'The best thing he has ever written' Observer'A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended' On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her too is Robbie Turner who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever, as Briony commits a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone. **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**
CONTRIBUTORS: Ian McEwanEAN: 9780099429791COUNTRY: United KingdomPAGES: WEIGHT: 330 gHEIGHT: 198 cm
PUBLISHED BY: Vintage PublishingDATE PUBLISHED: CITY: GENRE: FICTION / Historical / World War II, FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Romance / Historical / 20th Century, FICTION / World Literature / England / 21st CenturyWIDTH: 129 cmSPINE:
Book Themes:
Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary
He is this country's unrivalled literary giant...a fascinatingly strange, unique and gripping novel, Ian McEwan’s highly-charged story of sin and forgiveness is masterfully told. Tense, shocking and heart-breaking in equal turn., Atonement is a masterpiece...it is also an elegy to a time which, however volatile, still had certainties, A beautiful and majestic fictional panorama, A deft and brilliant exploration of guilt, family and the rippling repercussions of a single moment in life
Ian McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen books. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; and Nutshell, which was a Number One bestseller. Atonement and Enduring Love have both been turned into award-winning films, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach are in production and set for release this year, and filming is currently underway for a BBC TV adaptation of The Child in Time.
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'The best thing he has ever written' Observer'A person is, among all else, a material thing, easily torn and not easily mended' On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching her too is Robbie Turner who, like Cecilia, has recently come down from Cambridge. By the end of that day, the lives of all three will have been changed for ever, as Briony commits a crime for which she will spend the rest of her life trying to atone. **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**
CONTRIBUTORS: Ian McEwanEAN: 9780099429791COUNTRY: United KingdomPAGES: WEIGHT: 330 gHEIGHT: 198 cm
PUBLISHED BY: Vintage PublishingDATE PUBLISHED: CITY: GENRE: FICTION / Historical / World War II, FICTION / Literary, FICTION / Romance / Historical / 20th Century, FICTION / World Literature / England / 21st CenturyWIDTH: 129 cmSPINE:
Book Themes:
Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary
Ian McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen books. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; and Nutshell, which was a Number One bestseller. Atonement and Enduring Love have both been turned into award-winning films, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach are in production and set for release this year, and filming is currently underway for a BBC TV adaptation of The Child in Time.
Mevrou Smit het Aronspoort toe gekom om vir haarself ’n nuwe lewe en identiteit te bewerk, nie om gewild te wees nie. “Daar is geen wag voor daai mond nie. Al die gedagtes wat in haar kop uitbroei, marsjeer soos mank soldate oor haar tong.” (p.16). Maar dit is juis daardie gedagtes wat al menige moord opgelos het, dit terwyl sy vir haarself streng reëls gestel het vir “goeie” gedrag en verbete daaraan werk om daarby te hou. Reëls soos om te oorleef en te luister na jou instinkte. “My derde reël is om nie my tyd te mors met retrospeksie nie” (p.78), verduidelik sy aan Dario wat in hierdie aflewering weer ’n hoopvolle draai kom maak. Die uitstekende skryfstyl van Elizabeth Wasserman verseker dat mevrou Smit konsekwent, sonder aansien des persoons, hou by haar reëls.
Ek moet bieg dat hierdie derde sage van mevrou Smit vir my ietwat stadig afgeskop het. Daar was nie juis dringendheid rondom die ontdekking van ’n dekade-oue menslike oorskot in die rivierbank nie. Maar wanneer daar ’n vars moord vermoed word, tel mevrou Smit se bloedhond instinkte spoed op. En die krisis na die einde toe is so spannend as wat ’n sogenaamde sagte krimi kan toelaat.
Ek sukkel deesdae toenemend met reekse. Ek vergeet die fynere detail van vorige boeke (ouderdom of té veel storielyne?) en dan sukkel my kop deurentyd om te onthou. Dus sou ek beslis beter gevaar het om die drie boeke agtereenvolgens te lees. Nuwe Mevrou Smit lesers wat nie noodwendig alles wil weet van haar vorige lewe en die voorafgaande avonture op Aronspoort nie, behoort suksesvol te kan volstaan met die intrige soos hier aangebied.