Featured Reading Guide
Ian McEwan
On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl’s imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which…
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topAbout the Book
On the hottest day of the summer of 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her is Robbie Turner, her childhood friend who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not even imagined at its start, and will have become victims of the younger girl’s imagination. Briony will have witnessed mysteries, and committed a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone.
topIan McEwan interview/review
from www.whsmith.co.uk
- Briony’s writing is seen as a way for her to exercise a level of control over her life. What do you personally consider to be the purpose of the Novel?
I think, of all literary forms, and perhaps of all artistic forms, it is the most adept at showing us what it is like to be someone else. The novel is famously good at revealing, through various literary conventions, a train of thought, or a state of mind. You can live inside somebody else’s head. Within one novel you can live inside many different people’s heads, in a way that you of course cannot do in normal life.
I think that quality of penetration into other consciousnesses lies at the heart of its moral quest. Knowing, or sensing what it’s like to be someone else I think is at the foundations of morality. I don’t think the novel is particularly good or interesting when it instructs us how to live, so I don’t think of it as moral in that sense. But certainly when it shows us intimately, from the inside, other people, it then does extend our sensibilities.
It is also, as form, very good at marking out that relationship between the individual and a society, or the working out of a relationship – the interpersonal is very much its subject. Atonement, in particular for me, has been about the description of a character, particularly Briony. I think she is perhaps my fullest invention, as a person – deeply flawed and yet I hope still sympathetic.’
topStarting Points for Discussion
- Robbie is treated like a member of the Tallis household. He has had a Cambridge education and is considering going to Medical College, however, he is still the housekeeper’s son. What bearing does this have on his and Cecilia’s relationship and the reaction he receives after the allegations?
- Robbie writes Cecilia a sexually explicit love letter that she never should have read. How do the events that result from this letter compare with the romantic ideals of love as harboured by young Briony in her play?
- Leon and Cecilia are adults in an adult world whilst Briony is thirteen and still a child trying to impress her siblings. How does being the youngest sibling affect Briony’s actions throughout the novel?
- Briony is precocious and harbours delusions of adulthood. These delusions are challenged both by the homecoming of her newly graduated sister and the arrival of her glamourous cousin, Lola. To what extent do her feelings of inferiority brought on by these events drive Briony to make the rape allegations? Why does she substitute Cecilia and Robbie as the victim and the assailant?
- Robbie witnesses many horrific sights in France. How does his experience of the war compare with those of the sisters? How realistic do you think McEwan’s descriptions of the horrors of war are?
- As an old lady Briony reveals that much of what she has told the reader is not true. Is this atonement of the title for her benefit or for ours? Is it too late for her to be asking for forgiveness?
Other Books by Ian McEwan
Amsterdam
Atonement
On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees…
Suggested Further Reading
- The Regeneration Trilogy ~ Pat Barker
- Remains of the Day ~ Kazuo Ishiguro
- To the Lighthouse ~ Virginia Woolf
- A Room with a View ~ E M Forster
- Birdsong ~ Sebastian Faulks
- Brideshead Revisited ~ Evelyn Waugh
- A Star Called Henry ~ Roddy Doyle