This month’s discussion was about Atonement by Ian McEwan. We all agreed that this book was a little slow moving but after you get into the book you get hooked and want to know what will happen to the characters. Atonement spans several decades, and is written from multiple points of view in three parts which take the reader from England to France during WWII. It is not until the final page is turned that you discover the real ending to the story.
The story is set in the Tallis family estate, and the first member introduced is 13-year-old Briony, who is writing a play to be performed by herself and her three visiting cousins. Her mother Emily lies upstairs, nursing one of her migraines. Her restless older sister, Cecilia, frets about the new awkwardness in her relationship to Robbie Turner, son of the family's cleaning woman and her childhood playmate. Everyone awaits the arrival of the adored eldest, Leon, who's bringing along his friend, Paul Marshall, an industrialist with big plans to sell candy-coated chocolate bars to the army in the likelihood of England declaring war on Germany.
The characters move through a sultry summer day and toward the fateful, moonless night. There's fussing about the dinner, lost socks, a broken vase and, behind all this, large, ominous emotions shifting their way to the surface. The most violent acts of the day happen offstage and the most destructive one is a lie Briony tells, a lie that will ruin two lives and overshadow her own for decades.
October’s discussion will be about Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson.
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