Another reminder that Ian McEwan, in novel after novel, has delineated with great delicacy the penumbra of sexual heat in which a couple finds a temporary but powerful respite. The scenes from Atonement which linger most impressively in the mind concern the determination with which Cecilia and Robbie, stinking of sex, stand against the humiliated Briony. Like Hardy, Yeats, and Larkin (in its absence, of course), he understands eroticism the older he gets (between Black Dogs and Atonement lies a gap that's measureless and impressive nonethetless); their work refutes any notion of premature artistic obsolescence.