Atonement?
January 19, 2008, 3:55 pm
Posted by Joseph A. Komonchak
Has anyone else read Ian McEwan’s novel Atonement? I’ve just finished it, and I’m having a hard time remembering any novel that gripped me and moved me as much as this one did. It’s exigently conceived and structured, wonderfully written. But I’m no literary critic, and won’t pretend to be one. I put a question-mark above because I’m not sure that it’s atonement that is achieved in and by the novel, but I can’t explain that remark without giving something away that would make it impossible for others to be drawn into the drama as they need to be.
I read a big chunk of it. Splendid writer. Too good. I just couldn’t take the powerful descriptions of the war, so I quite reading.
Yes, wonderful book, and our ladies reading circle agreed that the McEwan was able to credibly write in a woman’s voice.
I never thought about whether the title was exactly appropriate for what happens, though that’s a good excuse to re-read and ponder.
I enjoyed “Amsterdam,” a somewhat dark comedy.
However, I found the much-vaunted “Saturday” an interesting experiment in real-time narrative, but nearly unreadable. I wanted my time back after reading it.
It has been a couple of years since I read it, but there are still strong emotional memories of it in me. I remember thinking the atonement was multifaceted.
OTOH it has only been a week since I saw the movie. Good, but nowhere near as powerful. I told a friend there would be plenty of explosions and fighting, but they made almost no appearance. (and no car chases in either!) The atonement is laid out in simple stark terms, without enough being told about the other characters for it to make any but the most rudimentary sense.
Jimmy, don’t you think that books where so much happens inside people’s heads or the narrator him(her)self has a particular POV are hard to translate to the screen. This same notion came up when my aforementioned ladies circle was discussion the Masterpiece Theatre adaptation of Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” last week.
The charm of “Persuasion” lies in the way Austen tells the story and makes comments on the characters. That was lost on the screen, but one hoped that some of the business between characters would be retained. But the story was rushed through. Somebody characterized it as “speed dating with Jane Austen.” We hope for better things with “Northanger Abbey” tonight.
Richard Alleva made something of the same comment about “No Country for Old Men,” where the Tommy Lee Jones character lends so much to the book’s narrative, which can’t get translated to the screen, so his character is marginalized.
And, then, of course, there ae some ham-handed script writers and very limited actors out there. Kiera Knightley, of “Atonement” who acts largely by pouting her lips in various ways, is one.
Jean, a picture is worth a thousand words, or so I was taught. How many words could tell as much as the warehouse flames converging on the sled at the end of Citizen Kane? Or Jimmy Stewart kissing the the finial that came loose in his hand as he ran up the stairs in It’s a wonderful Life? Very interior.
Not everything can be seen in a movie the way it is seen in a book, which is why most books are written. There may be a few more versions of Atonement in years to come, like the many versions of Pride and Prejudice, but I doubt that any will do justice to MacEwan’s insights. Books and movies are different.
BTW, I do not remember Ms Knightley pouting even once in Bend It Like Beckham, one of her first starring roles. There must be something more in her repertoire than you acknowledge.
Yes, books and movies are different, the medium controls the way the message is conveyed, etc. etc. Interiority can be conveyed in gesture. I didn’t mean to imply it couldn’t.
But what’s always lost in an Austen adaptation is … Austen and that wonderful gossipy overlay that makes the books such treasures. How, for instance, do you make a picture of passages like this one from “Persuasion”:
“Mrs. Musgrove was giving Mrs. Croft the history of her eldest daughter’s engagement, and just in that inconvenient tone of voice which was perfectly audible while pretending to be a whisper. Anne felt that she did not belong to the conversation, and yet, as Captain Harville seemed thoughtful and not disposed to talk, she could not avoid hearing many undesirable particulars.”
Yes, you can show Anne trying to suprress her irritation under a guise of politeness at Mrs. Musgrove’s drivel, while, at the same time showing herself willing to be engaged in talk by Captain Harville and his friend (and object of her affection) Captain Wentworth.
But you still lose the way in which Austen describes that so-familiar state of chafing against the good manners that require us to be bored to death by good-hearted and tiresome people, all the while wishing we were talking to more interesting individuals or at least able to eavesdrop on a more interesting conversation.
I’ll also grant that I enjoyed “Bend It Like Beckham,” in which Ms. Knightley was young and unspoiled enough to simply play her part well instead of playing Ms. Knightley playing a part. I’ll even grant that at least she looked Lizzy’s real age better than Greer Garson, who looked about 40 in the old movie version with Lord Olivier. And that’s about as far as I can go.
But Fr. Komonchak, I think, perhaps wanted to explore what atonement is, so I should bug out of this conversation.
Jean: I’m interested in the points you have made, and you’ve pretty well convinced me not to go see the movie for fear it will ruin the experience of the book.
My earlier question was really about whether it’s atonement that’s going on or revenge, at least. At least biblically, atonement means reconciliation, restoring unity (at-one-ing).
To diverge for only one moment: Absolutely right, Jean, about Austen; even so I am looking forward to Northanger Abbey this evening, even though I thought Persuasion pretty flimsey–even so I went right on watching.
Atonement: the movie is dreadful. Ms. Knightley does pout and pose and is quite beautiful in her green silk sort of see-through dress, but…. the book: read a long time ago. I remember how off-putting I found the ending… a post-modern intrusion by author McEwan (a fault I also found in Garp–John Irving’s early success… remember that cruel and looming shaft drive?) Both books affirmed my commitment to the Society for the prevention of cruetly to fictional characters!
One question to those who have done book and movie. Though I didn’t like the book’s ending, I found Vanessa Redgrave wholly credible in bringing the movie to an end. What to make of that?
Tomorrow I think I’ll so see Alvin and the Chipmunks.
I’m in danger (1) of subverting my own thread and (2) of committing heresy, but Jean’s comment about Kiera Knightley playing Kiera Knightley reminds me that this is what I think Meryl Streep has been doing for years–playing Meryl Streep. I think she gets a free ride from reviewers.
I loved Atonement. Beautifully written, even gripping. I took the title quite literally, but thought McEwan’s point was our inability, sadly, to atone for our own deeds, however desperate this desire. This summer, inspired by Atonement, I listened to Saturday on a long car trip. It did not shorten the trip. How could one author write books of such varying quality?!
“How could one author write books of such varying quality?!”
It’s always thus. Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park. Willa Cather wrote both My Antonia and O, Pioneers!
John McG, yes, I like how you put that. Just because you’re real sorry and willing to try to make amends doesn’t mean you can ever really make things all better.
I’m reminded of an affecting version of “Winter’s Tale” I saw many years ago in Stratford. The queen is wrongly executed for infidelity; the king finds out he was wrong and erects a statue of her and after he bawls over it enough, she comes to life; they kiss, all’s well.
Everyone was dabbing at their eyes at the end, but even so, I had to remark, “If that’d been me, I would have walked off that pedestal and and made his life a living hell for at least as long as I’d been dead.”
That certainly seemed to strike a chord with some of the other lady theater-goers, and we headed off to the cafe leaving the men standing at the after-bar with their LaBatts and wondering what they’d done now.
Frankly, I imagine that Shakespeare probably meant for that to happen.
I thought “Northanger” was quite nicely done if you could overlook the fact that a dishy sophisticate like Mr. Tilney could actually fall for Catherine, who is very good-hearted and winsome and will make a good vicar’s wife, but whose powers of conversation and wit seem limited.
Kathy, Ah, “Mansfield Park!” The “problem” novel. Some years ago, a director/screenwriter did a nice job with it by adding details that made the family look pretty dysfunctional and, by comparison, Fanny and What’s His Name look far less priggish. Reviewers, generally groused that the story had been “changed” (it really hadn’t, it was just given some depth), and so the movie didn’t receive the modest acclaim I thought it deserved.
And “Mansfield Park” has the wonderfully terrible Mrs. Norris! I confess that I have always fantasized about playing Mrs. Norris, Mrs. Danvers and Lady Bracknell on stage or screen.
On atonement vs making amends–isn’t it always the case that we can never undo a harm to another? To atone for wrong-doing is at best to indicate the depth of one’s desire that the offense not destroy the relationship forever. So making amends is what one seeking atonement does–but atonement is the effect of the interaction of the people involved in remorse, forgiveness, and whatever trust they can muster to rebuild what was broken–if such is possible.
Where we see grace enter in to perfect forgiveness, perhaps, is in those cases in which the broken and healed relationship is stronger than the first. As the rabbis taught “the forgiven sinner stands where the perfectly righteous person never can.” But alas, as we know, it doesn’t always work that way, especially between us frail and finite human beings.
Saw the film yesterday–Redgrave was riveting, and McAvoy turned in a fine performance too, I thought.
I agree with your description of atonement, Lisa, but I’m not sure that it is achieved in the novel (( haven’t seen the film). The two with whom Briany needed reconciliation couldn’t grant it, and the novel ends with making amends being reduced to getting even. I think that some of the strong feeling I had on finishing the novel was that of a missed opportunity.
Any movie with that actress is bound to be dreadful. The book was engaging in its first half but seemed to become a rigmarole in its second half.
Varying quality in Austen? All six of her novels are perfect, as far as I can see. People of a serious disposition tend to prefer “Mansfield Park” to “Pride and Prejudice”.
Hmmm, Joseph, have you been over to the Republic of Pemberly online to see if this is true? I think “MP” is unfairly slighted sometimes, but few Janes I know actually prefer it to “P&P.”
My own favorite has been and always will be “Sense and Sensibility.” It was my first Austen, read it decades ago now when my varmint of a boyfriend broke up with me, and I realized time spent in the company of Ms. Austen was far superior to that of my boyfriend. I went through every single novel that winter, and every year I re-read at least two of them.
I met The Varmint years later, and from Ms. Austen, I’d learned the art of self-satisfaction. I told him how deeply grateful to him I was for broadening my reading horizons.
He thought I was talking about “Lord of the Rings.” Hahahahahaha!
Very funny, Jean, thanks for the laugh to start the day. Please forward The Varmint’s email address. He has great taste in books. ;)
Ironically, the English teacher who introduced me to Tolkien also introduced me to Austen, whom I also enjoy. Assigning P & P was a gutsy move in an all-boys’ Jesuit high school.
Jean,
Did this poor guy play Dungeons and Dragons?