Atonement
Registered by Stoepbrak of Cape Town, Western Cape South Africa on 10/18/2015
This book is in a Controlled Release!
1 journaler for this copy...
Synopsis (credit: back cover)
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.
Winner: National Book Critics Circle Fiction 2002.
Shortlist: Man Booker 2001.
Shortlist: Costa Novel of 2001.
Shortlist: Commonwealth Writers' Best Book 2002.
On the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die List.
<(Bought second-hand at Help the Rural Child Charity Bookshop, Sea Point.)
For some reason I was not looking forward to reading this book. Not sure what I expected. I guess it's my usual reluctance to go for a book that has enjoyed widespread popularity or, worse, reached 'best-seller' status. :)
The book was well researched, with minutiae often making the incident real or bringing out the humour, irony or patos in a situation. I liked that the tone never got judgmental: just about all the actions taken by the protagonists were understandable — or at least recognisable as well within the boundaries of human nature — once described from that person's point of view.
"A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended."
Given to potential BCer RP.
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