First and La(te)st

I've been very busy at the library recently, so I thought I'd bring you up to date with a double review of Ian McEwan books. What with my Saturday review a short time ago, you'd be forgiven for thinking that I'd deliberately set out to get through his back catalogue as quickly as possible, but the truth is that his name seems to have stuck in my wife's head, and she is forever bringing back one of his novels for me from the library (he seems especially popular in the large-print section...).  Today's offering then combines something old with something new, both are borrowed and definitely blue (with McEwan, it's always a little blue!).

*****
The Cement Garden, written in 1978, was McEwan's first novel, although it's probably more of a novella, reaching as it does barely 173 pages of (very) large print.  It's a cheery little tale, involving death, cross-dressing and incest - clearly McEwan decided early on that he wanted to write about the darker side of life.  After the death of their father, the life of Jack, Julie, Sue and Tom starts to disintegrate, as their mother slides into disease and depression.  Without a parental influence, they begin to unravel gradually, their grief showing itself in different ways.  When Julie brings home a boyfriend one day, the scene is set for everything to fall apart once and for all...

It's difficult to discuss this book without giving away too much, and the events, shocking as they are, are what makes the book enjoyable.  The Cement Garden is not up there with McEwan's later work, but it does explore some interesting areas, following the effects of trauma on unformed adolescent minds, and the concept of social dislocation. It is the self-imposed isolation of the family which allows events to unfold as they do, with no guiding adult hand in sight, until Julie brings her boyfriend Derek into the fold.

It's probably one for readers who have already tried a few of McEwan's works (I don't think you'd be rushing out to stock up on his books after reading this one), and if you've read Atonement or On Chesil Beach, you'll see traces of the style used in later books in this first effort at a novel.  Again, there's the one awful, pivotal moment, which sets the tone of the rest of the story, something which was beginning to annoy me, but which I've resigned myself to now; again, there's gore and sexual tension aplenty; again, you feel slightly dirty reading it.  I'll leave it there...

*****
Solar, on the other hand, is a very different kettle of fish.  Michael Beard is a slob of a man, a paunchy fellow with several failed marriages (and one on the rocks), a miscreant with little conscience and not much of a heart.  Oh yes, and he has a Noble Prize for Physics.  Over a decade of deterioration, both in the earth's climate and Beard's physical state, McEwan guides the reader gently through the contradictions of public brilliance and private catastrophe - and it's an intriguing journey.

This novel represents another trip into the science domain for McEwan, after his neurosurgery-led Saturday, however Solar is anything but a dull read.  I didn't have high hopes for it after some less-than-positive reviews, and the usual earth-shattering moment of change (involving a polar bear) had me rolling my eyes at his predictability, but the longer the novel went on, the more I started to enjoy it.

The main reason for this is that the novel is more about Beard than about the actual plot, and he is a brilliant character.  Larger-than-life is a fairly common cliché, but one which is fully justified when discussing McEwan's plump, disgusting protagonist.  Unable to bring himself to do anything as energetic as throwing a sandwich wrapper in the bin (or even just not dropping it on the floor in the first place), his flat undergoes a similar decay to his appearance, leaving him wishing he could just incinerate the whole thing.

He lies, philanders, cheats, plagiarises, disappoints... and yet, McEwan pulls off the feat of making him appear a loveable rogue, a rather genial fellow, before a sleight of hand every once in a while pulls his nasty side back into view.  The blurb on the back uses the word 'satirical', which I suspect is a way of saying that a writer known for his serious novels has produced something amusing for once, and there was certainly a lot to smile at here.  By the end of the novel, I was very interested in Beard's fate - which is not to say that I wanted him to get off scot-free :)

Of course, there is a more serious side to Solar, and it is the idea that we are all doomed because of the human race's inability to be truly altruistic, forward thinking and (above all) organised.  If our greatest minds are more concerned with making millions of dollars from patents and are prepared to lie, cheat and steal to prevent the move towards cleaner energy, how are we ever going to actually tackle the problem of climate change?  Especially if we can't even keep our living rooms clean...  Saturday made a lot of the idea of our world as an ageing person, with clogged-up arterial roads and decaying buildings leading to a rotting planet, and Solar is no more optimistic (although a lot more cynical and funnier).

The writing, as always, is crisp and elegant, despite the occasional jarring moment caused by the American version which my Australian library has somehow acquired.  As well as the expected spelling changes, the odd vocabulary choice leaped out at me, disturbing my concentration (I am fairly sure that no English writer, especially one like McEwan, would really have used the word 'dumpster'...).  While I'm not really surprised that Solar didn't make the cut for the Booker prize shortlist, it is nevertheless a lot better than I expected, a confident, relaxed, mature work from an accomplished writer (and very different from The Cement Garden!).

It culminates in a cliffhanger ending, with Beard beset with troubles on all sides.  As the paunchy physicist looks desperately for a way out of his problems (in a scene which is less high literature than Benny Hill), the reader wonders just how he's going to talk himself out of it this time.  The bigger question of course is planetary, rather than personal.  Just how are we going to get ourselves out of the mess we've made of the Earth.  This, along with Michael Beard's messy dilemma, is a problem for another day...

Something(s) Borrowed...

I've been more of a buyer than a borrower over the past few years, content to shell out for a few books every now and then to add to the growing mound in my rapidly-shrinking study.  However, this year has seen a lot more library visits and the appearance of a fair few borrowed novels on the pages of my little blog.  I'd like to put it down to thriftiness, an increase in public spirit or a desire to make use of community facilities; in fact, it's completely down to the fact that there are only so many places you can take a three-year-old on father-daughter outings, and the library is most certainly one of them.

Whatever the reason, 2010 has produced many more library book reviews than 2009, and as we head rapidly towards the end of the year, here are another three novels which won't be finding a permanent home on my bookshelves.  A good thing or a bad thing?  Well, read the reviews, and you'll find out...

*****

Kazuo Ishiguro's Nocturnes is a collection of five short stories, all connected, either loosely or inseparably, by the theme of music.  The quintet of tales are set in different countries, but most involve some sort of chance meeting and a hefty element of nostalgia and regret, before tailing off into a quiet - diminuendo?  I think I'll stop looking for musical metaphors now...

As always, Ishiguro's writing is impeccable, capturing the right tone of voice whether his characters be Swiss tourists, Hungarian cellists or Hollywood stars.  The stories slip by comfortably, each one forming intriguing questions in your mind before fading out, only to be followed by the next one.  The only criticism you could really lay at the writer's feet is that 222 pages of extremely spacious type hardly seems like the fruit of a few years' hard labour - then again, if he needs to relax that much before making his literary music, who am I to complain?

All in all, more Eine kleine Nachtmusik than Der Ring des Nibelungen, but that's not a bad thing.  Sometimes, you just need a little something to relax to, and, in this sense, Nocturnes certainly hits the spot.  I've recently acquired a couple of his novels to join the two on my shelves, and with the other two on my Book Depository wishlist, 2011 may well be the year of Ishiguro.  Nevertheless, whether this happens or not, one thing's for sure - it's time to cut down on the musical puns :)

*****
Now Ian McEwan is a slightly less-relaxed writer, but he still produces some entertaining work.  Saturday is one day in the life of a man, neurosurgeon Henry Perowne, as he enjoys his day off and roams far and wide through the streets of London.  Of course, on this particular day, in 2003, he doesn't just stay in bed and watch telly later (that wouldn't really fill out 250 pages); he has a packed schedule, and his day unfolds against the backdrop of a massive demonstration against the decision to go to war in Iraq.

This post-September 11th world is an important background, as McEwan, through Perowne's eyes, is exploring the idea of a world which has seemingly come to an impasse, a machine which has developed itself so far that the only way to improve it further is to tear it all down and start again.  Traffic-congested motorways and antiquated hospitals full of junk and paperwork which nobody can find the time to throw away are used as examples of our inability to keep up with the pace of progress.  In a time of global uncertainty, it really seems as if the whole thing could come crashing down at any moment.

Perowne's occupation is no coincidence either, as McEwan makes parallels between the ageing, crumbling city and the natural ageing of the human body - and the brain.  As he drills inside heads, exploring the neural pathways in an attempt to improve his patients' lives, he is only too aware of the limitations of his craft.  Even in his own family, he can see the inexorable march of time at work, both in good ways (the maturing of his adult son and daughter) and bad (the effects of dementia on his mother).
 
I almost bought Saturday a few weeks back, and I half wish I had.  McEwan tries to pack a lot into a short space, and while comparisons with Ulysses (one of the blurbs!) are a little ambitious, you can see where the idea is coming from, with the book's focus on one man on one day in a major city.  I did have a few quibbles with the story though.  Perowne comes across as a little unlikeable and aloof (hardly an ordinary man in the Leopold Bloom mode), and the dramatic events around which the day revolves (and which I haven't really mentioned here) seem a little contrived, and even superfluous.  Oh, and McEwan can't get through a book without a sex scene, even when there's not really much call for it - still, don't let that put you off :)

*****
The third of my borrowed trio is a little different from my usual fare, and I put a hold on it after reading several glowing reviews from other bloggers.  Purge, by Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen (translated by Lola Rogers), is a book which has made lots of waves in the European literary scene.  In a flash-back/forward framework, two women - Aliide, an old Estonian woman, and Zara, a young Russian - meet under unusual circumstances, and as the story progresses, we get to learn details of their earlier lives and the bond which connects them.  With themes of war, occupation, identity, betrayal and sexual slavery, this promised to be impressive.

But.  I don't think it got there.  I had real problems getting into this book, and if I were one of those people who only gave books a certain grace period before giving up, this novel would have been going back to the library unfinished.  Luckily, after about 115 pages (just after I'd tweeted complaining about how slow the book was!), the story picked up, probably because we started to learn more about Aliide, by far the more interesting of the two characters.

I think that one of the main issues was with the development of Zara's side of the story.  It felt slow, plodding, contrived, and for such a controversial and emotive subject, it just didn't make me feel anything except a desire to skip a few pages.  The sizeable gaps in her story didn't help me to warm to her either...  The format was also a little strange, with very short sections at times, almost inviting me to put the book down and come back later (if I could be bothered).  As for the last section, consisting of Soviet police reports...

I hate it when I read books other people have recommended and then feel obliged to be less than complimentary (and this book does have a lot of good points, especially the way Oksanen slowly unveils Aliide's true nature), but I'd be less than truthful if I were to say I really liked Purge.  It's worth reading if you're interested in the content, but I think that there are much better books and writers around.  In the interests of fairness though, I will finish on a more positive note.  When I searched for reviews of this book, I quickly found out that I was pretty much on my own here; virtually every blog review of Purge gave it five stars...

Review Post 33 - Friendship and Innocence

Putting aside my predilection for Japanese literature and all things Victoriana, one of my most prominent reading interests is German-language literature, especially twentieth century works.  Of course, as soon as you start to think about that, you realise that there's not just an elephant in the room; rather, there's a whole herd of rampaging pachyderms jumping up and down on your sofa and trampling the cushions underfoot.  However, while books set during the wars can be classics (one instantly springs to mind...), many works examine the times between the wars, or post-1945.  And that's where we're going today...

*****

As alluded to above, the classic war novel is Erich-Maria Remarque's Im Westen nichts Neues (All Quiet on the Western Front).  Sadly, I read it for the last time shortly before creating this blog, so you'll just have to put up with my telling you that it's really, really good.  Remarque followed his war novel with Der Weg Zurück (The Way Back, or Coming Home as it's usually translated), a book examining the problems the surviving soldiers faced on their return to a defeated Germany.  The final book in Remarque's post-WW1 trilogy, Drei Kameraden (Three Comrades), moves the action on to 1928/9 and follows three former soldiers as they slowly start to think about settling down and building a 'normal' life for themselves.

Robby Lohkamp is happily drifting along in the company of his two army colleagues, Gottfried Lenz and Otto Köster, working at Otto's car repair workshop by day and moving from bar to bar at night in search of distraction.  This comfortable life of nothingness comes to an end when he meets the beautiful Pat, destined to become the love of his life.  Although it sounds like the start of a run-of-the-mill love story, Robby and Pat's relationship is slightly more complex than that, threatened by the ghosts of Robby's past, the uncertain economic environment of the present and certain unfortunate events yet to come.

Remarque captures the feeling of the age beautifully, a generation of young men unable to commit to settling down, unwilling to allow themselves to believe in normality lest it be torn from them again.  As times become harder, people roam the streets, looking for work or, in some cases, just a warm place to while away a few hours.  This climate of anxiety and fear drives people to seek comfort in little pleasures, often of the alcoholic variety, and where little money is available, violence is always just around the corner.  Ironically, after fighting to bring about peace, the old soldiers have returned to a society hell bent on conflict and destruction.

And yet there is an underlying sense of calm and hope throughout the novel.  The very idea of living on the edge means that the people are only too willing to make the most of any opportunity to squeeze some enjoyment out of life.  The writer constantly pauses the action to focus on the more tranquil side of life; flowers, plum trees blooming overnight, waves crashing onto the shore, a misty evening sitting in a cemetery watching the trees fade slowly from view...  When no-one knows what tomorrow will bring, it's best to live for the moment.

While Drei Kameraden is essentially a paean to love, both romantic and collegial, there is a darker, political edge to it (which led to its banning in Germany).  The later scenes, depicting political assemblies where dispirited workers drink in the tirades of revolutionary orators, help the reader to see where Germany was heading at this time and why the people were prepared to listen to people like Hitler.  The crowd stand and stare at the speakers, convinced not so much by the ideas but by the energy and passion of the activists and by the desire to tear things down and start all over again.

It is, however, the love story which made this book successful, even leading to its adaptation into a Hollywood film (Remarque was very popular in the States).  I won't say too much more about the plot - I don't want to take any of the impact away -, but it is a wonderfully moving and extremely heart-rending story which makes you reflect on life and love, and will bring a lump to the throat of the most cynical reader.  In short, a very good novel.

*****

Let's move on now, ignoring the thirties and forties (a luxury people living at that time didn't have) and return to Germany in 1955.  Berlin is a city divided into four zones, one of which will eventually be walled off by the Russians, and it is into this early Cold War era that Leonard Marnham, a young English electrical engineer steps in Ian McEwan's novel The Innocent.  Seconded to the Americans in a joint operation, he helps engineer telephone taps to spy on the Russians across the border whilst spending his free time with Maria, a German woman he meets in a nightclub.

For Leonard, an innocent in every sense of the word, his time in Berlin is an awakening.  Quite apart from this being his first time abroad (and away from his parents), his relationship with Maria is his first real experience with the opposite sex - which shows in the way he thinks he needs to treat her.  He also has to form relationships with the Americans he is working with, including the charismatic Bob Glass, despite hints from a superior that he should, perhaps, be using them and passing information back to Whitehall.  And then, on top of all this, Maria's ex-husband turns up, and things get really complicated...

The story involves a new slant on a genuine spying operation in Berlin, introducing a real spy as a minor character in the book (so no looking things up until afterwards unless you want to spoil things!), and while it's a fairly slight work, it's thoroughly entertaining stuff.  McEwan handles the story deftly, with a few violent and sordid flourishes, but there is one aspect of the book which gives pause for thought.  The final section is set in 1987, allowing a look back at the events through the gift of hindsight, and as this is the third time he's done this in the three books of his I've read so far (this one plus Atonement and On Chesil Beach), I'm starting to wonder if he could possibly use the same technique in all his novels.  One would hope not...

That minor quibble aside, The Innocent is a pleasant read about a very interesting historical period and well worth a look (although I'm happy to have borrowed rather than bought it).  There is one more intriguing point to report though; McEwan wrote a postscript explaining some of the background information and thanking some of his sources.  Nothing there to interest one, you might think, until you see the date: September, 1989.  Timing really is everything...

Review Post 1 - Religion, Sex and Cross-Dressing

Welcome to Year 2 of my little blog, dear reader. There'll be something old (the jokes), something new (the reviews), something borrowed (any decent opinions I can steal from other people) but nothing blue (not my style - sorry). Don't worry: this isn't a proposal...

There will be a few changes around here for 2010 though. 2009 saw me read and review 91 books in, at times, exhaustive depth, something which will be beyond me this year (unless I only read books longer than 600 pages in length). Instead, I will be blogging at regular intervals with summaries of what I've been reading, with the occasional full, in-depth analysis. Unless, that is, I change my mind. It's my blog, and I'll do what I want to.

So, taking advantage of the fact that I will not be blogging like it's 2009, I started the New Year by looking at a lovely style of book, but one I avoided a little towards the end of last year for fear of having to write a full review every twelve hours: the novella. The exact definition of a novella varies, but I believe it is any book which you look at and think "Well, I'm glad I didn't pay full price for that". As alluded above though, there is one problem with novellas; you tend to get through them very quickly, which is why I find myself about to tell you about my first three books of 2010 - after three days. I really need to slow down...


*****

My first book for the year is an old friend and the first in a series which I will be rereading over the first half of 2010. Anthony Trollope's delightful book, The Warden, is the first of his Chronicles of Barsetshire, the series which brought him fame. I first came across this book when living in Japan (now about ten years ago - how time flies...), stumbling across it in a second-hand English bookshop in Kobe, reading it voraciously and then scouring the shelves for the other books in the series. I was put off reading it when I went through my first real bout of classic literature reading in England by the description of its taking place in a rural clerical setting, but despite the prominence of Bishops, Archdeacons and Prebendaries, it has very little to do with religion and everything to do with the church.

The core of the book is an attempt by an over-zealous reformer, John Bold, to look into the management of an almshouse for poor workers, run by the Anglican church in the fictional city of Barchester and overseen by a warden, Reverend Septimus Harding. Bold, with the aid of a cunning solicitor and the greed of some of the almsmen, manages to set the national newspapers onto the poor unsuspecting warden, who stands accused of profiting from money set aside originally for the benefit of the poor of the city. The full might of the Church of England (in the shape of the formidable Archdeacon Grantly and his father, the slightly less formidable, but much nicer, Bishop of Barchester) gathers itself to see off the challenge from London and the secular world, but these legal machinations go over the head of the sweet old warden, for whom the question is not so much of proving himself to be right as of being so. What follows is a sketch of a good man trying to stay true to his conscience in the face of opposition from family, friends, employers and public opinion: can the warden throw away his livelihood merely to ease his conscience?


*****

Our second book also deals with matters of character, albeit of a slightly less noble kind. 'On Chesil Beach' is the shortest of the three books reviewed today, 162 pages long but with the kind of font size last seen in a teenager's deluded attempt to convince their teacher that they had fulfilled the word count criteria. If you're going to charge full price for that, you'd better make sure that the book is good, and McEwan doesn't disappoint; this is well worth reading (especially if, like me, you get it second hand). Edward and Florence are two English newlyweds, dining in a hotel on their honeymoon, ready to start their lives together. This being 1962, however, what should have been a pleasant meal is, instead, fraught by sexual tension and fear: you see, the wedding night will be the first time for both of them...

McEwan masterfully sketches out the nervous behaviour, suppressed sexual urges and contradictory actions of the confused young couple, interspersing his running commentary on the lead up to the main event with flashbacks to the couple's early lives, their chance meeting in Oxford and their long, slow courtship. As the reader is allowed to witness what led to the current moment, the two move off to the bedroom to consummate their marriage. This may sound slightly voyeuristic (if not pornographic - and there are a couple of extremely memorable scenes), but it is, in fact, a highly moving and somewhat sad portrayal of the complex courtship dance of two creatures trapped in a traditional society, where matters are not discussed until the last possible minute.


*****

To say more would detract from the enjoyment of the book, so I'll just leave the young couple in the bedroom and move on to the next story - which is a very different kettle of fish indeed. If only Edward and Florence had been around in the twenties heyday of the Bloomsbury group of writers, there would have been little embarrassment in bedroom matters (although there may well have been a third party present, something which might have soured the wedding night somewhat). Virginia Woolf, feminist icon, genius writer and general woman about town, was not backward about coming forward and was a solid believer in her group's relaxed attitudes towards relationships. So much so, in fact, that she created the trans-genre (and trans-gender) work Orlando as a tribute to her lover, Vita Sackville-West (nicer than the usual box of chocolates, but a little more effort).

Orlando is a young nobleman, born in Elizabethan times, who somehow manages to end the novel in 1928 - a pregnant, married woman. Over the course of the 160 pages, (s)he engages in various affairs, attempts to write plays and poetry, ponders the meaning of life, travels to Constantinople (where the world's first sex change - without surgery - takes place) and makes the acquaintance of three centuries worth of monarchs and literary icons. It's all a bit daft at times (and Woolf herself thought of it as a recreation from her usual writing), but this traveller's tale, reminiscent of Don Quixote or Candide (Woolf also meant it as a bit of a tribute to Defoe, drawing on the style of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders) does have a serious side.

In addition to the thinly-veiled allusions to Sackville-West, the 'biography' looks at the evolution over the centuries of attitudes towards women and the societal constraints forced upon the fairer sex. On reentering civilisation as a woman, Orlando becomes aware of the many barriers separating women and free will, suffering especially under the stifling atmosphere of the 'moral' Victorian era which compels her to adapt and conform to the prevailing norms. Well, as much as a trans-gender, cross-dressing nobleman/woman is able to anyway...

The book is a quick and easy read, and the plot fairly races along, despite the more serious issues threaded around the hilarity. This would be a very good introduction to Woolf before diving into her more usual stream-of-consciousness style, even if it is one of her slighter and more whimsical works!

All for now; I hope I haven't disappointed my readers by fitting three reviews into one. As for my next review, I'll leave you now with a little clue. There was an Englishman, an Australian and an American with a confused Tory on the beach... No idea what I'm talking about? Then you'll just have to wait until next time...

38 - 'Atonement' by Ian McEwan

I recently wrote a review of 'What Maisie Knew', but I thought I'd also tell you a little about how I bought the book (come back, I am going somewhere with this). The university bookshop had one of its periodic outlet sales where they try to flog off surplus copies of paperbacks, some good, some not so good. Most of the books were $10, which, although reasonable, is not good enough to get me to drag my moth-eaten wallet out of my pocket (because I am extremely tigh... sensible with money). Imagine then my excitement (well, a mildly elevated pulse, nothing too energetic; I am English, after all), when I saw two books bundled for the price of one, both of them books that I was quite interested in reading. They were the aforementioned Henry James novel and the subject of this post, 'Atonement'.

There was a reason for the two books' being sold together. Vintage, the publisher, had created ten twin-packs of classic and modern novels based on a common theme, and the theme for these two was 'Lies'. In 'What Maisie knew', the lies were told to the young heroine of the piece; however, in 'Atonement', it is a young girl who tells the lie which is the catalyst for the later, tragic events. Briony Tallis, who is thirteen at the time of the first part of the novel, is a young girl who has turned to literature to deal with growing up, and this escape into fantasy is part of the cause of her behaviour. Disappointed in the play she has tried to stage to welcome her brother home from London, she loses herself in events involving her sister which she observes from a window. By the time tragedy strikes, her mind is in a condition to allow her imagination to override reason. I will say no more (mainly because you may not have read the book - or seen the film!).

One of the interesting aspects of 'Atonement' is the way McEwan creates a book inside a book. Briony later relates the events in a manuscript she sends off to a publisher, but, just as with her real life, it is impossible to have complete faith in the story she tells. At times, the line between McEwan and Briony is blurred, and you're not quite sure who is telling the story (and whether either of them can be trusted). Another nice touch is a letter Briony receives from the publisher; you get the feeling that there may have been a fair bit of McEwan in this scene of literary criticism (perhaps even a bit of tongue-in-cheek revenge for past wrongs at the hand of editors? Just my speculation).

Over the whole story, there hovers a feeling of pressure or suppression, a storm approaching, which can be felt before its arrival. From the unbearable, oppressive June heat of the first part of the novel, to the constant threat of annihilation from the air in the second, the characters appear trapped by circumstances and unable to break out and breathe freely. Cecilia, Briony's elder sister, a recent graduate from Cambridge (in the days when women could study but not receive a degree), feels caged up at her family home in the country but still strangely unable to move away and break the tie. Her mother, Emily, is overcome by blinding migraines which affect her to the point of restricting all movement or thought. Robbie Turner, a family friend and one of the principal characters, flees through the French countryside, expecting death from the sky at any moment. Later, even Briony herself experiences a form of suppression of self when she decides to do her bit for the war effort and steps outside her comfort zone. All these experiences combined give a tense flavour to the flow of the story, a flavour which enhances, rather than spoils, the enjoyment of the novel.

Of course, the major theme of the book is its title; Briony's lifelong effort to make up for her childish error is the main source of atonement, but there are other people who make mistakes (some bigger than others...) and try to erase them in some way later. Sorry; I'm not going to give any more away than that! I'll just say that there is a great twist in the book, and, not having seen the film, I wonder how the big-screen version would handle it. The cynic in me thinks that it probably isn't handled well at all...

Despite that, I would be quite interested in watching the film, to see how the story has been adapted, and, coming from a person who really can't stand spending two hours of his life in a dark room (unless I'm sleeping), that is actually a huge compliment. Reading 'Atonement' has given me a taste for McEwan's writing, and I'll certainly be looking for a few more of his novels soon (but only at a reasonable price). And that's the truth.