Whereas the first is marked by the languid meandering of a misspent summer, the second is the ceaseless march of a retreating soldier. The following sections are conducted in a very different context.

In allowing you to understand your view was simultaneously complete and incomplete.

I found it to be a masterclass in showing rather than telling, building tension without ever once instructing the reader to feel tense. As it becomes increasingly clear to the reader what is about to happen, the flitting around stops and you are instead stuck inside the perspective of a single character - both central and peripheral - who only vaguely understands the magnitude of the events she has set in motion. Progress is slow until the evening comes and then accelerates just enough to tip you unwillingly towards the novel’s apex. The story flits, like a summer firefly, from one character to another, giving the reader access to their inner monologue and private preoccupations. The first section of the book is set on a single, stiflingly hot, summer’s day in 1935. The real genius that McEwan demonstrates is his ability to vary the pace and tenor of his writing to suit the events or feelings he describes. Suffice to say the action takes place in the middle of the last century and concentrates on the troubled Tallis family - Leon, Cecilia and Briony - and their housekeeper’s son Robbie. Just in case anyone else has, like me, managed to hitherto avoid its charms I won’t spoil the story. I can understand why it occupies such a prime spot in McEwan’s oeuvre. All that changed this week and I’m very glad that it did.

Book atonement