A review of the novel Redemption by Ian McEwan

• Plot

• The structure of the novel

• The first chapter, in which Briony suddenly realizes that there are a lot of strange things going on between people she’s known for a long time

Ian McEwan’s film adaptation of the novel Atonement – directed by Joe Wright, which came out in 2007 – I’ve watched it several times. I didn’t immediately agree with it. From complete rejection (I couldn’t even keep the plot in my head for a long time), through trying to figure out what the story was about, to being included in my list of favorite works (if only on the basis that Briony Tallis’s experiences periodically catch up with me and make me want to figure it out).

I finally read the novel itself. It turned out to be a very fascinating text – it captures from the first pages (despite the fact that it is not easy to call it simple) and lets go with difficulty, because it makes me want to read more and more.

It explores in great depth the very meaning of atonement. The word atonement consists of two parts: the verb atope, \

The theological meaning of the word \

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Plot

1935, Surrey, England. Briony Tallis is 13 years old. In a burst of inspiration, she has composed a play, The Misadventures of Arabella, for her older brother Leon’s homecoming.

A little before Leon, 15-year-old Lola and nine-year-old twins Jackson and Piero – children of Hermione, Emilia’s younger sister and mother of Briony, Leon and Cecilia – arrived at the Tallis home. They \

To prevent the children from feeling abandoned, Briony enlisted them in putting on a play based on The Misadventures of Arabella. \

Against the background of Briony’s desperate attempts to make a play, the girl’s older sister Cecilia strikes up a relationship with Robbie Turner, the son of the housekeeper in the Tallis household. Robbie is her childhood friend and university classmate. They have discovered new feelings for each other, but have yet to determine whether it is the intense summer heat or their first love. This inner turmoil is so unusual that it frightens and alarms them.

The confusion was so great that it was expressed in over-emotional phrases and sudden movements. Briony was an unwitting witness to their stormy conversation at the fountain-she heard nothing but saw, but she drew her own conclusions. Later, when she read Robbie’s letter to Cecilia illegally, Briony got her own picture wrong. And her hunch caused irreversible changes in her sister’s and Robbie’s lives.

The structure of the novel

The story is divided into three chapters. Bryony Tallis thinks a lot about literature and the development of her writing. Essentially, this is a novel within a novel. It is both the story of different lives and the fiction of an individual. It is the view of an unreliable narrator, so there is probably no real truth here.

The first chapter, in which Briony suddenly realizes that there are a lot of strange things going on between people she’s known for a long time

The first chapter presents several perspectives on one summer day in 1935. The main one is Briony’s point of view. Her delight in herself, how she discovers changes in herself, how greedily she absorbs something new and tries to interpret it, but without enough experience it doesn’t work out very well.

Briony is shown to be very neat and meticulous. She is the only one in the house who favors exceptional order. Briony was the kind of child who was obsessed with seeing the world in order. If Cecilia’s room was a chaos, with books and things piled haphazardly on top of each other, a bed never made, and an ashtray overflowing with cigarette butts, Briony’s room was \

And something happened to Briony that she had not allowed to happen. She had a shameful secret; her misinterpretation, born of her lack of experience and her desire to be a real writer who catches information out of thin air, had robbed her life of harmony.

Cecilia was thinking about her plans for the future – whether to leave home to start her own life, especially since her older brother Leon had promised to support her in London, or to stay. Even more, she wanted to sort out her feelings. Robbie Turner pissed her off: he kept his distance, he made grandiose plans and discussed them only with Jack, Cecilia’s father. It is important to note that Robbie was always on Jack’s care – he paid for the guy’s education and was ready to pay for his medical school, and Robbie wanted to return all the investments as soon as he started earning. Although Robbie came from a lower class background, he never considered himself beneath the elite he studied with, as he was used to the high society in the Tallis house.

Cecilia and Robbie had known each other since they were seven years old, but lately it had bothered her that she had begun to feel uncomfortable talking to him. She put most of the blame for this on him.

Robbie this summer suddenly took notice of Cecilia not as a sister (as he always had): \

Robbie decides to give Cecilia a letter in which he confesses his feelings to her in order to finally dot the i’s. But an unfortunate mistake in the version of the letter makes irreversible changes. Although the text itself will not shock Cecilia, she will immediately understand what is going on between them, and the nature of their feelings is exactly the same, but the intrusion of the third extra – Briony – into their relationship will play a wicked role.

The second chapter in which Robbie Turner won’t say another word

Chapter two is about Robbie Turner. He spent three and a half years in prison. He went to the front – World War II had begun – because he didn’t want to continue to rot behind bars. Robbie and his fellow soldiers Mace and Nettle are moving through Northern France to the Dunkirk coast for evacuation. All the while, Robbie mentally relives two moments with Cecilia: their lovemaking experience in the home library and the passionate kiss at the bus stop when they met before he left for the front. The only thing that brought Robbie back to reality was the pain of his stomach wound, with the shrapnel constantly making itself known. Robbie is angry at Briony, he orders himself to survive for the sake of Cecilia, who never doubted his innocence, he constantly hears Cecilia’s voice, who seems to be right beside him saying, \

Chapter three is where Briony finally finishes her first novel, Two Figures at the Fountain

Chapter three returns to Briony. She is now 18 years old and has joined St Thomas‘ Hospital. She has deliberately driven herself into extremely difficult conditions as a punishment to herself for a mistake she made when she was 13.

Briony learns that Paul Marshall is marrying Lola Quincy, her cousin. And in Briony’s hands is the opportunity to declare at the wedding ceremony that she knows the truth that could prevent this marriage from taking place. But Briony remains silent. Nor does she dare to visit Cecilia, who lives in Balham, to speak to her and apologize in person.

This chapter is the summation of the entire novel. It is the chapter of the novel in which the novel is written. There is a moment when Briony receives a letter from the editors of Horizon magazine rejecting the publication of her manuscript, Two Figures at the Fountain. When the reason for the rejection is stated, the universe of the novel seems to expand even further. It is an interesting effect, devised by Ian McEwan, to create such an unusual experience of living the story. The rejection letter outlines the reasons why the editors cannot accept the manuscript yet: it explores the quirkiness and unpredictability of the inner world of the individual, it devotes a lot of space to describing nature and the beauties around it, but there is no core or coherence, no action to wedge into the rich descriptive fragments. One gets the feeling that the novel one has just read is being written and revised in real time. It’s as if one is immersed in the head of Briony (or even McEwan himself), who is composing the text and thinking about what needs to be corrected. That is, the mystery of composing a story is revealed to the reader, one might say, in real time.

Paul Marshall’s involvement in the story

Paul Marshall is a friend of Leon Tallis, Cecilia and Briony’s older brother. He is a businessman, his Rainbow Amo project has turned out to be a huge success. His factory produces chocolate bars covered with frosting, Amo, which were later added to soldiers‘ dry rations.

Leon invited Paul to spend the vacations at the Tallis house.

Paul Marshall’s crime is curiously hidden here. He seems a minor character throughout the narrative. But he only appears to be. In fact, his role in what happened is greater than one might suppose.

The line with the children of Hermione, Emilia’s sister, is very important. Lola, Jackson and Piero are children abandoned without care, although they have a father and a mother. But it is more important for their parents to live their own lives, so they have shifted the responsibility for them to other people.

Emilia candidly states that her little sister has always been like this – she’s fantastically talented in her ability to attract attention. And so it is here: she has run away to Paris with her lover. The underage Pierrot and Jackson feel unwanted, and so does the maturing Lola, but it manifests itself differently for her. She makes the mistake of accepting signs of attention from the now grown man Paul Marshall. Whereas he only wants a brief affair, she sees his attention as a serious interest in herself. It is important for her to feel important in order to replace the feelings of rejection her parents instilled in her.

Paul begins to show real steps to get what he wants from Lola. He makes his first attempt in the morning, leaving marks on her arms. But he seems to intimidate the girl into silence, causing her to write off her bruises as Jackson and Pierrot’s pampering. It never occurs to anyone to doubt that they did it. All of Quincy’s children suffer – the boys are cruel to their sister. Perhaps the twins saw Paul’s act. He frightened the children, which made them run away from this incomprehensible adult world, where parents divorce, abandoning their children, and the older sister becomes the object of incomprehensible desires on the part of a strange man.

Later, Paul makes a second attempt to get what he wants from Lola. He takes advantage of the commotion when everyone has gone in search of the runaway twins. He catches up with Lola away from home, near a lake, where he commits an act of violence. He has much to gain from the fact that Briony has turned against Robbie, misinterpreting the scene at the fountain in the morning, then the contents of the letter. When Briony saw the figure next to Lola in the dark, she immediately thought of Robbie. For Briony, the point became quite obvious, especially since Lola didn’t refute her cousin’s guess, even though she knew the correct answer. But I think Paul Marshall intimidated Lola, so she just couldn’t reveal his name. And Briony, unknowingly, became Paul Marshall’s accomplice.

Marshall later took the drastic step of making Lola his wife. As his wife, she could never testify against him. And he won’t lose any of the capital he earned from making Amo chocolate.

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