Atonement (Ian McEwan)

I don't know if I would call this novel the "compelling fictional landscape" that the cover comments claimed it would be. It was an interesting story for two reasons:


1. The setting of WWII, which is always quite gripping given that our country is obsessed with the heroism of the "last great war," which still appears so much more noble than the terroristic or diplomatic character of today's conflicts. There was good and bad, there were lines in the sand.

2. The ending laid quite a twist on the rest of the story, which made the reader have an Ah-Ha moment, where they run over the story again in the their head to take in the new context and therefore the new shades of meaning, putting the whole tale into a softer focus.

A good read, but not what I would call my favorite type of "literature." For Gnomey's definition of real "literature," click here. Funny how a story of atonement, one of the major universal themes of human expression, can be beat out by that of a Bengal tiger on a lifeboat, huh?