Atonement

So, I was thinking about two things today..."Atonement", the movie version of which is coming out shortly (and I am ecstatic--for once, I have really high hopes for Keira Knightley's performance) and its writer, Ian McEwan.

While the two topics are linked, I've been considering them separately which means this blog is probably going to make even less sense than usual. Let's look at each in its turn, starting with Ian McEwan.

I used to be freaked out by Mr. McEwan. His books, which tend to deal with the darkest subjects that haunt the human soul, also tended to strike me as somewhat misogynistic. Women as harpies, sexual objects, succubi, obstacles--all caricatures of people. However, his male characters don't tend to fare much better--wishy-washy, sexual obsessives, pathological liars. There is no human flaw that Ian McEwan cannot or will not exploit to its fullest potential. But I'm not really doing him justice. These human flaws are not synonymous with his plots, which tend to be rich and deep.

Not only that, but I wonder if Ian McEwan's female characters belie his own personal fear of women, particularly strong, vocal women. I'm not sure why I feel that there's a tie-in there, but I suppose I just see such a struggle between the genders in his novels, generally where the woman has the upper hand and the man either succumbs to her will or to some fatal flaw and is then lost to the world. Spoilers below, but I just wanted to exemplify my point a little more...

Look at "The Cement Garden" which explores the odd family dynamic shared by four siblings who live on their own after both their parents die (an event that they hide from the rest of the world). The eldest sibling, a sexually precocious girl, understands that her sexuality can wield power over men including her younger brother who eventually succumbs to her advances (really a self-fulfilling prophecy). The sister is clearly the aggressor in the scenario, whether her brother was ready for the opportunity or not. She ends up providing the mechanism by which we see him ruin himself psychologically through incest.

In "Enduring Love", which is in my opinion one of McEwan's best (not that I've read that much of his work, but still) at least in terms of exploring a psychotic personality profile, we have a woman who represents an obstacle to one man's love of another man. The man who is the pursuer feels that his prey is essentially owned by this woman who must be dispatched.

In "Atonement", the entire plot hinges on a young girl whose lack of objectivity, and particular biases end up ruining two (or three, or five depending on how you look at it) lives and, to be honest, I don't know that I could see her character as a male. Briony, the girl who is the fulcrum of the story, has a strength coupled with a self-centered naivete that seems particularly female, but in the worst way. Her personality seems to combine many traits that I imagine men fear: strong will and stubborness coupled with self-righteousness. Men seem to love innocent women, but when women guard their virtues with strong words and determination, they lose their appeal and gain a new, scary set of teeth.

I could be way off, but this is how I see Ian McEwan's perspective on women, or strong women at least. They may be rife with issues and negative character traits, but they are traits that have equal and opposite complements in their men. I suppose I should read more of his books, but to be honest, they're so emotionally draining, I'm not sure I'm up for it. But he is an excellent and evocative writer, and "Atonement" is going to be a big deal for me. I can't wait to see it.

The idea of "atonement" is an interesting one for me right now. I remember one of the first times I ever really heard it discussed was from Louis Farrakhan. It was utterly crazy. He was describing the day of atonement, and what atonement meant to him. In the way only he has, he started breaking down the word as such. I am not kidding:

A tone--like a harmonic sound, a tone that calls us, blah blah something like that.
At one--we are all one entity, blah blah.
At one men (I told you, I'm not kidding)--something that didn't make a lot of sense to me because it just seemed to build off of the "at one" idea in a redundant way.

Anyway, that was what I remembered from that speech (which probably meandered off, as his tend to do, about the significance of the number of steps in the building he was standing near, or the number of pillars around him, or the number of eyes he has or whatever). I didn't really feel like I got a clear idea of what he actually thought atonement was. What's the difference between atonement and apologizing? Or atonement and contrition? What makes atonement so special that in many cultures and religions, the idea gets its own day?

If you look up the word you see that, though archaic, the word was once associated with the idea of reconciliation, specifically with God. I wonder about that though, what does one need to do to atone and reconcile with God? How do you know you've had a falling out? What kind of mistakes or offenses require atonement?

I like the idea of it though. For some reason, apologies these days seem valueless and common. You end up torturing a bunch of animals in a dogfighting ring, then apologize and serve some time--or you cheat on your spouse, drunk drive on the road and hurt someone, etc. etc. and apologize, and that is supposed to give you tabula rasa. But atonement implies that you understand that there exists a breach between you and the idea of an ultimate good and that only you can repair the rift. An apology just implies that you understood that you did something wrong and regret that it has been done. Atonement shows that you are willing to make amends.

That seems dignified to me. The desire to make amends as opposed to feeling gratified for admitting an error in judgment. I'm certain that, as usual, I've oversimplified everything (I blame lack of sleep and an imminent food coma), but I have to say that I'm pretty grateful that for once in a long while, I can consider my ideology thoughtfully. I never realized that those kinds of musings were in fact luxuries for me.