Atonement, Part 2

My thoughts: Finished it! I think this book is phenomenal, and it’s one of those books that I found myself thinking about a lot when I wasn’t reading it and after I finished. The second part of Atonement finds Robbie fighting for survival in France in 1940 during World War II. Briony’s accusation sends Robbie to prison, but gets to leave prison early on the condition that he join the British army. He was part of the British forces that were trapped by the Germans in Dunkirk at the beginning of the war. We all know who the eventual victors of World War II were, but it must have been terrifying for the British to face this early German victory, not knowing how things would turn out. The events in Dunkirk play a large part in the story, which was intriguing to me because I really don’t remember being taught a lot about it—it was little more than a paragraph in my history books. Granted, most discussions of World War II in my history classes were American-centric, but even in Western Civilization, there wasn’t much discussion of Dunkirk. I guess I’m saying that because it took this book for me to realize the horror of what happened there. In Atonement, the Dunkirk section is almost 100 pages, and lays bare the brutality and horror of the march to Dunkirk. Dead soldiers and civilians line the roads, and the British soldiers are under constant threat of attack. And Robbie Turner experiences this all. And we are reminded that he sees this because a weird little girl told a lie that sent him to prison.

Speaking of Briony, in the last half of the book, she realizes the effects of what she has done. In 1940, an eighteen-year-old Briony is training to be a nurse, having given up a place at Cambridge. After reading about Robbie’s experiences at Dunkirk, I was filled with hatred for Briony. But reading the section about her experiences made me dislike her less, even if it didn’t exactly fill me with sympathy for her. McEwan writes, “Her secret torment and the public upheaval of war had always seemed separate worlds, but now she understood how the war might compound her crime.” She really tries to be helpful and to be of use, especially when the wounded British soldiers arrive from Dunkirk. And she feels guilty about what she’s done. However, I’ll save my sympathy for the man she sent to prison.

Reading Atonement made me thing about thirteen-year-olds and maturity. I was talking to my mother about this a few weeks ago. Some thirteen-year-olds are more mature than others. It’s a fine line, though—you want them to be mature, because they’re growing up, but you don’t want them to act too grown. Briony, maturity-wise, was at about an eight or nine-years old level when she was thirteen. She had a lot of growing up to do. And when we meet the eighteen-year-old Briony, we see that she has grown up. But, on the other hand, plenty of thirteen-year-olds are underdeveloped, but that doesn’t make it OK to falsely accuse someone of rape.

One of the main themes of Atonement is that actions have consequences. Sometimes they are immediate, and sometimes the effects last for years. This book gave me a lot to think about. I like to read it again someday, and I need to rewatch the movie. If there is a tiny flaw in this book, in my opinion, it is that there needed to be more about Cecilia. She seemed like the character that had the most sense.

Great passage (where one gets a very palpable feeling of Briony’s experiences as a nurse): At many beds, nurses were removing dirty dressings. Always a decision, to be gentle and slow, or firm and quick and have it over with in one moment of pain. This ward favored the latter, which accounted for some of the shouts. Everywhere, a soup of smells—the sticky sour odor of fresh blood, and also filthy clothes, sweat, oil, disinfectant, medical alcohol, and drifting above it all, the stink of gangrene.

Up next: Not sure…