An additional TBT series in which I step back from the book hating and examine some of my favorite books. They do exist. (expect spoilers)
CW: References to Rape, War, Death
Historical, Tragic Romance, WWII, Long Hot Summer, Emotionally Manipulative Twist Ending that Most People Find Alienating~ 20 Billion+
Be Our Guest~ 2,000+
I love it when a group of people gathers in one place and you just know this is a set-up for some shit to go down, which is what happens in the first part of this book. We're at the Tallis home (manor? estate?) in the height of summer 1935. The Tallises (Mom, Leon, Cecilia, Briony; dad is having an affair in London, I think), are expecting many guests. Oldest child Leon is coming home for the weekend, bringing his millionaire friend Paul Marshall, and Tallis cousins Lola and Pierrot and Jackson (twins) are coming to stay as their parents go through a very public divorce. Cecilia and Robbie Turner, the housekeeper's son whose education is partially funded by the Tallises, are back from university.
Paul Marshall is boring and self-important, and while Cecilia wants to impress the chocolate millionaire, finds him too uninteresting to pursue.
Lola, Pierrot, and Jackson are sullen and unhappy (their parents are divorcing, of course they are); they're in a strange house, they're bored, it's hot. Lola is slightly older than Briony, a little more worldly and kind of bratty. They try to put on a play that Briony's written but nothing comes together quite right. Briony ends up running outside in frustration.
After a nap and an uncomfortable dream, Paul Marshall makes his way to the nursery where he meets Lola, Pierrot, and Jackson. Paul Marshall takes a special interest in Lola, which is gross, and Benedict Cumberbatch's delivery of the line, "Bite it. You have to bite it." in the movie is exceptional (the "it" is a chocolate bar, but also, like, not a chocolate bar.).
A Long Time Ago, They Used to be Friends~ 1,000+
Did you know this book is friends-to-lovers? I guess it might be friends-to--??--lovers? Because it is!
The book makes it clear that Robbie is invited to family functions and regularly spends time with all the Tallis children--when he's not, you know, doing manual labor for them--including Cecilia. They were friends once, before university, but they ran in different circles at school. Cecilia also did poorly, but Robbie excelled and wants to go to medical school. She's sort of resentful that he did so well, and then shames him (accidentally?) for the fact that her father pays for his education. But they did used to be friends, when they were young, before this thing between them. As set-up for a romance goes? Yes. Gimme.
Upstairs, Downstairs~ 1,000+
Robbie is poor. His mom works for the Tallises. His education is funded, in part, by her employer. Robbie attends Tallis parties/dinners as a guest, but he also does their gardening/landscaping.
The early scenes are imbued with the difference in Robbie and Cecilia's/the Tallises income. Robbie works while Cecilia and the rest of the Tallises lounge; we see the difference in Robbie's home and the Tallis manor/estate; and how his preparations to go to the dinner at the Tallis home differs from theirs. Cecilia doesn't look down on him for his social status, but then again, maybe she does. They weren't close at school and she asks about med school in the context of her father financing it; when she learns Leon invited Robbie for dinner she implies that Robbie might not belong (this is also about the thing between them).
The way the tension between have and have not is addressed between Robbie and Cecilia goes a long way to lay the groundwork for what's to come, as the family's tolerance for Robbie's status only goes so far. For all that the Tallises seem to care for Robbie, they don't question his guilt of raping young cousin Lola. When it's put forth that someone other than Robbie may have committed the crime, the first suspected person is another servant, Danny Hardman. The idea that it could be wealthy Paul Marshall never enters anyone's mind.
This isn't Real~ 350,000+
The plot of this section hinges on a lot of things happening that are viewed, and misinterpreted, by other people (Briony), and it's so good. It's good because the way it's plotted out, but also because it's obvious that all these sort of trivial things are going to lead to something huge.
Of course, the most important of these is whatever weird sexual tension is happening between Robbie and Cecilia. Knowing Robbie is outside gardening, Cecilia brings a vase of flowers to the fountain for water. Robbie tries to help, and he and Cecilia scuffle over the vase, breaking it. Cecilia tries to step forward to collect the pieces, and Robbie makes a harsh gesture and commands her to stop before she steps on a broken piece. Cecilia takes off her clothes (she's wearing underwear) and dives into the fountain to retrieve another piece of the valuable vase. When she surfaces, Cecilia pulls her clothes back on and returns to the house without speaking.
MEANWHILE, Briony watches all this play out from an upstairs window. At first sight, Briony believes something romantic is happening between Robbie and Cecilia. However, when Robbie stops Cecilia from stepping on the piece of broken vase, Briony thinks she's viewing something sinister. Then Cecilia takes off all of her clothes and jumps into the fountain, confirming for Briony that Robbie somehow holds some sort of sexual sway over Cecilia. Briony is 13, bored and imaginative, and it is so fitting and relatable that she'd see this tension-filled interaction that she doesn't fully understand and twists it into something menacing.
In My Dreams~ 10,000+
Robbie's letter is an important plot device, but even more importantly to me is that the essay I used to get into grad school was about this book and contains the "in my dreams, I kiss your cunt" line. I am very proud.
Robbie writes to Cecilia to apologize for his behavior at the fountain. Well, he writes several. One of them reads in part, "in my dreams, I kiss your cunt, your sweet, wet cunt"and the other one is a respectably sweet, slightly romantic apology, the first clear acknowledgment that Robbie is attracted to Cecilia. In a hurry to make it to dinner with the Tallises, Robbie grabs a letter and stuffs it in an envelope, ultimately handing it off to Briony for delivery. Only, the letter he sends is the dirty one, which Briony reads. While, she does deliver the letter, she's even more convinced that Robbie is a creep.
Cecilia's reaction to reading the letter is, uuhhh...different.
Library!Sex!~ All the Points
Robbie arrives at the house, knowing that Briony had the wrong letter. Cecilia answers the door. They have a brief confrontation/conversation before Cecilia leads Robbie to the library. They talk, confess their feelings, and then they kiss. Robbie presses Cecilia against the shelves, and they start doin' it.
MEANWHILE, Briony comforts a crying and bruised Lola. Lola leads Briony to think the twins attacked her because they were bored (it's implied by later events that it was Paul Marshall) and Briony tells Lola about Robbie, Cecilia, and the dirty letter. Together, they determine that Robbie is a sex maniac.
As Briony heads downstairs for dinner, she notices the open library door. She enters the room and finds Robbie pinning Cecilia to the shelves. Robbie and Cecilia part, and Briony thinks she's interrupting an attack not consensual sex.
I Saw it with my Own Eyes~ 500+
All of the threads of misinterpretation and lies come together that night. It's bad. But good. Know what I mean?
Okay, so there's a big dinner with all the people. Everyone notices that Lola is bruised and the lie that it was the twins continues. Paul Marshall claims he broke up the tussle. Except now the twins are missing, and Briony finds a letter from them saying they've run away. The group breaks up to search for them.
Out on the grounds of the estate, Briony comes across people in a heap on the ground. She panics and doesn't get a good look at the man before he runs away. The person remaining on the ground is Lola, who was raped.
They get Lola back to the house and the police are called. When questioned, Briony asserts that Robbie was the man she caught raping Lola. Cecilia insists that Briony is wrong, but Briony produces the letter that Cecilia received from Robbie that day as proof that Robbie is deranged.
MEANWHILE, Robbie has found the missing twins and brings them back to the house.
When he returns the police are waiting, and he's taken into custody. Cecilia runs, dramatically, after Robbie as he is led away by the cops. I think I remember that the movie trailer used this moment heavily. At any rate, Keira Knightley whispering, "come back, come back to me," is burned into my brain. I also just really love Keira Knightley.
Atonement~ 5,000+
Fast forward several years and Robbie is released from prison to fight in the war. We join him with a couple guys he's traveling with as they move towards Dunkirk (on the French coast) where they'll wait for a British fleet to take them back home. On their way, they encounter the horrors of war, and Robbie is secretly injured and it's getting worse. At night, he re-reads Cecilia's letters and dreams of the beachside cottage that a friend of Cecilia's says they can use as a sex house when Robbie is on leave. He reminisces about the one time that they got to see each other at a cafe after he was released from prison and before he was sent to France. They are deeply in love.
They make it to the coast (in the movie, the beginning of this scene is a famous tracking shot, and it's beautiful) and Robbie starts hallucinating because his injury has gotten much worse. They learn that the ships will arrive to take them back to England the next morning, and Robbie sleeps, descending into fever-dreams.
Switch to: Briony training as a nurse in London. Cecilia is also nurse and no longer talks to the family after how they treated Robbie. Briony thinks becoming a nurse will get her closer to Cecilia, but she is also too afraid to try. Eventually, Briony watches Lola marry Paul Marshall, and then visits Cecilia. Robbie is there, on leave, and they have a confrontation about what Briony really saw that night. Robbie and Cecilia believe that Danny Hardman, another servant, committed the rape, but Briony reveals it was Paul Marshall and that Paul and Lola are now married. Briony agrees to write letters explaining that she lied about seeing Robbie rape Lola.
And Twist~ 250,000+
But haha, gottcha. Briony never visited Cecilia that day BECAUSE ROBBIE AND CECILIA ARE DEAD. Robbie died from his wound in France and Cecilia died during an air raid. And WE'VE BEEN READING A BOOK BRIONY WROTE THIS WHOLE TIME (except, you know, not really. But in the context of the novel). Paul and Lola really did get married, but Briony didn't visit her sister and Robbie was already dead. Briony-as-author wrote Robbie and Cecilia the happy ending they never had in real life to make up for the fact that she ruined the happiness they could have had. Now, you cry and cry and cry.
Because I wrote an essay about this book that looked at the response to this twist, I read a lot of reviews and a bunch of people hate this. But I love it. I think it's great. Super well-done. Good job Ian McEwan. Also, the movie ends with Robbie and Cecilia frolicking at the beach cottage that they never actually got to go to, and then I sob.
Paul Marshall~ The number doesn't exist-
He's rich and boring and a rapist who gets away with it because he's rich and boring. He rapes a young girl and eventually marries her and it's gross. A lot of the misconceptions that Briony has about Robbie hinge on Paul Marshall being a rapist, so it's important to the plot, but also. Fuck Paul Marshall.
Crush, Crush, Crush~ 1.5 million
There's a scene in the book where Robbie thinks back on his relationship with Briony, and how once she threw herself into a creek to see if he would save her, and then she confessed her love for him. Robbie thinks the crush and jealously might have been what motivated Briony to lie about what she saw that night. This makes sense from Robbie's perspective, but I read a lot of reviews/criticism that took this at face value, and I disagree with this pretty hard. Briony was several years younger when that interaction with Robbie happened, and it's never referenced by her at all. It seems much more likely, especially given Briony's perspective, that her overactive imagination twists the innocent (well, compared with what she thinks is happening), scenes between Robbie and Cecilia. I also don't love the implication that a young girl, wild with jealousy, sends an innocent man to prison because he loves her sister. It's super sexist.
That Movie Cast, Though (I know it shouldn't count, but it does)~ Points, Points, Points
I mean. Keira Knightley. James McAvoy. Saoirse Ronan. Benedict Cumberbatch. This movie is perfect.
Verdict: Amazing. The best. I love. Are there valid criticisms of this book? Yes. Absolutely. And still, I love everything about it. The writing, the intricate plotting, the twist, the gut-punch of the ending. The role of the imagination and the creative process of an author.
Also, for me, the movie is one of the most perfectly constructed films ever made. Tragic romance is my one true love.
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