Recently I read a couple of titles by Ian McEwan and I've had a few thoughts. McEwan was one of the writers to praise 'The moral landscape'. I'll admit I did not enjoy that book but I decided to find some of McEwan's works. I cannot yet get hold of 'Atonement', which has won him a bucket of awards so I tried a couple of other titles. First I took in 'The child in time', which looks at an English writer's life after he and his estranged wife lose their three year old daughter in a department story. McEwan weaves a great atmosphere but the story falls out in a disjointed boring mess. The B-plot held almost as much weight as the A-plot but it was just as disjointed.
The only thing this book had going for it was the fact that it was less than 300 pages long. On the other hand, had it been longer, McEwan might have used the room to develop the characters better. I finished up by rating 'The child in time' 2 out of 5 stars. Meh on so many levels and not recommended unless you have several hours to kill. The next McEwan book I took up was 'On Chesil Beach'. It's even shorter than 'The child in time' and with fewer characters. Newlyweds in 1962 England looking to consummate their relationship. In my diary, I wrote that 'Consummation might be for him a source of celebration but it's a source of consternation and trepidation for her.' Yes, I write meaningless doggerel in my journal; what of it?
The ending of the book cracked my cynical heart. You never know what you had until it's gone. 4.5 out of 5 stars. I thought that it should have been longer but the characters and development flow much better here. Anyway, that's what I've been reading of later. I also read a series of interviews with Noam Chomsky that flat out depressed me. Makes one want to embrace nihilism wholeheartedly. 'Optimism over despair' indeed! So July is coming to an end. I'm ready for September to start.
BYE.
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