Atonement - Ian McEwan

Should I have read the book before I saw the film? It probably severely influenced my view of the book. This is a book in three parts - not only in terms of plot, but in terms of the style (and in my view the quality) of the author's writing. Now I have a problem with Ian McEwan - especially in terms of his writing style. In the second part of this book Briony (one of the principal characters) has her first novel returned with some constructive criticisms attached. Probably intentionally (and somewhat ironically) these comments encapsulate the difficulty I often experience with McEwan's books. They are generally over written, too minutely descriptive, as though the author has spent several hours over the choice of each word in a sentence. The concentration of detail muddies my appreciation of the plot - and Ian McEwan can be a wonderful storyteller. So this book's first part is overwritten and over detailed, the second is a magnificent story, pacy, well written, and drawing the reader in to the central character of this part, Robbie. The third part is light and almost superficial. It is almost as though the author cannot make up his mind about what he's supposed to be doing. Is it an experiment? Is every book an experiment?
The plot is fairly straightforward. The first section is set around the events of one day in a country house a few years before World War II. On that day when the youngest daughter of the house, Briony, is attempting to stage a play she has scripted in honour of the return of her brother. Her cousins are to take part (reluctantly). Briony observes an event taking place in the gardens involving her sister Cecilia and Robbie, son of the house's charwoman, and Briony's father's protege (despite the boy's lowly background he has been financed through Cambridge). Briony totally misinterprets the incident, and when she intercepts a letter mistakenly sent by Robbie to Cecilia, and interrupts the couple in the library, a chain of events is unleashed placing Robbie in jeopardy. The second part is the most wonderful description of the lives of Robbie and two other soldiers in the days leading to the Dunkrk evacuation, Cecilia and Briony's work as nurses in London at that time, and the realisation by Briony of the magnitude of the wrong she has done. The third part reveals Briony as a bestselling author trying to right the wrong of her youth by publishing a true account of the lives of Robbie and Cecilia. There is a twist in the tail (or tale) but does this make the book or marr it - is it true atonement?
There are plenty of excellent books about World War I, but comparatively fewer about World War II - and it is for this reason, alone, that I would applaud Ian McEwan for writing this excellent account. Rating 8/10