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3.34 AVERAGE
3.34 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
reflective
slow-paced
Can't assign stars yet. Can't decide if this was a really good or really terrible book. It's one or the other, nowhere in between.
I'm not really sure what to think about this book. It's an interesting enough story, but it just seemed to drag on forever. Devistating things happened to the main character, but the story didn't make them seem that bad. And the letter at the end? WTF? I want to know the answer. Having never read a book by this author, I don't know if that is his style, or just a lack of pizazz, but this book really did not wow me. But I will give it to him that it was interesting.
Did I like this book or hate it? I struggled with it, its seeming endless periods of inaction. But then was riveted to some of its minor instances and their layered meaning and description.
There is a wonderful feeling of auto-biographical detailed, whether real or imagined on my part, throughout; a great evocation of a largely forgotten era. The MI6 details are fascinating showing an operative's torn loyalties and essentially admin work practices.
It is a rich book of vignettes that recall to me the art of Turner-prize nominated George Shaw - grey and flat but true to life and full of charm.
There is a wonderful feeling of auto-biographical detailed, whether real or imagined on my part, throughout; a great evocation of a largely forgotten era. The MI6 details are fascinating showing an operative's torn loyalties and essentially admin work practices.
It is a rich book of vignettes that recall to me the art of Turner-prize nominated George Shaw - grey and flat but true to life and full of charm.
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Ian McEwan kind of leaves me disappointed after I finish one of his books it seems. This one in particular had me expecting much more than I got in the end with its story about an attractive young female MI5 low-level employee who gets involved in handling a writer that the government funds to write propaganda not intended as blatant propaganda. The era, late '60s, into mid '70s is rife with cold war talk, social upheaval in England/Ireland and all kinds of topics. Add in the writing angle and you'd think I'd be all over SWEET TOOTH. But, I wasn't. As with pretty much everything I've read by McEwan [this is novel #4 I believe] there is a real disconnect between the characters. SWEET TOOTH is McEwan writing in his standard aloofness. He never truly gets me to bang through the world he crafts due to this distance. Plus, the book is rather kind of dull to be bluntly honest. Not sure if I'll even bother with another McEwan book in the future, that's how lukewarm I am about SWEET TOOTH.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
informative
lighthearted
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Recommended by Connie
Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Ssweet%20tooth%20mcewan__Orightresult__U1?lang=eng&suite=pearl
Check our catalog: http://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore/search/C__Ssweet%20tooth%20mcewan__Orightresult__U1?lang=eng&suite=pearl
I did genuinely enjoy reading this. McEwan writes in an easy to read, clear and entertaining style. Moreover, the novel was clever. It's a novel set during the Cold War era and follows a beautiful Cambridge graduate, Serena Frome, who works for MI5 in a lowly clerical type of position. Much of the plot is about her relationships with men and about literature (Serena got a third in maths but loves literature and becomes involved with it through her work). There are stories within stories. It's hard to explain but is quite interesting and clever. McEwan name drops lots of writers and also covers the political situations of the time but always lightly and never ponderously.
So why did I not give it five stars or even four. My problem with it was that it was quite privileged and self-satisfied. It is a world and lives that I don't personally recognise and cannot relate to. After analysing it, I think it's because McEwan is not good at conveying the sufferings that people have, which would make for a deeper and more profound novel. This literature is more about escaping into pleasant fantasy, perhaps. McEwan puts in mentions of relatives or people who have bad life situations, like Serena's boyfriend Tom's alcoholic sister who has lost custody of her children and one child even is missing a foot from an accident. However, these feel very much like transparent literary devices that are two-dimensional and corollary to the privileged lives of the main characters: on the outside, in other words.
That is not to say that a novel has to be about people with awful lives to be deep, for privileged people themselves often have areas of personal sufferings, flaws and frustrations. The thing is that I don't think McEwan is good at conveying any of that. Perhaps he avoids it and it is true for him, but it doesn't feel real to me. So, while McEwan is quite good at setting the scenes of London, MI5 and the well-off English countryside, his novel lacks psychological verisimilitude that comes with the grittiness of reality, the ups and downs, flows and ebbs of passions, attachments and emotions. McEwan's treatment is very mechanical, somewhat simple and detached, to be honest. And that is why McEwan cannot be a great novelist, however fine a novelist he otherwise is.
Also, I hated the long letter at the end. It was boring and while the last two sentences were good, it was unsatisfying and felt smugly cliché. But don't get me wrong because I would definitely recommend the novel from an entertainment point of view (see the first paragraph).
So why did I not give it five stars or even four. My problem with it was that it was quite privileged and self-satisfied. It is a world and lives that I don't personally recognise and cannot relate to. After analysing it, I think it's because McEwan is not good at conveying the sufferings that people have, which would make for a deeper and more profound novel. This literature is more about escaping into pleasant fantasy, perhaps. McEwan puts in mentions of relatives or people who have bad life situations, like Serena's boyfriend Tom's alcoholic sister who has lost custody of her children and one child even is missing a foot from an accident. However, these feel very much like transparent literary devices that are two-dimensional and corollary to the privileged lives of the main characters: on the outside, in other words.
That is not to say that a novel has to be about people with awful lives to be deep, for privileged people themselves often have areas of personal sufferings, flaws and frustrations. The thing is that I don't think McEwan is good at conveying any of that. Perhaps he avoids it and it is true for him, but it doesn't feel real to me. So, while McEwan is quite good at setting the scenes of London, MI5 and the well-off English countryside, his novel lacks psychological verisimilitude that comes with the grittiness of reality, the ups and downs, flows and ebbs of passions, attachments and emotions. McEwan's treatment is very mechanical, somewhat simple and detached, to be honest. And that is why McEwan cannot be a great novelist, however fine a novelist he otherwise is.
Also, I hated the long letter at the end. It was boring and while the last two sentences were good, it was unsatisfying and felt smugly cliché. But don't get me wrong because I would definitely recommend the novel from an entertainment point of view (see the first paragraph).