"Atonement" questions in reading session chapters 11-12

1) How would the book be different if Briony were a boy (and later a man) rather than a girl(and later woman)?

The book would be totally different, because the main conflict, or better said what created the main conflict for Robbie was created because Briony saw the letter that he wrote to Briony sister, Cecilia, in that letter (by mistake) it was written the word “cunt”, that made an impact on Briony that cause that she found Robbie as a sex maniac, with that Robbie's destiny and the hole story development started. So if Briony were a boy “she” wouldn't care about that it would be like “cool” or something like that, or maybe “she” wouldn't care a about the letter and wouldn't see it, such as she did.

2) Is Atonment a war novel? Why or not?

Atonement is not a war novel, because the conflict is not about the war, just the context of the book is during the war, this can be easily seen on the consequences on the conflict, related with the meaning of the war for the conflict and novel.

The consequences of the conflict are the following, the novel it self is a representation of how just saying one wrong thing you can modify reality, and destroy and change the whole life of a person; in this case Cecilia, Briony and, most of all,Robbie; this last one is the one who suffer the most, he was send to war; so the war is depicting how mess up and the level of destruction in Robbie's life.

That's way Atonment is not a war novel, at all.

3) Ian McEwan has sometimes been nicknamed Ian Macabre - macabre, meaning horrifying, disturbing, or weird. McEwan dislikes the nickname – but are there parts of Atonement that are macabre? What are they, and do you think they're necessary to the novel?

I do think they are parts that are macabre in the novel Atonement, for example I can mention the part where Lola is assaulted (and later she marries the guy that did that to her), the tragic destiny of Robbie and Cecilia, their deaths and Brionys, apparently loneliness, future (how she is going to die).

I think they are necessary for the novel if we have in mind the main idea, and story, of the novel that, I think, is that there are things you can make and have terrible consequences; if we consider this novel, a sort of modern tragedy they absolutely necessary.

4) Attonement shows you the world from many different characters' point of view. How would the novel be different if it was all from Cecilia's perspective? Robbie's? Briony's? Lola's?

The novel would've absolutely different if it was only from one character, because the real and important point of the novel is how perspective change and how the consequences of our acts affect us, so if we would see it form Cecilia's perspective we wouldn't know what actually happen with Lola and we would never know this almost ironic/tragic destiny of Briony, and moreover why she said that Robbie assaulted Lola, when he didn't. For Robbie's point of view would be exactly the same, with the exception that Cecilia death and destiny would be unknown for us. For Briony's part we would actually see a distorted vision of reality, as it can be seen in different in different parts of the first part in the novel, she actually creates more than what she sees. And last if it's only Lola's side we would see how actually attacked her and we would never know why she actually lie and said that Robbie did the assault to Lola, and what at least for me would be a “good thing” we would only see the mind of a shocked girl and how, probably, modify her memories of what happen and created a sort of complex towards the aggressor (the reason of why she married him)[those things are just suppositions about what happen to Lola in relation of my psychological knowledges].