“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. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the
limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they
are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely
the point. The attempt was all.”
―
Ian McEwan,
Atonement