Enduring Love

The Ian McEwan novel Enduring Love opens with a picnic. Joe Rose and his girlfriend/common-law wife Clarissa are enjoying each other's company after a week's separation when they hear a call for help. Joe, along with several other men, wind up trying to control an errant hot-air balloon, an effort that will not only fail but will kill one of them in the process. In the shock following the death, Joe sympathetically glances at one of the other men, beginning a strange nightmare that will plague both his and Clarissa's life. It turns out that this other man, Jed, is deeply disturbed, and from that one exchanged look, he falls in love with Joe. Beyond that, he is certain that Joe loves him, and that Joe's every gesture is some sort of secret communication of affection. This leads to a "Fatal Attraction"-like obsession which is a little less violent but maybe even more disturbing. What separates this from just being another Fatal Attraction rip-off is Joe, who has problems of his own. Utterly rational - to the point of irrationality - Joe's attempts to clinically deal with his problems actually exacerbate them. His absolute certainty in the correctness of his actions lead to paranoia and alienation; instead of getting assistance with Jed, he winds up looking crazy himself...and due to the first-person narrative, the reader may start assuming Joe is insane as well. Although Ian McEwan may not be known as a suspense writer, Enduring Love shows that he is good at writing such tales. But this is not merely a thriller; it's also a tale of obsession and guilt and how the two can intertwine. This is a book well worth reading.

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.

To my shame, I must confess that I've never read any Ian McEwan before I came across this novel. McEwan, of course, has now won Britain's Booker Prize for AMSTERDAM, but many thought he should won this leading book prize with ENDURING LOVE. From the balloon on the cover my mind had conjured up a story of magical realism, set in the Italian renaissance along with the many weird works of Leonardi Da Vinci. I was wrong. The novel is far more down to earth than that - literally. The novel's narrator is Joe Rose, who's enjoying a day out in the British countryside when something unreal happens. A balloon flight has got into trouble, due to some fierce winds, and Joe is one of the men who runs to the rescue of the boy trapped in the balloon basket. Unfortunately, one of the rescuers is killed, driving Joe into a state of shock and guilt. This is bad enough, but then Joe becomes convinced that one of the other rescuers from that day is stalking him... This is a highly intriguing read which I cannot recommend highly enough.

"The Comfort of Strangers" spooked me out so bad I was afraid of my own shadows days after I'd read it. Such is the genius of Ian McEwan's craft in the genre of psycho suspense thrillers. That essential quality of "darkness", which has become a McEwanian trademark, is very much evident in "Enduring Love" but in surprising ways. Jed Parry's sudden obsession and stalking of Joe Rose is every bit as scary as the looming threat and encircling of the young visiting couple by the decadent older couple in TCOS. In "Enduring Love", the path chosen by McEwan to the heart of darkness is altogether different but stunning in its brilliance, the occurrence of a shock event that triggers off an emotional response that is menacing in its obsession and indifference to the havoc it creates to the lives of its victims. The now famous first chapter of "Enduring Love" is quite the most mesmerising piece of fictional writing, ever. The horror of the balloon accident is so vividly drawn and captured by McEwan's cleanly precise prose the scene remains firmly etched in your mind long after the action has moved on to another place. The "high" experienced in the opening chapter is so acute that what follows must inevitably seem anticlimatic. But what's surprising is that the novel veers off in a direction nobody could have anticipated after the heartstopping beginning, which on hindsight seems to be a kind of red herring. But that's a false charge. The real subject of novel isn't, to my mind, even about the effects of the de Clerambault disease but the fragility of the human condition, the absence of any solid foundation that underpins our self definition, and the ferocity of our self preservation instincts that lie buried within us, all ready to be sparked off by the unexpected. McEwan's expose on human frailty is painfully honest and may make some of us uncomfortable but the message seems to be that with self awareness, there is hope. "Enduring Love" is such a thrilling captivating read I guarantee you'd want to finish it in one sitting. It's quite the most entertaining novel I've read in a long time. Absolutely brilliant !

Many have praised the opening of this novel, and rightfully so, but that is only the first step in Ian McEwan's masterful creation. Told from the perspective of Joe Rose, a frustrated scientist turned journalist, the story captures our attention and never lets go. We share Joe's despair as the balloon rocks in the wind in the opening scene; we shiver as he finds himself being stalked by a delusional, obsessive intruder who thinks Joe is the love of his life. But Joe doesn't seem to trust himself entirely, and McEwan gives us plenty of reasons to distrust him even more, creating a tension in the narrative that makes us read on with a growing sense of impending calamity. In-between, McEwan explores the dichotomy of science and religion, logic and intuition, sanity and delusion. The writing is beautiful, as sharp and witty as we've come to expect of McEwan, but far more intricate and thoughtful. All that and a page-turner? It's a near-perfect read.