Sunday 2 November 2014





After a couple of bad reading choices in quick succession (The Shock of the Fall was almost unanimously disliked by the book group, only one of us having a good word to say for it, so it wasn't just me!) ... what a relief then to spend the weekend with my head down in a new Ian McEwan. The literary equivalent of sleeping on a good firm mattress instead of a cheap foam-filled futon. (Mattresses have been preying on my mind this week after a perfect night's sleep in a hotel bed that came from here. As mine needs replacing, I am sorely tempted.)

I haven't always been a fan of McEwan. Loved Atonement, loathed Saturday, wasn't entirely convinced by On Chesil Beach. But I do like his spare, elegant writing.

This is a compelling slim volume, only 213pp. Fiona is a High Court judge in the Family Division, fiercely intelligent, going through a midlife crisis in her own long, on the whole loving, but childless marriage. (Does seven weeks and a day without sex constitute a crisis worth leaving home for? Her husband thinks it does.)

To be honest, I didn't much care about Fiona's private life and whether or not she picked up the threads of her marriage with the history professor husband who was so vain of his silver-grey chest hair. But her working life is fascinating: the judgement she gave on Siamese twins - her ruling on educating the daughters of two divorced Orthodox Jews ... She is cool, dispassionate, a female Solomon. She wears Rive Gauche; a detail dropped in towards the end, but how exactly right for her.

And then she is called on to make an emergency court order in the case of a young Jehovah's Witness with leukaemia; almost 18 - but not quite - he is refusing a blood transfusion.

Often, when I finish reading McEwan I find myself stricken by doubts. Now that I've surfaced, I'm not entirely convinced by this beautiful, precocious, exceptionally-gifted 17-year-old poet. But I was completely engrossed while I was reading, right to the last page.

8 comments:

Vintage Reading said...

I've seen one or two positive reviews of this, I'll have to read it. Like you I've not really loved anything he's written since Atonement. Ah, Rive Gauche, I love 70s perfumes!

mary said...

I enjoyed On Chesil Beach, Nicola, but it did seem rather far-fetched. I wasn't keen on the last one; was it Sweet Tooth?
Rive Gauche took me back. I wore it in the 70s too and thought I was very sophisticated. I don't know anyone who still wears it.

marmee said...

I so enjoyed this....stopped reading Ian McEwan years ago but was seduced by this title...the rare kind of read where I felt there wasn't one word that didn't belong or was excessive

mary said...

Hello,Marmee. He makes other writers seem very flabby, doesn't he!

Mac n' Janet said...

I'm on the waiting list at the library for this one so I'll have to wait to read your review.

mary said...

Hope you'll get your turn soon, Janet!

Cosy Books said...

I've listened to McEwan talk about this book on a couple of podcasts and can't say I have an urge to pick it up. A handful of customers from the library have had good things to say about it when they pop it into the return bin.
If your ears are burning at some point in the near future it's because I'm sharing your review with borrowers.

mary said...

I think you might like it, Darlene, even if it's out of your usual time zone!