Humble pie

I usually stay away from bestsellers, since they tend to be bland enough to please everyone (Life of Pi, Cold Mountain) or "original" to the point of nonsense (Everything Is Illuminated, White Teeth), but a lady whose opinion I value recently proclaimed Ian McEwan's Atonement the best novel she's ever read. She insisted I read it also.

I was skeptical. But sometimes you know when it's not time to argue, so I picked up a copy at Powell's and enjoyed it very much. Beautifully written, with the kind of raw, tender battle descriptions that Hemingway could do—when he wanted—but often skipped in favor of bluntly sketched brutality. Even the overused conceit about the manuscript turning out to have been "written" by the protagonist was strangely moving in McEwan's hands. I haven't read much else by him save some excerpts from Saturday published in The NYer, but now I'll keep an eye out.

The moral of the tale: Kick your preconceived notions to the curb and heed the recommendations of the wise.

This review and a few more can be found on my recently updated Books list. For the uninitiated, I started keeping this list from birthday to birthday a few years ago. The current list pales painfully in comparison to 2004–2005, but hey...I was living a decadent European life then. Much more free time on my hands.