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“In settled expansive mood, Roland occasionally reflected on the events and accidents, personal and global, minuscule and momentous that had formed and determined his existence. His case was not special - all fates are similarly constituted”. p157
Ian McEwan has written an epic masterpiece in Lessons. The story that is Roland Baines is profound in its ordinariness and extraordinariness. Transcending generations, we are privileged to journey with Roland from childhood through to the final years of his life when he is an old man. We live vicariously through some of the most momentous happenings of the 20th and 21st centuries and navigate the emotional events both ecstatic and traumatic, that make up a single life, the layers that compound to constitute an entire life experience, shaping trajectories and determining pathways.
I find myself drawn to Roland Baines in so many ways. Firstly because McEwan has chosen to gender his protagonist male, musical, piano playing, a bit ‘lost’, shaped by his teenage addiction, I felt a kinship and wanted to read more and more about the things that influenced him and the pathways he chose or perhaps were chosen for him. I also found the whole unspoken premise of what is determined or what is random chance in our lives to be provocative. Do we truly have any control over how our lives turn out? Roland was certainly impacted by his experiences with Miriam Cornell at such an impressionable age that a profound imprint occurred, compelling him down certain pathways, influencing his way of being and causing him to live out his days in certain ways.
I love the way McEwan intersects such significant world and personal events with Roland’s trajectory, highlighting the interaction between a life and the global forces that serve yet again to shape and influence. The Berlin Wall, Cuban missile crisis, White Rose German WW2 resistance, English politics through to aging parents, relationship with parents, relationship breakdown, abuse, terminal illness ... all wrapped around the life of a man who is already on a pathway precipitated by each of the events occurring beforehand. Each event is a lesson in and of itself... and at each turn, Roland is looking for something, always slightly out of reach, yet unsure of what it is that he is looking for and not sure that he would recognise it if he found it.
“It became a hindrance - whatever he was doing, he was pursued by an idea of a greater freedom elsewhere, some emancipated life just beyond reach, one that would be denied him if he made unbreakable commitments.... He was waiting for existence to part like a curtain, for a hand to extend and help him through into a paradise regained” p51
For me, Roland Baines epitomises life in all its messiness. I relate on every level. This is a five star book in every way for me.
Ian McEwan has written an epic masterpiece in Lessons. The story that is Roland Baines is profound in its ordinariness and extraordinariness. Transcending generations, we are privileged to journey with Roland from childhood through to the final years of his life when he is an old man. We live vicariously through some of the most momentous happenings of the 20th and 21st centuries and navigate the emotional events both ecstatic and traumatic, that make up a single life, the layers that compound to constitute an entire life experience, shaping trajectories and determining pathways.
I find myself drawn to Roland Baines in so many ways. Firstly because McEwan has chosen to gender his protagonist male, musical, piano playing, a bit ‘lost’, shaped by his teenage addiction, I felt a kinship and wanted to read more and more about the things that influenced him and the pathways he chose or perhaps were chosen for him. I also found the whole unspoken premise of what is determined or what is random chance in our lives to be provocative. Do we truly have any control over how our lives turn out? Roland was certainly impacted by his experiences with Miriam Cornell at such an impressionable age that a profound imprint occurred, compelling him down certain pathways, influencing his way of being and causing him to live out his days in certain ways.
I love the way McEwan intersects such significant world and personal events with Roland’s trajectory, highlighting the interaction between a life and the global forces that serve yet again to shape and influence. The Berlin Wall, Cuban missile crisis, White Rose German WW2 resistance, English politics through to aging parents, relationship with parents, relationship breakdown, abuse, terminal illness ... all wrapped around the life of a man who is already on a pathway precipitated by each of the events occurring beforehand. Each event is a lesson in and of itself... and at each turn, Roland is looking for something, always slightly out of reach, yet unsure of what it is that he is looking for and not sure that he would recognise it if he found it.
“It became a hindrance - whatever he was doing, he was pursued by an idea of a greater freedom elsewhere, some emancipated life just beyond reach, one that would be denied him if he made unbreakable commitments.... He was waiting for existence to part like a curtain, for a hand to extend and help him through into a paradise regained” p51
For me, Roland Baines epitomises life in all its messiness. I relate on every level. This is a five star book in every way for me.