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Magnificent. An extraordinarily ordinary life, covering the sweep of years from the post-WW2 period up through COVID, lived through the eyes of a boy and man experiencing many of the big events of that period, both big and small. The fulcum of his story, the one experience that changes everything for him, is a precocious sexual relationship with his older piano teacher (statutory rape, if we're being exact, though the novel never uses that word). That relationship leaves young Roland adrift, and reverberates throughout his life and adlt relationships. I found the first two chapters quite bleak and dreary, but was thoroughly engaged through most of the rest of the book (though I think it was a bit overlong). I found the last section quite stunning. Recommended.