Atonement, Ian McEwan

I was looking at reviews of Atonement, which I'd read over a year ago. I had been very disappointed. It had come recommended as worthy of comparison to the classics, probably in its prose, which was luscious and echoed Jane Austen. But I had felt very ambivalent about the whole book, plot, characters, and structure.

The events were very contrived, and the author attempts to disguise this through elaborate piercing insights into the characters' motivations. But the characters in their turn did not elicit my sympathy. I did not care about them. And I think the fault is that, as this review pointed out, it is more interested in exposing flawed characters than creating sympathy for flawed characters.

I think, as a writer, I would like to learn to create sympathetic characters. A pretense of insight into human psychology is just a means of showing off.