pynchon-l-digest V2 #6673

[Bekah]

>
> I haven't read any Ian McEwan at all. Anybody got any raw data on
> that body of work?

Of course I have - I don't have a life - remember?   McEwan started  
out writing literary thrillers and he was pretty good,  the emphasis  
was on the suspense.   Then he turned toward character development  
and tried to have the suspense grow naturally out of that - sometimes  
odd characters.   It works better at some times than others.    It's  
interesting to watch the development.   (This is ONLY my  
interpretation - I've not read this type of analysis anywhere - I've  
just read the books.  And I'm not a literary person - no uni  
paperwork for it, anyway.)

McEwan is notable for having 7 of his 10 books make the Man-Booker  
short-list (with only one actually getting the award)  plus 1  
nomination for the Man-Booker International (for oeuvre).

He tends to use slightly strange characters like the ones we meet in  
life but don't really know that well.   These characters usually  
drive the suspense - what will they do?  How will the "normal"  
characters - if there are any - react?   Some books are more  
thoroughly developed than others.  Many books include the  
relationships of married couples.

  "The Comfort of Strangers" is a good example of this odd-character  
suspense building.  It's about an American (?) married couple  
traveling in Italy who are befriended by a stranger in Venice.   It  
was nominated for a Booker Award but not really worthy, imo.

Then McEwan started getting more literary and eventually came out  
with  "Black Dogs,"  his best book, imo.  This one  was  also  
nominated for the Booker but "The English Patient" got it -  
(yukko.).    "Black Dogs" is about a married couple vacationing in  
France when an  old Nazi dog attacks the woman.  It's very dark.  I  
recommend it.

"Enduring Love"  was back to the almost straight suspense genre (an  
odd character driving the plot)  with only a modicum of literary  
merit - good entertainment,  decent style, but not up to the  
standards of "Black Dogs."  This is about a nice family man who is  
harassed by another man who is obsessed with the idea that the family  
man is in love with him.   It threatens the family man's  marriage,  
his job,  his sanity.  The disorder of thinking some person is in  
love with you is real -  This is the best of McEwan's suspense books,  
I'd say,  but no nominations for anything I know of.)

I suppose that "Amsterdam" is McEwan's most literary (and most  
boring) book.  It's basically character driven, imo, but it just  
lacks something -  immediacy,  I think.    The literary, stylistic  
stuff,  took over too completely.   It actually won the Booker prize  
in 1998 but as I see it,  that was an honorary award for not giving  
it to his priors.   McEwan does great character development,  but  
they seem a bit flat in this book and the plot twists are a bit too  
twisted.   (Two men make a deal to commit euthanasia on the other if  
they get as bad as the deceased lover they had in  common.  They go  
on to make some serious mistakes in their own lives.)  This is  
supposed to be a somewhat comic novel but it didn't quite come off  
that way to me.

"Atonement"  is a good book although there are lots of folks who felt  
that McEwan had tricked them and were disappointed.  I didn't feel  
that way but I wasn't that enamored anyway - too much romance for my  
general tastes.   And I'm not generally a huge fan  of his (although  
I loooved Black Dogs - can you tell?)  - I just mostly watch his  
progress.   - A young girl tells her family that she was molested by  
her sister's boyfriend - was she?  What are the effects?  etc.  The  
story is told from the vantage point of 50 years after the main  
events but moves toward that time.  (Yes,  "Atonement" got nominated  
for the Booker.)

"Saturday" was great,  but there are those, again, who felt it was  
too minimal, pointless almost.   A post 9/11 half-assed thriller  
about a doctor whose family is threatened by a somewhat demented man  
and his friends.   It's like McEwan was writing in suspense language  
but not a whole heck of a lot happened.  It could have though, I  
suppose.  It's a bit of a comic novel.

"On Chesil Beach" was very good - not terribly suspenseful but with  
curious character probes (without too much conclusion).   Slightly  
strange characters.  Two virgins in their late twenties marry in the  
very early 1960s (before the liberation of "the pill").  This is the  
story of their tragic wedding night.   "On Chesil Beach" was  
nominated for a Booker.  (ho hum - also some comic element in this one.)

He's got some new novel coming out later this year.  ?

Bekah
again,  not a huge fan of McEwan but interested in seeing his  
development.



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