Thoughts on Atonement
So in the past week, I've been slowly but surely reading Atonement. I didn't expect to see the book in the library so readily available since it's been made a movie in 2007 I think it was...
Anyway.. it probably wouldn't have taken me so long if I didn't read it in slow segments. I've been mainly reading it before bed and read probably the most yesterday on the bus.
All I can say is the book is almost painfully too long for its own good. The first 240 pages were just events in 1 day. Yes people ONE FREAKING DAY. You get thrown into them without much of an introduction of anything. The protagonist in the first segment is extremely naive. Understandably so but there's just so many questions you pondered especially towards the end of the first part. How legit is a 13y old to be witness of a crime that happened in the dark? What happened to asking the victim anything to? Was it the way it was back in the 30s?
The first 100 pages were relatively a snore and I do partly understand why it took me so long to go through this book. I was just going to put it down after 30 pages, but I didn't think it was fair and I was too curious to see what the actual crime was...
The 2nd part of the book was about 100 pages long and probably the most captivating part of the book. I'm sadly a hopeless romantic so the romantic parts were the favoured parts. While the war parts weren't badly written, I'm just not as interested I guess you could say. However, I think it was probably the most enjoyable part as well because it wasn't the protagonist part either so I didn't have to hear her whine.
The 3rd part was back to her, much to my dismay. Had she matured from the initial part? Somewhat I guess... There's still the inkling of dislike for her so it's probably the part I read the quickest to get over with. There were some good moments too so it's not entirely bad.
Then came the somewhat anticlimatic end as you find out that just about almost everything from part 2 and 3 is made up from her figment of her imagination and that it was in a way a novel in a novel. In a way it almost felt like she wrote that to make herself feel better with all that's happened. However at the same time, you can't help but also agree with her that it makes a better tale (then again if she didn't it the story would have ended probably 250 pages ago).
So all in all... was this book absolutely terrible? No. Was it good? NO. So what was it? If you like reading description upon description and how to elongate a day's event in 240 pages. Great. If not, this may not be the book for you. While it painted quite a vivid picture, it just seemed a bit too excessive to me. I'm sure it's really because after part 1, there were no chapters and it seemed broken up with several spaces instead, and it just felt all and all long winded.
I'm glad I only read this after another Hannah Swensen mystery to make myself feel better. So in a way I've gone through a progression of somewhat light-hearted-ness, to something more serious and next with be a non-fiction as I'll be reading In defense of food
Anyway.. it probably wouldn't have taken me so long if I didn't read it in slow segments. I've been mainly reading it before bed and read probably the most yesterday on the bus.
All I can say is the book is almost painfully too long for its own good. The first 240 pages were just events in 1 day. Yes people ONE FREAKING DAY. You get thrown into them without much of an introduction of anything. The protagonist in the first segment is extremely naive. Understandably so but there's just so many questions you pondered especially towards the end of the first part. How legit is a 13y old to be witness of a crime that happened in the dark? What happened to asking the victim anything to? Was it the way it was back in the 30s?
The first 100 pages were relatively a snore and I do partly understand why it took me so long to go through this book. I was just going to put it down after 30 pages, but I didn't think it was fair and I was too curious to see what the actual crime was...
The 2nd part of the book was about 100 pages long and probably the most captivating part of the book. I'm sadly a hopeless romantic so the romantic parts were the favoured parts. While the war parts weren't badly written, I'm just not as interested I guess you could say. However, I think it was probably the most enjoyable part as well because it wasn't the protagonist part either so I didn't have to hear her whine.
The 3rd part was back to her, much to my dismay. Had she matured from the initial part? Somewhat I guess... There's still the inkling of dislike for her so it's probably the part I read the quickest to get over with. There were some good moments too so it's not entirely bad.
Then came the somewhat anticlimatic end as you find out that just about almost everything from part 2 and 3 is made up from her figment of her imagination and that it was in a way a novel in a novel. In a way it almost felt like she wrote that to make herself feel better with all that's happened. However at the same time, you can't help but also agree with her that it makes a better tale (then again if she didn't it the story would have ended probably 250 pages ago).
So all in all... was this book absolutely terrible? No. Was it good? NO. So what was it? If you like reading description upon description and how to elongate a day's event in 240 pages. Great. If not, this may not be the book for you. While it painted quite a vivid picture, it just seemed a bit too excessive to me. I'm sure it's really because after part 1, there were no chapters and it seemed broken up with several spaces instead, and it just felt all and all long winded.
I'm glad I only read this after another Hannah Swensen mystery to make myself feel better. So in a way I've gone through a progression of somewhat light-hearted-ness, to something more serious and next with be a non-fiction as I'll be reading In defense of food