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A review by donkoboza
Lessons by Ian McEwan
4.0
Unsettling at times, heartrending and irresistably humane - Lessons is an emotional rollercoaster and not always the pleasant one. McEwan has taken the life of his protagonist Roland Baines and turned it into an existential tapestry of human experiences, trials and tribulations intertwined with politics that shaped the background for the baby boom generation. As if living its own life, the novel doesn't have even pacing: it rushes throught some chapters and then lags through others. Sometimes McEwan's narratives turns Lessons into an irresistable pageturner, while sometomes it almost lulls you to sleep with meandering thoughts. It might be considered a flaw, yet at the same time it feels like an inherent quality of life itself that the author was trying to capture on pages.
Then there's. It gets uncomfortable very quickly and it stays so till the moment when - it gets arguable worse. It might easily be the reason to drop the book all together and the one that will bind you to the book until you know the issue is resolved. In any case it's a curious insight into the mindset of a generation which didn't use to care much for abuse as it was either swept under the rug or simply disregarded as anything traumatizing. We might despise the approach nowadays but we can't deny it existed not so long ago.
Overall, Lessons paints a portrait of boomers as the lucky generation despite all the political tensions of the second half of the twentieth century. Debates on the right and the left and Roland's adventures in East Berlin bring in a lot of sluggishness to the novel as they generally lack the thrilling anticipation of the unravelling of Roland's personal drama with his piano teacher and his wife. Most probably they're there as just one more example of close politics came to ifluence everyday lives back in the days but it still doesn't diminish the fact that creativity-wise these chapters are not the best ones as well as those which relate Roland's later years.
Lessons is a great example of how a book doesn't have to be perfect to be enjoyable.
Then there's
Spoiler
the molesting plot lineSpoiler
the molestor is given the opportunity to defend her caseOverall, Lessons paints a portrait of boomers as the lucky generation despite all the political tensions of the second half of the twentieth century. Debates on the right and the left and Roland's adventures in East Berlin bring in a lot of sluggishness to the novel as they generally lack the thrilling anticipation of the unravelling of Roland's personal drama with his piano teacher and his wife. Most probably they're there as just one more example of close politics came to ifluence everyday lives back in the days but it still doesn't diminish the fact that creativity-wise these chapters are not the best ones as well as those which relate Roland's later years.
Lessons is a great example of how a book doesn't have to be perfect to be enjoyable.