Enduring Love: A Novel by Ian McEwan Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $6.90 You Save: $8.10 (54%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Enduring Love: A Novel
Book Review: A thought-provoking page-turner
Summary: 5 Stars
How do science and religion compete for the minds of humans? How do we cope when someone we love acts contrary to our passionately held beliefs? When does love turn to obsession? What are our moral responsibilities towards other human beings, especially those in danger or those who are suffering? These are complicated questions without simple answers. If you would like to read a thoughtful, intelligent meditation on these and other important issues, then this is the book for you. It is frightfully well written and flows with the simple grace of great literature. As one event follows another with inexorable power, you will identify completely with the characters in this book and the problems that beset them. It will definitely help you to understand your fellow human beings, especially those in distress, much better.
Book Review: A thrilling book with depth
Summary: 5 Stars
There is so much in this book that it's difficult to describe in a brief review. I thought it was an excellent novel particularly as McEwan paints scenes so vividly with his words. Some chapters were so clearly described that I felt physically sickened because it was all so vivid and real.
On a superficial level the book is a great suspense filled thriller but beneath that McEwan weaves many philosophical themes: science and the conflict with religion, obsessions, love, relationships, art vs science and finding truth. McEwan includes depth throughout the book with hidden or double meanings to many aspects of his writing. Even the title has depth in its meaning.
One of my favourite parts of the book is chapter 3 where the character of Joe describes how the conversations that he and his wife Clarissa have to come to terms with the shocking event that the book starts with in chapter 1: "But we backed away from the moment again and again, circling it, stalking it until we had it cornered and began to tame it with words." I can really identify with that myself. Experiencing a shocking situation, I would come to terms with it myself by talking about it and talking about it from various angles until it was "tamed".
I don't feel the need to read many books twice, simply because there are so many other great books out there to be discovered, but this book was so excellent and so complex in many ways that I'm sure I'll be reading it again. I'm sure there is much that I have missed that could be appreciated more in a second reading.
Highly recommended.
Book Review: All hot air after chapter one
Summary: 3 Stars
An amazingly gripping first chapter gives way to a slowly deflating novel. It would have made a better short story than a whole novel. But McEwan is the still the master of dark tales. Should I ever see a balloonist in distress I'll leave 'em to it!Book Review: An Enduring Impression
Summary: 4 Stars
What strikes me about this book is the lasting impression it's left on me. I read it last summer and still find myself thinking about it and talking about it a year later. I recently finished another book and my wife asked me to compare it to any two others as a point of reference. Better than one book we'd both read, I said, but not as good as Enduring Love. For contemporary fiction, this one sticks with you.McEwan does a fine job in painting the lead character Joe Rose, as well as the secondary players. His use of language is clear and simple, yet never elementary. The opening chapter is as powerfully imagined as any other I've read. The reader is literally hanging by a rope at the suspense of the scene. And it sets the tone for the psychological terror to come.
More than a summer read, Enduring Love explores corners of our psyches and personalities that we don't often come face to face with. Suspense, terror, humor, and the very real idea of love and romance are alive in this book, which I reccommend as enjoyable to readers of any of these genres.
Book Review: An Enjoyable Read
Summary: 5 Stars
While I can admit that I didn't like this novel to the extent that I liked other Ian McEwan novels that I have read (Amsterdam and The Comfort of Strangers), this book deserves 5 stars. At times, the narrator's thoughts get a little complex, but this all serves the greater psychological purpose of the novel. The book means to play with human emotions and ethics; and the extensive ruminations of the narrator act as a great vehicle for that purpose. I thought this book was enjoyable throughout, and at times difficult to put down. When captured by the book's many scientific explanations, one can feel a little bored, but just at those times, there is often something that catches you offguard, pulling you right back into the story. In addition, it is all the more satisfying to reach a point where some of the many details described earlier become significant.