Looking Back - Enduring Love

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

Fiction

1997

Finished on 5/?/2002

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

From the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement —a brilliant and compassionate novel of love, faith, and suspense, and of how life can change in an instant.

On a windy spring day in the Chilterns, the calm, organized life of science writer Joe Rose is shattered when he witnesses a tragic accident: a hot-air balloon with a boy trapped in its basket is being tossed by the wind, and in an attempt to save the child, a man is killed. A stranger named Jed Parry joins Rose in helping to bring the balloon to safety. But unknown to Rose, something passes between Parry and himself on that day--something that gives birth to obsession in Parry so powerful that it will test the limits of Rose's beloved rationalism, threaten the love of his wife, Clarissa, and drive him to the brink of murder and madness.

My Original Thoughts (2002):

Bizarre book! Dark and suspenseful. The first two chapters were very intense. 

My Current Thoughts:

I must have decided to read this after reading Atonement, which I loved. I have since read more by McEwan, including a re-read of Atonement, but can safely say that his books aren't for me.

Looking Back - Atonement

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Fiction

2002

Finished on March 30, 2002

Rating: 5/5 (Brilliant!)

Publisher's Blurb:

On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner, a childhood friend who, along with Briony’s sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge.

By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not dared to approach and will have become victims of the younger girl’s scheming imagination. And Briony will have committed a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will color her entire life.

In each of his novels Ian McEwan has brilliantly drawn his reader into the intimate lives and situations of his characters; but never before has he worked with so large a canvas. Atonement is Ian McEwan’s finest achievement. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, Atonement is at its center a profound—and profoundly moving—exploration of shame and forgiveness, and the difficulty of absolution.

My Original Thoughts (2002):

First encounter with McEwan's works. Took a few chapters to get interested, but then I couldn't put it down. Beautiful, rich language. Use of color and light reminiscent of Willa Cather's prose. Witty. (13-year-old Briony's attempt to broaden her vocabulary in both her written and spoken word.) Alternating POVs reveal conflicting perspectives of a single event. Engrossing, touching, memorable characters. As the final chapter drew near, I slowed my pace, trying to savor each sentence. Was even able to stay fully immersed while on a flight to & from Nebraska. Set in 1935 England. A young girl's scheming imagination wreaks havoc on a family. Moves forward to Dunkirk 1941, then on to a reunion in 1999. Somewhat autobiographical in the references to writing?

My Current Thoughts:

I re-read Atonement in 2019 (reviewed here). Below is an excerpt from that review:

I received an ARC months before its publication date and was so excited to tell everyone about this wonderful book when it was finally released. I gave it a 5-star rating and it was my number one read of the year. I've had it on my shelf for 18 years, always hoping to make time to read it a second time, so after chatting with some friends about the books we've read and loved that others loathed, I decided the time had come. I had to see what I might had missed and why so many readers disliked this novel as much as they did.

It may come as a shock to many, but I am now one of those readers and it makes me sad to be so disappointed with a book after feeling so strongly about it for all those years. But it was all I could do to finish reading it and had I not previously read and loved it, I might have given up by the 50 page mark. Unlike my first reading, I did not find the story at all compelling or intense, but rather, I was bored with McEwan’s wordiness and impatient with the characters.

2019 Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Atonement

Atonement by Ian McEwan
Fiction
2002 Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
Finished on 9/4/19
Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

On the hottest day of the summer of 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis sees her older sister Cecilia strip off her clothes and plunge into the fountain in the garden of their country house. Watching Cecilia is their housekeeper’s son Robbie Turner, a childhood friend who, along with Briony’s sister, has recently graduated from Cambridge.

By the end of that day the lives of all three will have been changed forever. Robbie and Cecilia will have crossed a boundary they had not dared to approach and will have become victims of the younger girl’s scheming imagination. And Briony will have committed a dreadful crime, the guilt for which will color her entire life.

In each of his novels Ian McEwan has brilliantly drawn his reader into the intimate lives and situations of his characters; but never before has he worked with so large a canvas. Atonement is Ian McEwan’s finest achievement. Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class, Atonement is at its center a profound—and profoundly moving—exploration of shame and forgiveness, and the difficulty of absolution.


I first read this novel in 2002. I had received an ARC months before its publication date and was so excited to tell everyone about this wonderful book when it was finally released. I gave it a 5-star rating and it was my number one read of the year. I've had it on my shelf for 18 years, always hoping to make time to read it a second time, so after chatting with some friends about the books we've read and loved that others loathed, I decided the time had come. I had to see what I might had missed and why so many readers disliked this novel as much as they did.

It may come as a shock to many, but I am now one of those readers and it makes me sad to be so disappointed with a book after feeling so strongly about it for all those years. But it was all I could do to finish reading it and had I not previously read and loved it, I might have given up by the 50 page mark. Unlike my first reading, I did not find the story at all compelling or intense, but rather, I was bored with McEwan’s wordiness and impatient with the characters. In 2002, I wrote:

Even though I was sure of the eventual outcome (and with whom the blame lay), I was still completely engrossed in the narrative, reading as quickly as possible, yet knowing I should slow down and enjoy the story. The publisher’s blurb claims that Briony has a scheming imagination, but that implies malice and cruel intent, which I don’t believe is the case. I think Briony was simply naïve with an overly active imagination.

Well, that was my initial reaction, but upon a second reading, I no longer believe she was quite so innocent. She knew her accusation was unfair and unjust and yet she stood firm rather than admit a mistake.

They were safe, Cecilia was with Leon, and she, Briony, was free to wander in the dark and contemplate her extraordinary day. Her childhood had ended, she decided now as she came away from the swimming pool, the moment she tore down her poster. The fairy stories were behind her, and in the space of a few hours she had witnessed mysteries, seen an unspeakable word, interrupted brutal behavior, and by incurring the hatred of an adult whom everyone trusted—but whose heart she alone knew was black—she had become a participant in the drama of life beyond the nursery. All she had to do now was discover the stories, not just the subjects, but a way of unfolding them, that would do justice to her new knowledge. Or did she mean, her wiser grasp of her own ignorance?

By clinging tightly to what she believed she knew, narrowing her thoughts, reiterating her testimony, she was able to keep from mind the damage she only dimly sensed she was doing. When the matter was closed, when the sentence was passed and the congregation dispersed, a ruthless youthful forgetting, a willful erasing, protected her well into her teens.

and

Her memories of the interrogation and signed statements and testimony, or of her awe outside the courtroom from which her youth excluded her, would not trouble her so much in the years to come as her fragmented recollection of that late night and summer dawn. How guilt refined the methods of self-torture, threading the beads of detail into an eternal loop, a rosary to be fingered for a lifetime.

In spite of a disappointing second read, I do not intend to stop re-reading my favorite books. Many books have proven to be just as good, if not better, than my initial reading. I don't know why there was such a disparity in my reactions to this novel, but I'm not going to waste anymore time over-analyzing my opinion. How about you? Have you ever read a book you loved but wound up disliking it after the second reading?

On Chesil Beach

On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
Fiction
2007 Nan A. Talese
Finished on March 19, 2018
Rating: 2/5 (Fair)

Publisher's Blurb:

It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come. Edward, eager for rapture, frets over Florence’s response to his advances and nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence’s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite.

Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from McEwan—a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

I have read several books by Ian McEwan and decided to pick up a copy of On Chesil Beach at my library after learning that the movie was soon to be released on Netflix. I quickly fell into this novel late one evening, not wanting to set it down and go to sleep, but finally did. Sadly, the book started off nicely, but wound up being a dud. I didn't care for either of the characters and had to force myself to finish, which wasn't difficult since it's such a short book. Had it been any longer, I probably would have called it quits. I'm not sure why I continue to read this author's works since I've only really loved one of his novels. Next time I'm inclined to read another book by McEwan, I'll save myself some frustration and just re-read Atonement.