Atonement is a puzzle

Love this review- very well written and insightful. I think it neatly explores and summarises the more ambivalent feelings some of you have towards the narrative structure of Atonement. Have a read and comment if you'd like:

SOURCE: Winder, Robert. “Between the Acts.” New Statesman 130, no. 4555 (17 September 2001): 49.
In the following review, Winder offers a mixed assessment of Atonement, praising McEwan's literary skill but finding the novel's narrative leaps and omissions unsatisfying.
Ian McEwan's new novel [Atonement], launched smoothly into the slipstream of the autumn rush, presents us with a puzzle. On one level, it is manifestly high-calibre stuff: cool, perceptive, serious and vibrant with surprises. It will probably be on the Booker shortlist, and might even win. So it is probably silly to waste time pointing out that the most glaring aspects of the book are its weaknesses and omissions. As usual, McEwan has contrived a good story; but he seems weirdly reluctant to tell it. The title—thematic rather than dramatic—feels like the idea you have before you have an idea, and what follows also seems incomplete. There are fine episodes, but it feels, in the end, not so much a novel as a description of a novel, a selection of scenes from some much larger project. The best we can say is that it will be marvellous when it is finished.
McEwan has certainly mellowed, as the saying goes. His reputation was forged by a succession of stories written with a scalpel: icy, calculated, elegant and hair-raising. They had a subversive edge, and prickled with a sense of danger. But recently, in the Booker-winning Amsterdam and now in Atonement (whatever else, no one can say he is merely working his way through the alphabet), he has settled in milder country, in an antique, upper-class England more usually associated with the Iris Murdochs of this world. The Comfort of Strangers sent plain old Colin and Mary to Venice to be savaged; now he prefers people called Vernon and Cecilia, Leon and Briony. They are composers or diplomats with Firsts from Cambridge and priceless Ming vases, and live in stately homes. Their misadventures are subtle.
There's nothing wrong with that, and McEwan's senses are as alert as ever. A glug of warm wine, damp earth, a violent word, the hiss of breeze over water, a dismembered leg in the fork of a tree … the novel is alive with physical shocks. But he is an obstinate storyteller and plugs the flow of his ample saga by dividing (and condensing) it into three tidy set pieces. In a languid pre-war country pile, a precocious 13-year-old girl, Briony, utterly misreads the nature of the goings-on between her older sister and the boy next door, Robbie. Driven by a bravura compulsion to star as the heroine in her own melodrama, she falsely accuses him of raping a guest, and sends her sister's one true love off to prison.
It is rather terrific. There's a frisson of class conflict (the boy in question is the son of the cleaner—a ruffian, in other words) and all sorts of interesting things seem about to happen. So it's more than a little disappointing when—cut!—we jump forward and rejoin Robbie in the retreat to Dunkirk. It is as if the author flinched at the thought of describing Robbie in prison, or the vain efforts of his lover to save him. So a couple of years have passed, and now we're in the middle of a new tableau, as Robbie trudges across France with Stukas shrieking overhead. Not surprisingly, he is still obsessed by the injustice done him in those halcyon days before the war, but for now he has more immediate worries. Somehow he makes it to the famous beach, and joins the swarm of dejected troops waiting to be rescued.
Again, it's pretty exciting. Will he make it? What kind of revenge (or atonement) will he be able to exact when he returns? Will his love be able to withstand the shock of war and separation? Once again, we begin to tilt towards the edge of our seats.
So it's more than a little disappointing when—cut!—we jump forward again, and find ourselves back with Briony, in a hospital in London, lugging bedpans to and fro and trembling before the matron. She is grown-up now, and wrestling with her conscience at last. She wants to make amends. For a few pages, all of the book's plates are spinning on the same pole. The protagonists revolve towards a showdown and—oh no, not again, cut!—we jump to Briony in old age. She is now a feted author, brooding on the nature of fiction in a way intended to suggest that nothing we have read so far is quite what it seems.
It's clever. But so are people who can solve crosswords in five minutes. McEwan has taken the classic ingredients of the bodice-ripper—a quivering love story set against a backdrop of war—and, striving for ingenuity, declined to make the most of them. This is not really a criticism. McEwan is sufficiently modern to renounce “character in action” in favour of “character lost in thought”. He wants, as he says of Briony, to free himself from “the cumbrous battle between good and evil, heroes and villains”, and simply present, without judging, the friction between different minds, fogged as they are with apprehension and conceit. He even invents a letter written by Cyril Connolly, the editor of Horizon, to Briony. It's an admiring rejection of her first effort, urging her to have more respect for the “childlike desire to be told a story, to be held in suspense, to know what happens”.
McEwan tries to heed this advice, and offers plenty of suspense. But it is suspense of a thin sort, since it relies not on our ignorance of what might happen next, but simply on our not being told what is happening right now. McEwan deals out information cautiously, as if it were common to say too soon that the girl at the beginning of the book is 13, or that the year is 1938, or that many years divide some new chapter from its predecessor. McEwan carries on narrating in his shrewd and natural way, and it's up to us to figure out what he has neglected to mention. This is certainly a cunning way to keep us guessing, but the result is not mystery: it just feels blurred and out of focus.
None of this would matter if the author wasn't so obviously top-flight. And I might have got it completely wrong: perhaps the problem is not that McEwan is too tight-fisted with his booming emotional plot, but that he has leaned too far towards the love-war formula in the first place. Perhaps there is a fictional Gresham's Law, by which trashy ideas drive out good; maybe the fireworks of the underlying saga simply squelch his more delicate effects. McEwan once wrote a lovely children's book, The Daydreamer, which captured the gulfs between children and grown-ups more vividly than he does here. So perhaps there are not too many gaps, but too few. It's a terrible confession, because I know that reviewers are supposed to be thoroughly adept at snap judgements, but … I'm baffled. As I said, it's a puzzle.

This game was too easy

roll the credits

http://greatgatsbygame.com/

How is the lyrics of the song "A woman of the world" related to Daisy Buchanan

"When she was just a girl she was a woman of the world". In this line, this presents the transition of moving up into the upper classes. This was helped by marrying Tom Buchanan. Hence Tom is an old rich, therefore his popularity is very high.

"Small talked her way round just the sort". This presents that Daisy uses her power and money to get her out of trouble such as when she kills Myrtle, she blames Gatsby for killing and everyone trust her due to her power and status with Tom.

"Of playboy's playground she'd once dream about"
The lyrics link to how Daisy chose to ignore Gatsby and married Tom Buchanan instead. Tom Buchanan is, in a way, a playboy who prefers to mess around in life and making love someone else other than his wife. Daisy married Tom not for love but for his materialistic possessions.

"Maybe I loved her but I'm jealous of her". In this case, "I" is Gatsby and "her" is Daisy. Gatsby is jealous of not having her because she wants old money, not money made from bootlegging

"She's a fake. Sure but she's a real fake"
I think this implies Daisy has conspicuous consumption to show her class and wealth, but in reality, she is really that wealth and that high in status.

"Maybe I'll be suffer, just to be her lover"
"Just to be part of her world"
Gatsby has worked hard as a bootlegger, to achieve the wealth would eventually catch Daisy 's attention and win her over. Gatsby went through so much trouble to win Daisy back that he had to join illegal dealing of alcohol.

"Maybe I'll kill her, just trying to thrill her if she don't kill me first"

Daisy is overwhelmed by Gatsby's riches and she thinks it's impossible to have all the money. In the end , Daisy killed Myrtle, blaming Gatsby's leading to George, Myrtle's husband, killing Gatsby

Cherly and Emma are great

Wow- some incredible comments- I'd like to give feedback to you two individually if possible please.
I think both Cheryl and Emma have made some superb analyses of the songs lyrics and their possible links to Gatsby/ Daisy. Hopefully you both found it useful. It's interesting to me that these two students have made such an effort and they're the first two to comment. And they get really good gades in English. Hmmmm....!

Some prompts for other students: consider the tone of the song- is it playful, bitter etc- how is it? Does it link to the novel? Who else could the 'rats' be? Is Daisy a 'real fake'(whatever that is) in a way that Gatsby isn't? How do you interpret the call and response structure e to the poem ("She's a fake! Sure, but she's a real fake")Who would be saying this from the novel? Is it the same voice throughout?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZv8wZE3azs

Go to this site, listen and think- how do specific lyrics of this song link to Daisy Buchanan as a character? For example, how is she a 'fake, but a real fake?'

Comment below.

By the way, this is an awesome band. Much better than Aerosmith.

Crossing The Red Sea For Family

They were there. They were always there. Through the 4cm thick shiny silver metal door, they could be seen everywhere. Their omnipresence was inevitable part of this building. Those people with fine blue police suits, revolvers, and long metal batons were always watching those with black and white striped clothes who were inside the cells. Their hatred was evident in their eyes, but that didn’t matter.

My name is Lechecin. I am in room 413. Twelve years have passed since I came into this jail. I’ve been here for a long time, but I still cannot detach my feeling toward my wife and my children. I still miss them and think about them everyday. My family photo is the only thing that makes me able to sustain this horrible life. Without my photo, I think I might go crazy. Other prisoners said that was just stupid, but it is not my fault that I cannot control my emotion, and that was my usual life.

Desire to escape from this jail is already gone. The ubiquitous policemen have already driven out these desires. Also, the prison is a terrible labyrinth that no one has ever achieved to escape. Other prisoners all agreed on that. Maybe that is why other people call this prison horrible. All the prisoners just live in here like a robot. No hope and no feeling. They just work in the field enthusiastically. Maybe I was the only person who hasn’t given up hope and has feeling toward my family. I wanted to forget about them since I came here, but that is not easy.

I worked very hard today. I don’t understand why, but just worked hard. At first others looked at me curiously, but soon they ignored me. One day, I was having lunch with a prisoner next to my cell as usual. His name was Compano. I was very close with him because he was not like other prisoners. He was like me. He also had a family outside the prison. He told me that I was quite abnormal today. I just ignored him.

I worked very hard all week. While working hard, I felt bleakness in my mind. But that didn’t matter. That felt better. After finishing today’s morning work, I ate lunch with Compano. Today’s lunch included pork which had some blood, but I just ate it. Abruptly, Compano told me that he misses his family, and told me his memories with his family and how happy he was. He stopped talking when the lunch was over. Then he suddenly left me. I couldn’t understand why he was behaving like that, but as usual, I just ignored him.

That night I couldn’t sleep well. I couldn’t understand why. Nothing aggravated me and I had the usual same day, but I couldn’t sleep that night. Then I stood up and looked at my family photo. At that moment, I found that I had completely forgotten about my family for a week, or maybe two weeks. Then I thought about things that Compano told me today. Then I realized how happy I was when I was with my family. I promised myself that I will escape from this prison and meet my family.

Compano died. I didn’t see his body, but the guards told me that he was shot while trying to escape. I imagined about his family. Tons of tears would be flooding in his house. Then I promised myself that I will never make my family sad. But since his death, loneliness from my deep mind started aggrandizing. Maybe this was due to similarity between me and him, and because he was the only person similar to me. All the other prisoners felt like antisocial people and made me feel isolated from others. But I didn’t care. I was only thinking about a way to escape from this hell.

From the distance, I heard the loud announcement, “Prisoner in the cell 413 is missing. All the guards need to search him as soon as possible……” I felt relieved. I was already about four kilometers away from the jail. While going to my home, I kidnapped one man to steal his car, clothes and money. I shaved my beard and mustache, and cut all my hair. My face was less hairy and less scary. I looked like a normal person. I looked different.

After a few hours of driving, I reached my house. I was so happy. The house didn’t change at all. It was the same house. Wooden door and red tiles were the same. The garden was still green. I couldn’t stop smiling. I ran. I ran toward the house. I opened the door quickly. I shouted my wife and children’s names. But something was not right. It was too quiet. The house was messy. No one answered me. No one was there. But Television was turned on, and I heard,
“One woman and her two children suicided yesterday due to the loneliness from the lack of her husband, and the police found that the husband, a prisoner in the jail, has escaped today….”
Then I heard two shoots. I saw blood on the floor, but I was not shot. It was Compano. He was shot to save me.

This is the second draft of my short story.