Atonement

"Come back, she used to whisper.  It's only a dream.  Come back."

“It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp the simple truth that other people are as real as you.”

"“How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely the point. The attempt was all.”

Another great McEwan novel.  I read it in just 2 days.  I could barely put it down.   McEwan is a fantastic story teller and creates such fascinating and believable characters. 

** Spoiler Alert **
The sense of foreboding and tragedy over through out was deliciously unbearable.  So I was surprised in the last few chapters to see things panning out so well.  How satisfying then to read the final section and feel the story reach its ending in just the way it should.

My question now is whether to watch the 2007 movie adaptation.  I don't usually enjoy watching Keira Knightly in serious period dramas.  What a botch she made of Elizabeth Bennett, and how overwrought was her performance in A Dangerous Method?  Though I think she shines in comedy.  However, the film has an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a fair recommendation, so I guess I will put it on my list of movies to watch.