Tuesday, September 02, 2008

atonement

I recently finished another book, atonement (don't read too far if you haven't read the book or seen the movie):


I had only heard about the movie, never seen it, and so luckily again I had no expectations. because it was really, really good. from wikipedia: "It is widely regarded as one of McEwan's best works and was shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize for fiction... In addition, Time magazine named it the best fiction novel of the year and included it in its All-TIME 100 Greatest Novels, and The Observer cites it as one of the 100 best novels written, calling it 'a contemporary classic of mesmerising narrative conviction.'"

the book poses a very interesting question: how much can the actions of one person affect the lives of people close to them? briony, a young girl at the age of 13 accuses the son of their housekeeper for rape, an act that leads to quite changes in the life of the both of them, as well as their entire family and also their cousins who are visiting. we get to follow the story from the perspectives of each of the characters. it's a really interesting piece of writing, where we get to read what's going on in their heads all the time, which is also how the book progresses.

I'm not going to write more about it, you should read the book. but reading the review got me to these links:
time top 100: the complete list in alphabetical order
guardian top 100: greatest novels of all time
new classics top 100: the 100 best reads from 1983 to 2008

interesting stuff!

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