is Atonement sexist?

Apologies for the OT ref back to Narnia/Susan but I wanted to answer the point - "it is perfectly clear that Susan can't come back to Narnia because she has become socially/sexually aware".

Absolutely not. It is quite clear that the way is open for Susan to come to Narnia (or the Platonic real-Narnia unveiled at the end) at some future point - she wasn't in the train accident so she is not present at the end of The Last Battle. And Susan as Queen Susan is socially and sexually aware in The Horse & His Boy when she is a fully-grown woman in Narnia and is courted by princes. Polly and Lucy and Jill are post-pubertal women when they die in the train accident - Lewis does not deny women a place in Narnia for being mature sexual beings. It is Susan herself who chooses not to be at Diggory and Polly's "Narnian reunion dinner" because she denies the reality and existence of Narnia - for now, at least.

When Briony is 'revealed' (the 'ha-ha-fooled you' moment, as Lass says) as the narrator all along, it's so unreal because she has been telling us about the in depth thoughts and feelings of Celia and Robbie and their intimate relationship which she just could not have been able to do as a fellow character. It makes a mockery of the whole book

I don't think the revelation makes a mockery of the book. The revelation is that the author of everything we have just read is Briony, not IM, and that has been the case for everything from the point Robbie is taken away at the end of the first part.

We have unwittingly been reading a novel within a novel. So from that point of view Briony can tell us as much as any author can about their characters' innermost feelings. The conventional unreliable narrator always remains a character but Briony goes beyond that. The trick is ( and it is a trick as far as I'm concerned) that Briony ceases to be a character in IM's novel and becomes the omnipotent author of her own novel.

I don't like the book because whilst this is superficially clever it then feels like a cheap trick to play on readers. But I don't think it is sexist.

Almond, that is a really good way of putting it - to write as if you know what is going on in other people's minds and then change the details of their lives - you have summed up perfectly why the ending of Atonement so disappointed and angered me and why I didn't feel it rang true. I actually could not believe that Briony had been the narrator all along. When a novel has an unreliable narrator such as Nick in Gatsby or Joe in Enduring Love (or any first person narrator, really), there are limitations to what that character can narrate about the other characters' thoughts and motives and, even when though they may attempt to do so, we as readers, acknowledge that this is only that characters' interpretations. When Briony is 'revealed' (the 'ha-ha-fooled you' moment, as Lass says) as the narrator all along, it's so unreal because she has been telling us about the in depth thoughts and feelings of Celia and Robbie and their intimate relationship which she just could not have been able to do as a fellow character. It makes a mockery of the whole book.

Interesting that you mentioned Amis - another brilliant but arguably misogynistic writer and I think he and IM are friends (I might be wrong about that). There is a very clever and unexpected twist with the narrator at the end of Amis' 'London Fields' - you don't think IM was inspired to do the same thing but just didn't quite pull it off?

No, to be fair, that would be a rubbish book!

I agree Cote That makes no sense.

"If she wanted to atone, she'd have written a book that was all about Robbie and his life - celebrating who he was a human being"

A young man she barely knew?

If someone had done something to wrong me, I would not want them to write a book about the event after my death because they felt guilty. It's just making it all about them and their feelings and their reality

Well yes it is all about them. Briony's atonement is really having her cake and eating it. She is salving her conscience at no risk to herself. But how is creating a vain, egotistical character who happens to be female evidence of sexism or misogyny?

I don't see it that way, Cote.

That's the point. People have different moral codes and perspectives.

If someone had done something to wrong me, I would not want them to write a book about the event after my death because they felt guilty. It's just making it all about them and their feelings and their reality.

That's particularly the problem in Atonement because she wrongs Robbie because she is so caught up in her own emotions and her own version of reality that she doesn't see anyone else. Writing a book is just repeating the same thing of her reality being all about her and her feelings.

It's like when people write books about murders. It's always about the murderer and their life and feelings. If she wanted to atone, she'd have written a book that was all about Robbie and his life - celebrating who he was a human being. It wouldn't be rehashing the events of how she destroyed his life.

"the novel draws on an unchallenged assumption of the culpability of Lola, the victim"

I don't know how you think that, given that the story is all about the unbearable guilt of Briony. Other characters feel guilty in minor ways, but Briony is the major culprit, the one person who sent the wrong person to jail.

As I said to Pink, if you are basing that view of "victim blaming" on anything other than the character's name and depiction as a girl who likes nice dresses & nail polish (as remembered by an envious child), I'd like to hear about it.

I certainly don't think that the book is shit or that the author is an ass - very far from it. I find much of it actually fairly tremendous, and think IM is among the best contemporary writers.

I do however still maintain that the novel draws on an unchallenged assumption of the culpability of Lola, the victim, for most of its dramatic effect to make sense.

I also think Madame Bovary is fantastic, for example - and yet Flaubert was pretty much undeniably a massive misogynist! I don't personally have a problem with having some problems with writers whose books I enjoy.

"Can't be surprising though when some people feel that asking such a question in relation to the idea of the rape of a young girl might be a bit problematic."

No, it's not surprising but neither is it victim blaming, sexism, etc.

It just means that those some people are not ready to venture outside their comfort zone in this subject. I don't mean this as an insult, though. On the 50-Book thread I linked below, there was a similar discussion re Lolita which I recently read & reviewed, and admitted that my inability to look beyond her rape prevented me from appreciating most of the book. It happens & doesn't mean the book is shit and the author is an ass.

"it's a fucked up thing to do, to write a book about someone else's rape, someone else's false imprisonment, someone else's death"

I honestly don't see how you can say it's "fucked up" to declare to the world your deepest sin, something eating you up inside. It's not just catharsis but her atonement.

".., and then have the audacity to write it as if you know what is going on in other people's heads and change the details of their lives."

She wishes it happened that way, with a happy ending. It is not malicious. Don't you see that?

Yes, and it's certainly part of IM's MO to ask difficult questions I suppose - markedly so in his most recent.

Can't be surprising though when some people feel that asking such a question in relation to the idea of the rape of a young girl might be a bit problematic.

I thought Briony was unpleasant as a child and a deluded, unpleasant egotist as an adult. These are not female stereotypes. I don't follow what is sexist about IM writing a female character in this way.

If we are to see Briony as 'real,' then don't we have to make the judgement that she has no right to write this book at all, and by doing so she is still treating the people in it as her puppets

Yes we do have that right and as above she is , at the end of the book , for me , a thoroughly unlikeable character. I fail to see why that makes the book sexist beyond IM has created an unlikeable , selfish and self-deluded character who is female.

"who wants to ask questions like that about 15 year old rape victims?"

Someone who is not an ordinary author, bound by conventions of which questions can or can't be asked?

Besides, the question isn't asked only about Lola.

Maybe the problem of Lola is meant to make us think- can she be at once innocent and guilty? It's not black and white.

But who wants to ask questions like that about 15 year old rape victims? I think that's an odd problem to want to raise questions about.

But Briony isn't little when she writes the book.

And it's a fucked up thing to do, to write a book about someone else's rape, someone else's false imprisonment, someone else's death, and then have the audacity to write it as if you know what is going on in other people's heads and change the details of their lives.

It reminds me of Martin Amis's autobiography and how he wrote about his cousin's murder in it, and how distressed the family were by him doing so.

If we are to see Briony as 'real,' then don't we have to make the judgement that she has no right to write this book at all, and by doing so she is still treating the people in it as her puppets.

" IM invented that narrator. He is saying this is what goes on in the head of this woman. This is the kind of book she would write. And that narrator is an unpleasant and disturbed individual. I think she is unpleasant and disturbed in ways that people view as stereotypically female, so he has written a sexist book."

I don't think Briony is unpleasant and disturbed. She was perhaps unpleasant as a child in ways that children are unpleasant - self-centred & "bitchy" in certain ways but meant well and her lie was based on her misunderstanding rather than evil intent. She was a child, in other words, not a sexist stereotype.

"we only see/hear it from one perspective - Briony's. She is the narrator and we never know if she is saying anything truthful about 'real' people."

Yes, an unreliable narrator, in other words. But then again, aren't we all? Looking back at major events of our lives, do we really recall everything 100% truthfully even if we want to?

Yes, I agree with Trills & Lass.

These characters have complex reasons for doing what they do, like people in RL. They are not black & white, and although they were guilty in their own ways and carried that guilt throughout their lives, the reader can understand and sympathise with how and why they took (or were forced onto) those paths.

Lass, I agree with what you're saying, but IM invented that narrator.

He is saying this is what goes on in the head of this woman. This is the kind of book she would write.

And that narrator is an unpleasant and disturbed individual.

I think she is unpleasant and disturbed in ways that people view as stereotypically female, so he has written a sexist book. Other may disagree as to whether or not she is a sexist stereotype. If she's not a stereotypically 'bad' female, merely unpleasant and disturbed, the book is not sexist.

I do think that people are interpreting it as being seen from the perspective of multiple characters and what they think or do, but we only see/hear it from one perspective - Briony's. She is the narrator and we never know if she is saying anything truthful about 'real' people.

The only bit that sounds truthful is near the end when one of the twins cries, and she can't understand why. That then seems ironic, that we can understand the meaning of that and she can't. But even that could just be her being 'clever.' Maybe within the context of her story, she made the twins crying up to create an ironic moment, maybe the twins didn't exist.

It follows also that whether IM said yes, I intended some inter textual reference to Nabokov, or no, that's a fanciful nonsense, doesn't really matter either way.

Okay, I do understand the difference between author and authorial comment () but let's go Barthesian on it: this is a text in which discourses which blame the victim appear evident, in my opinion.

She did not remain a child though did she? And she was guilty. Two wrongs don't make a right.