Atonement
I recently read Atonement after hearing such great things about the movie. I saw the trailers and thought it would be good, but we don’t make it out to the movies often so I jumped on the book first. Then last weekend we saw the movie as a rental on our Apple TV.
I enjoyed the book but had some difficulty with the writing style in the first part of the story. The book has several layers but one of the main plots is about “points of view” and how everyone relates to a situation differently based on his or her experience. The author helps you get into the main character’s, Brioney, head by writing in “her” style of thinking. She is a young girl, budding into her teen years. I don’t remember exact ages ever being discussed and I suppose exact ages don’t matter. For some it might be 12, for other’s 14. The point is that she’s at that fine line where she thinks she understands the adult world but doesn’t have the adult experience to help her relate or comprehend most of what is going on around her. That combined with her fanciful and artistic way of thinking leaves the writing style very detailed and filled with heavy adjectives. But as the book progresses and takes on other points of view it is less bogged down. Even at the point where we pick back up with Brioney many years later as a young woman now, the writing style reflects her less fantastic mind wanderings. I recommend the book although it’s not one to try and read in short spurts or while doing other things (both of which I alway do while reading).
The movie did an excellent job of cutting down the book into a story line that made sense and still conveyed the main emotions of the book. As usual, a lot was left out but I enjoyed the way they created those pages and pages of thoughts with the faces of the actors, lighting, imagery and amazing sound. They did a very unusual thing by creating sound emotion using rhythms created mostly by the sound of typewriter keys. The sound work was brilliant.
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