AtonementOn 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. |
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Arabella Balham battledress bedpan bedroom began Betty breath bridge Briony Briony's brother Cecilia cigarette Clapham Common corporals corridor cousin dark door drawing room dress Dunkirk Emily empty everything eyes face feeling feet felt Fiona floor front girl Grace Turner grip half hand Hardman Harry Tallis head heard Hermione hour Jackson kitchen knew Leon letter light lips Lola Lola's looked lorries Mace migraine mind minutes mother moved Nettle never night nurses passed Paul Marshall perhaps Pierrot pulled pushed remembered road Robbie Robbie Turner round seemed shoulder shout side silence Sister Drummond soldiers sound spoke stairs stared step stood stopped story Stuka talk Tallis tell thought told took toothbrush moustache Triton fountain turned Turner twins vase voice waiting walked wanted ward watched window woman word