Sunday, August 19, 2007

Enduring Love (Ian McEwan)

"I had fallen into a life in which another man could be saying to me, We can't talk about it like this, and, My own feelings are not important."

Enduring Love on Amazon

In Ian McEwan's lightweight 1997 novel, which was apparently made into a film of the same name in 2004 with Daniel Craig, a man in a happy heterosexual relationship acquires a fanatically religious male stalker after a tragic freak accident briefly unites them.

It all plays out sort of how it sounds. Ian McEwan has a lovely, languid prose style that slows what could be a thriller-paced plot down to an almost meditative pace. He also has a keen eye for the emotionally grotesque that made the stalking itself quite amusing.

But I had high expectations that were somewhat disappointed: the only other book I've read of McEwan's is Atonement. And where that seemed to me a work of art, this is kind of just a book. It was fun to read because it was exciting, story-wise, but didn't stick with me.

What I did get out of it was a sense of, not skepticism exactly, but interrogation of the established idea of romantic love. What do we share with the other person? How much of it is mere projection?

In Summary: Insightful, but not extraordinary.

7 comments:

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

Hmmm. Never read anything by him (although I own Amsterdam and Atonement). I'm not convinced still that Daniel Craig makes the sexiest James Bond...

Kristen said...

Atonement was absolutely fantastic and would be worth pulling out of your TBR pile at some point. And while Daniel Craig is also fantastic(ally handsome), I agree he's better suited to other roles than James Bond...

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

Great - I had heard kind of mixed reviews, but I'm reading it for a challenge, so I'll have to pick it up eventually. Still not sure about Daniel Craig...guess maybe he's just not my type?

Kristen said...

To each her own, of course. :) We'll have to compare notes when you do read Atonement, I hope you enjoy it!

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Anonymous said...

Are you religious?