Lessons
One of Ian McEwan’s astonishing qualities as a writer is the variety of novels he completes. Looking back through my posts, I can see I have written about Machines Like Me , an interesting alternative history novel with echoes of Frankenstein; Black Dogs , a cold-war love story; On Chesil Beach , a tragic story with a moment of sexual confusion at its centre; and Solar , a novel with a climate crisis theme and a flawed protagonist. Leaving aside Enduring Love, Amsterdam, Atonement (novels I have read but not written about) Lessons , I think, is the McEwan novel I have enjoyed the most. Roland Baines life is the subject of this book, as we follow his life from childhood to old age. Like Chesil Beach , an early sexual experience defines Roland’s life. In this case, he is seduced by his piano teacher, and however privileged this makes him feel at the time, it scuttles his future a person of high intelligence and (seemingly) astounding skill and promise as a musician. His teacher, M...