This was exactly the novel I didn’t want to read, but at least it’s official now – NO MORE IAN MCEWAN BOOKS FOR ME, EVER. I would like to tell you how stupid this novel is, but Maciek beat me to it – see his great review herehttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show...So let me tell you about the boring sentences you have to accept into your life if you read this book. Here’s one:Now, in the late afternoon, although the sun was still high, the eastern sky had lost its vivid purple and, fading by degrees through nursery blue to diluted milk, effected, across the precise line of the horizon, the most delicate of transactions with the pale grey of the sea.This is, I take it, what people mean when they harp on about the Ian McEwan prose style. It looks, to me, as if, Mr McEwan, has broken in to James Ellroy’s office, and, stolen all James’ commas. Never have, I seen, so many clauses, and commas, in one short, novel. For me the effect is akin to reading through a stocking mask, the kind that robbers used before they all switched to balaclavas. Especially when our prose stylist is continually, dementedly, describing the weather, the streets of Venice, or the furniture in the rooms. Ah how he loves furniture. Cutlery too. You can tell this is pretentious I mean literary because although it’s set in Venice the V word is never mentioned. By now I have realised what Ian McEwan’s USP is. What he does is he describes in tedious detail a couple of ordinary novocained middle class English types in an ordinary situation and just when you’re dozing off he has a page of lurid violence. Sometimes the lurid violence comes at the beginning, sometimes in the middle, and here at the end. Here’s another McEwanbite for you. I think this is the way dead people would write, if they could :In the evening they decided they were suffering from lack of exercise and made plans to catch the boat across the lagoon the next day to the popular strip of land whose beaches faced the open sea. This led them to talk at length and euphorically, for they had just smoked another joint, about swimming, their preferred strokes, the relative merits of rivers, lakes, swimming-pools and seas, and the precise nature of the attraction water had for people : was it the buried memory of ancient sea ancestors? Talk of memory caused Mary to frown again. The conversation became desultory after that, and they went to bed earlier than usual, a little before midnight.Notice “the popular strip of land whose beaches faced the open sea” – he can’t give it its name, which would be the natural thing to do, because for some reason of high literature, he has decided not to say that the city with its canals and no traffic is Venice. So he has to use this forced circumlocution.This novel means nothing. It portentously gestures towards some kind of statement critical of men who think that women really like to be beaten up and by extension how feminism is destroying life as we know it but the denouement capsizes any attempt to make sense of the plot.This novel promotes yet another version of the concept that (some) victims actively participate in their own destruction. Why do they do this? Well, who knows, not Ian McEwan, that’s for sure. They just do. Too much novocaine maybe. I am promoting the idea that readers can do without Ian McEwan.
There are certain authors who I feel I should (eventually) read simply by dint of their, apparent, relevance to people. It seems like one should at least make a small effort to not curmudgeonly lie exclusively in the 1860-1960 century, and occasionally see what all the hub-bub is about. McEwan, DeLillo, and Eggers are all such authors who I have specifically avoided--the ones you see people walking around reading and wonder why they aren't reading Hamsun or Beckett, Mishima or Boll, Machado de Assis or Solzhenitsyn. In short, why they are sticking to what is already always available and never doing any small amount of digging for anything that might be a little more rewarding. But, again, I can't just lie around in what I already know.So, I undertook this book as an attempt to make sure I wasn't being too hard on the poor Brit without even getting to know him. The overwhelming ambivalence it left me with, however, was...unsurprising. McEwan's prose is a very clean, dispassionate affair. Neither too indulgent, nor too vague. In similar ways, 'The Comfort of Strangers' unfolds in a very paced, methodical (albeit ultimately hurried) rate. The level of restraint shown in the writing seems--based on the glowing reviews on the back--to be one of the reasons people like his books, but to me came across as calculated and boring. I know I already described it as "clean," but that seems the best word I can use for it, and in a certain way I found myself wondering on the difference between art and craft while reading this.Certainly McEwan can develop a story--he can conceive of it, push it from beginning to end, and tug the reader along easily all the while. However, there is almost nothing to take out of it all, and almost no risks taken in the writing itself (other than the story's grim plot developments). In this way he can craft a tale quite well. He spins a yarn like a campfire storyteller and when its over its over. I'm realizing more and more, however, that this is exactly what I'm not looking for in literature. Others may love the simplicity with which he can develop events (and there is nothing wrong with simplicity per se), but they didn't stick with me at all. And even though I started this a month and a half ago I found that I tore through the first 200 pages of Journey to the End of the Night in less time than it took me to read the first 50 pages of this. As points of comparison Celine's behemoth is constantly putting itself on the line, risking alienating everyone who reads it (and, if they read it seriously, risking alienating the audience from its own feelings many times). This, however, moves along swiftly and in the end you say "oh my," and then go back to your day job (which I don't want to do tomorrow!!!). Ultimately, I'd rather feel like I faced something when I'm finished reading a book than simply say "oh my!" What I'm trying to say is that this dude is not for me. But there are still good things to be found in current writing and I hope that for every DeLillo, Eggers, and McEwan there is at least an Auster, Murakami, or Banville, but I think I'm going to shrink back into that golden age of Lit again for a while. I've got to get back through The Night. Then Notes from Underground. Then reread some Beckett.
What do You think about The Comfort Of Strangers (1994)?
Ugh. What a disappointment. I would've given it two stars if the writing wasn't so on-point and the author wasn't so good at creating an atmosphere.I was captivated by the way McEwan so precisely defines the tiny, nagging feelings that creep up from travel fatigue, boredom in a relationship, and sexual stagnation. But the plot of this book... McEwan seems to have concentrated all his effort on describing everyday ennui only to fall short later on describing the actual scene of the crime. A crime
—Yve Chairez
What tended to happen, to Colin and Mary at least, was that subjects were not explored so much as defensively reiterated, or forced into elaborate irrelevancies, and suffused with irritability.This slim weapon is a foggy retreat into the nuptual neuroses during the holiday abroad. All baggage isn't declared at Customs. The soul is a mule through Passport Control. Regret and doubt are the rogue's liquidity, the same for the spouse. Lifting Blanche's best line will ultimately avail with kinky proposals and a nightlight stilleto. Beware.
—Jonfaith
In base a cosa si danno le stellette ?I criteri cambiano nel tempo con ripensamenti anche radicali. Ed il fattore - tempo ha un'incidenza determinante.Per questo libro (del 1981) il fattore - tempo è impietoso: è datato ed invecchiatissimo.I due protagonisti sono due "giovani adulti" radical - chic: si capisce che fanno gli artisti, lei è attrice in un "collettivo teatrale femminile" ed ha un paio di uscite tipicamente vetero - femministe, ma non è che abbiano granché da fare. Tuttavia (all'epoca la "classe media" era numerosa e florida, contava su patrimoni accumulati che consentivano una lunga permanenza nella condizione di adolescenziale nullafacenza) si permettono una lunga vacanza in una città mediterranea, che si capisce benissimo essere Venezia. Venezia che viene descritta con occhio indifferente e superficiale, che è quello dei protagonisti che praticamente trascorrono la lunga (ed immagino costosa) vacanza in camera da letto: lui fuma spinelli, lei fa yoga ed ogni tanto scopano e si confidano fantasie erotiche. Cosa che potevano benissimo fare anche vicino a casa in un albergo ad ore. Quelle rare volte che escono si perdono, anche con la cartina (vero, a Venezia ci si perde sempre e comunque), incrociano gli indigeni, la cui descrizione è tipica dello snobismo anglosassone applicato alla latinità, per cui i tratti somatici di camerieri e "battellieri" sembrano piuttosto quelli di un'orchestrina mariachi ("baffetti neri e sottili e capelli neri pettinati all'indietro"), per poi venire irretiti in una morbosa situazione da una strana coppia e veder in qualche modo soddisfatta la loro esigenza di trasgressione.Ecco, i protagonisti non sono in grado di suscitare empatia ed emozioni a distanza di anni: sono due esponenti di un certo tipo di umanità (alquanto futile ed inconsistente) legata ad un preciso periodo storico (fine anni 70, inizio anni 80), in cui cose trasgressive o rivoluzionarie si erano banalizzate in trastullo per benestanti annoiati. Di quel periodo resta ben poco di memorabile e la vicenda di Colin e Mary narrata da McEwan mi sembra debba condividerne la sorte.
—Paolo
