This book has motivated me tell the truth and nothing but the truth for the rest of my life. Life moves on and who cares if there was an embarrassing moment, you do not have to lie to cover it up. You just have to live with the consequences of your actions and Briony needed to just zip her lip. Lola really got lucky with Briony being in the same house as her because she can manipulate her without doing anything. Briony puts herself on a pedestal and thinks no one sees life like her. Briony knew she didn’t see Lola’s attacker but she was so entangled in her belief that she was right and she knew, but her vision was not reliable. She wanted to see Robbie so she makes that the truth. I am glad that older Briony is aware of her self-appointed heroism ideal and that she thought of herself as the center of the universe. Being the baby of the family and spoiled by her brother and mother makes her think she has to be better than Cecilia so she is automatically capable of being better. Also, it disgusts me that she tries to write Robbie and Cecilia’s happy ending but she is the one who took that away from them. I do not, not hate Briony… but she deserved to live somewhere else. I think Cecilia and Leon should have been the only kids in the house and I wish their father wasn’t a cheating scum bag. Emily is annoying because she needs to lock herself away in her room but, maybe that is where she belongs. The house turning into a hotel shows the irony of Briony being in the house and trying to rely on her memory and trusting she is right.
I feel bad for Lola because of what happened to her and her being a victim. Paul Marshall was a terrible person and should be in prison for life and subject to torture but at the time, a man of his status could never have that fate.
I really enjoyed the post-modernism aspect of this book because as a teenager, I feel like the truth is always changing. There is always a new, different perspective that can alter your world. With creating your own truth, it may help you sleep at night but at what cost. I can get confused with the inevitable possibilities and scenarios of the path taken and the alternate realities. If I had just said something different or not said anything, would anything have changed? Being a young woman in the year 2023 means I can have the power to do anything I put my mind to because humans are capable of insane things. Like Michael Phelps, Simone Biles and Coco Gauff in the US Open.
When Briony takes the letter and humiliates Cecilia, I have never wanted to stop reading a book so bad. And when Briony was at Cecilia’s home and tried to call her Cee, it broke my heart because Briony will never be able to call her that again because she will never be that person, ever again.
Luc’s conversation with Briony made me have to read through my tears because even though he was about to die, he was reliving his memories through Briony. Briony for once was just the outside observer, listening to his life story, and knowing the ending.(his death) Although, as the reader, you want to change his ending so that he goes back to his home. His death, and the presence of soldiers in the hospital brings a sense of disorder to the orderly hospital. The hospital, in a sense, is like Briony’s younger life. She always wanted to have control and organize everything (like the play) and it is not possible to control everything. There will be Lola’s and Pierrot and Jackson Quincy’s that challenge the structure of your life.
As much as we want happy endings to be our endings, I think just an ending can be appropriate. They shouldn’t be configured to some happy thing if (Robbie and Cecilia’s ending) it isn’t at all. Although the love they had for each other never died, I don’t think Briony should have ever put herself between them. I think Briony was correct when living her life atoning to her grave mistake, by working as a nurse and not going to school. I appreciate how well-rounded McEwan wrote Briony and showing how human she is.
Parallel with the wedding and the fountain, left Briony to construct her truth out of little evidence left after the fact. I hate that Briony is always trying to piece things together and she should stick to puzzles or something.
Lots of great observations here but I will focus on one. People do come between others’ relationships all the time. In-laws, siblings, friends, co-workers, parents, even children, are always making trouble for people as they seek to establish relationships. In this case, B does do something that has devastating real effects, but there’s no guarantees that this love will survive the war, or all the stuff that kept them apart at Cambridge. And yet, a reader might almost get the idea that love can’t survive the practical realities of life and still be love as we want it to be: consider the marriages of the Tallis, Quincey, and Marshall families, all desperately flawed.