Book Critics' Circle Award), so of course, I didn't feel like checking it out. But in my new devotion to reading fiction, I thought I'd give it a try.
Literally, I had to dole out chapters of this one to myself because I was loving it so, so much. It's not a complex or fast-moving narrative. The book opens in 1935, in an Engish family home where the mother often takes to her room with migraines, a daughter in her early twenties (Cecelia) is home for the summer, another pre-teen and precocious daughter (Briony) is home as well, and they're all awaiting the arrival of their older brother and his friend.
Hilarity does not ensue.
Another person present on the estate is Robbie Turner, the son of one of the family's servants; and before the day is over he and Cecelia will realize they've always loved each other, Briony will witness a rather, ahem, personal moment between them in the house's library, and, in a horrible twist, Robbie will eventually be accused of the rape of Cecelia's and Briony's young cousin (who is also staying at the house, with her two younger brothers, as their mother has run off with a man who is not their father).
The writing's slow, but beautiful. And I don't mean flowery, or overwrought, or highly stylized. I mean, sometimes it literally planted a picture in my brain:
"She took her daughter in her arms, onto her lap--ah, that hot smooth little body she remembered from its infancy, and still not gone from her, not quite yet--" (p. 4.)
That's just a snippet, and I don't have kids--but that's JUST WHAT IT FEELS LIKE to hug my oldest niece, who I also remember in her infancy. Impressive. And there's moments like that all the way through.
The story's pretty incredible after that, and eventually returns to the theme of Briony's accusation of Robbie (false, as it turns out). There's even a twist at the end.
Incredible. Makes me wonder, what else have I been missing because I eschew the popular books like a total book snob? (But then I remember: Jodi Picoult is also popular, and I didn't end up loving HER when I finally read her.) But McEwan? I am now into it. Time to go on a McEwan bender as well!