Ian McEwan’s Atonement, and its subsequent film adaptation starring Keira Knightly and James McAvoy, is one of the reasons that I wrote Spoiler Alert.

About halfway through the book, Robbie, our falsely accused hero, has joined the British army and is trudging through the woods. He passes a rock and then a tree and then another rock and then another tree and then another rock and then—well, you get the idea. I skipped ahead a few pages … more rocks and trees. Skipping further ahead, yet more rocks and trees. A Frenchman or two appear, but it’s still mostly rocks and trees. Robbie passes them; he thinks about them, too, as does Mr. McEwan. I, on the other hand, don’t. I don’t care about rocks, aside from moving them aside for fracking purposes, nor do I think about trees, except that we’re tearing them down faster than they can grow back. Continue reading →