Second reading

Some weeks ago " I noticed that " my friend Chus " was carrying a paperback copy of Atonement by Ian McEwan. Immediately I felt a strange kind of envy: he was reading it for the first time. As with all my favorite books I remember exactly where I was when I read Atonement for the first time— sitting on the floor of the Flip office as we proofread the first issue.

I remember the date (July 2002), the weather (it rained), and my astonishment (expletive deleted, what a book!). True, I could read it again, but it wouldn’t be the same; I already know how it’ll turn out, and there is no repeating that initial awe. "Don’t skip anything," I told Chus. "Read every word, because there’s a moment of HA!!!"

In the days that followed, I kept asking Chus if he’d gotten to the HA!!! Moment — he must’ve felt like he was taking an exam. Finally it occurred to me to stop bugging my friend and reread the novel myself.

There was a recent row in the British press over Atonement — a reviewer insinuated that Ian McEwan had plagiarized portions of his novel from the memoirs of a nurse in World War II. McEwan had acknowledged the book as one of his sources, so it was a non-issue. Later the reviewer said she hadn’t really accused him of plagiarism, merely berated him for not having contacted the memoirist personally (she died recently). A film version of Atonement, directed by Joe Wright (who did a brilliant job on Pride and Prejudice) and starring Keira Knightley, will be released in August.

Atonement begins in a country house in England in 1935. The precocious Briony Tallis, 13, has written a play to be performed for her brother Leon, who is coming down from London. Rehearsals bog down as her newly-arrived cousins refuse to cooperate, and Briony goes off in a huff. Her sister Cecilia, 23, is angry with Robbie Turner, the cleaning woman’s son, who’d gone to Cambridge on a scholarship from her father.

Cecilia realizes the reason for her irritation; Briony sees Robbie and Cecilia making out, and is convinced that Robbie is a maniac. Later, when a crime is actually committed, Briony points to Robbie as the perpetrator.

Then it’s 1940, and the British are retreating from Dunkirk under heavy German bombardment. Robbie, who’d spent years in prison, is among the soldiers. In London Briony, now 18, has declined to go to Cambridge and is now a nurse attending to wounded soldiers. Through the horror and drudgery of her work she hopes to do penance for the wrong she did to Cecilia and Robbie. She continues to write — her recent attempt gets a rejection letter from a famous writer, who urges her to keep writing. Briony visits Cecilia, who has broken with their family, and says she will recant her statement to the police regarding Robbie’s guilt.

The final section is set in 1999, at a reunion of the Tallis clan. Briony, now a writer in her 70s, has been diagnosed with dementia. Soon she will soon forget everything, including the events of that day in 1935. We learn how she had hoped to gain absolution, only to find that it is beyond her. "How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive her."

When I first read Atonement I was so engrossed in the fates of the characters and my own desire to strangle Briony (Malisyosang bata!) that I missed out on something vital. Yes, it’s about childhood, love, war, class, shame and absolution, but there’s more. Atonement is about the process of becoming a writer. Briony stands for everyone who’s ever tried to write a novel. Early on she grapples with the basic questions: What genre? How do you describe emotion? "Actions she thought she could describe well enough, and she had the hang of dialogue... But how to do feelings? All very well to write, ‘She felt sad,’ or describe what a sad person might do, but what of sadness itself, how was that put across so it could be felt in all its lowering immediacy?" Her later attempts show the influence of writers she admires. And then, when she has become a writer, she realizes that the difficulty of being a novelist and creator of a fictional universe is that she answers to no one. She wants forgiveness, but who will give it to her?

So the second reading was, in a way, as tremendous as the first. What will a third reading reveal? That comes later; for now I return to my Russian novels.

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Tony Perez, author of wicked tales (the Cubao series, which continues with Sitio Catacutan), has written a children’s book. Inang Bayan’s New Clothes, which he co-wrote with Agnes Caballa, is an interactive kids’ book that promotes multiculturalism, tolerance and indigenous fashions.

Written in English and Cebuano, it’s the story of two friends: the Muslim Nurhana and the Christian Feliza, who work as seamstresses in a dress shop. One day they encounter Inang Bayan wearing an old and tattered outfit, and they offer to make new clothes for her. The new look incorporates elements from various ethnic cultures: Higaonon, Yakan, Kalinga, T’boli and others. To make things more interesting, the richly detailed illustrations by Frances Alcaraz include paper dolls so that young readers can mix and match pieces and create their own designs. Fashion can help the peace process.