Lezioni

Lessons is a meticulously written combination of a period piece and a slice of life. Although it is the obvious fiction, the axis of the story is apparently based on some facts of Ian McEwan ’s life. The narration begins with the hero’s wife walking out on him, leaving him behind with a helpless infan Leggi tutto

Ian McEwan deserves a lot of credit for writing such an ambitious novel. But he loses a good deal of that credit because, really, it isn't nearly as good as it should have been. The writing is stuffy, the prose is long-winded, and the life it describes - that of abandoned son, confused lover, jilted Leggi tutto

When I was in my first London bookshop, I overhead a gentleman saying that he had read the latest Ian McEwan, but it was terrible. I so wanted to interrupt and say, "I agree!" Lessons by Ian McEwan centers on a man by the name of Roland Baines. We follow Roland through his life: his major romantic re Leggi tutto

The Book of the Year 2022 Never has Ian McEwan been as ambitious in his writing projects. Published on September 13, Lessons is a refreshing and rewarding opus spanning several generations and historical (un)doings. It resists 'collective amnesia' through the indefatigability of its (re-)turning to h Leggi tutto

Roland Baines grows up in Tripoli with a somewhat distant relationship with his military father, a warm but hard to figure out relationship with his mother. The influence of the other women in his life : the relationship with his piano teacher when he is just fourteen, being abandoned by his wife. T Leggi tutto

When Roland entered the latter half of his life, the book presented this poignant and concise line: ”How easy it was to drift through an unchosen life, in a succession of reactions to events.” This novel, in a quasi-autobiographical style, portrays the life of a British man born after World War II. Leggi tutto