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3.46 AVERAGE
3.46 AVERAGE
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I have nothing good to say about this book. I wanted to try a McEwan novel before reading ‘Atonement’ and I was sorely disappointed. I felt there was a lot of over-writing by the author so much so that you get lost in the descriptions, a lot of it is list like and doesn’t flow with the story. Speaking of, there wasn’t much of one.
Ian McEwan is like the modern Virginia Woolf, except he is a guy. When I first read Atonement, I felt I wanted more of his writings and decided to be a completist. So far I've read Atonement, On Chesil Beach, Saturday, and Amsterdam. I started Enduring Love, but stopped because of the fear of a heartbreaking story AGAIN. Finding The Child in Time among discounted books at National Book Store was a happy accident then.
This novel is so far the one McEwan I've read with a satisfying ending. That ending saved the book from a 2-star review. Maybe it was because I was reading it in the middle of hell week at work and at school. Maybe I was rushing to finish the book. But I didn't savor McEwan's writing as much when I was reading this novel. Yet, it has the same elements of a McEwan. From one event, he explores the turns that the emotional lives of his characters take. He delves into the human mind and heart. Here, he even posits questions about time and reality, and dabbles into how to raise children. The devices he employed were intelligently used. His portrayal of sadness is neither flat nor melodramatic. There were several interesting things he used and explored in the novel but this perhaps made the novel less unified or fluid as the others.
Or maybe I'll have to read it again during my more relaxed moments.
This novel is so far the one McEwan I've read with a satisfying ending. That ending saved the book from a 2-star review. Maybe it was because I was reading it in the middle of hell week at work and at school. Maybe I was rushing to finish the book. But I didn't savor McEwan's writing as much when I was reading this novel. Yet, it has the same elements of a McEwan. From one event, he explores the turns that the emotional lives of his characters take. He delves into the human mind and heart. Here, he even posits questions about time and reality, and dabbles into how to raise children. The devices he employed were intelligently used. His portrayal of sadness is neither flat nor melodramatic. There were several interesting things he used and explored in the novel but this perhaps made the novel less unified or fluid as the others.
Or maybe I'll have to read it again during my more relaxed moments.
Ian McEwan is a great writer and I always enjoy hunkering down with a book of his. However, the storyline always goes slightly wonky/unbelievable.
The disappearance of a child from the supermarket is an everyday, horrific tragedy. But a friend who reverts to infantilism, and the recollection of aged parents about an unexpected pregnancy sit awkwardly against this first of incidents, even five years down the road. It feels as though McEwan had a whole bunch of ideas about time-travel and childhood, and wanted to stick them all in a book.
He does better with reality.
The disappearance of a child from the supermarket is an everyday, horrific tragedy. But a friend who reverts to infantilism, and the recollection of aged parents about an unexpected pregnancy sit awkwardly against this first of incidents, even five years down the road. It feels as though McEwan had a whole bunch of ideas about time-travel and childhood, and wanted to stick them all in a book.
He does better with reality.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I was disappointed in The Child in Time. I am a big McEwan fan but this lacks a compelling story. Not enough plot and too much feelings, is that the right word. McEwan can do great plots but this left me cold. I didn't really care about any of the characters and certainly not about the blasted committee about children's literacy.[return][return]It started so well, a very dramatic disappearance of his child, but then lost its way I thought.
I've heard great things about McEwan but just could not get into this one
In what might be Ian McEwan’s least-read, but perhaps best novel, The Child In Time, a children’s book author, Stephen, must come to terms with his three-year old daughter’s abduction and, presumably, her death. Complicating this heart-breaking situation is Stephen’s wife Julie, who has hermited herself away in the countryside, and the fascinating and surreal parallel stories of Stephen’s own childhood, and that of his best friends—his publisher and his wife, a physicist. “The child in time” is not merely a title or a play on words, but also describes the seemingly shifting forces of time and experience itself, and how one child lost in time might shift the timeframe of others. Beautifully concise, perfectly worded, heart-wrenching, subtle, avalanching and, at last, imbued with hope, this is perhaps the work that first marks McEwan’s celebrated later novelistic style (Atonement, Saturday).
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes