LESSONS by Ian McEwan

The two defining chapters in Roland Baines’s life involve women, and we learn of them early in the book.  First, he has an affair at fourteen with his piano teacher.  Propelled by the Cuban Missile Crisis into this unfortunate relationship, Roland fears the world will be obliterated before he has experienced sex with a woman.  The second major event in his life is his wife’s abandonment of him and their infant son in order to focus on a literary career.  She deems collateral damage to be unavoidable.  Roland himself is a man of many talents, none of which he nurtures.  Time and again he fails to act but merely reacts, as world events such as Chernobyl and Covid-19 provide a backdrop for his inertia.  The contrast here is between his inaction and his wife’s pursuit of her art at the expense of everything else, including love.  Roland, on the other hand, excels at music, poetry, and tennis but eschews all of them for reasons unknown, perhaps lack of ambition, but he still has devoted friends and family, including his in-laws.  For me, this book never elicited any emotional response and did not keep me engaged.  The few surprises, such as Roland’s parents’ history, do not really change the trajectory of Roland’s life in any measurable way.   Ultimately, I think the point is that Roland is content with the life he has and that being a star in some capacity is not a ticket to happiness or fulfillment.  However, such a life does not make for a great read.

BLACK DOGS by Ian McEwan

I am not sure you can actually write a memoir for someone else, but that seems to be the premise here.  The first-person narrator not only proceeds to write someone else’s memoir, but he confesses that after his parents died and he went to live with his adult sister’s family, he often hijacked his friends parents, intentionally showing up at their homes while their son was away.  The same thing occurs with his attachment to his wife’s parents, and he periodically interviews his mother-in-law, June, to compose a book about her life, alongside her mostly estranged husband, Bernard.  Both June and Bernard embraced communism after WWII, but a terrifying incident involving two black dogs during their honeymoon sent June down a different path.  A couple of other acts of violence are committed in this book—one in Berlin after the wall comes down and one in a restaurant where a father viciously strikes his son.  The narrator witnesses both of these latter events, but June’s experience with the black dogs is not fully clear to the reader until very late in the book.  Until that point, although we know the impact that this encounter had on her life, the dogs are merely symbolic of evil.  June eventually shares her belief that evil that resides in all of us, and another anecdote regarding black dogs indicates that they are also an avatar for the Gestapo.  The thing that struck me most about this book is that, although we in the U.S. rarely think about WWII, Europe is still wary in its aftermath.

THE INNOCENT by Ian McEwan

Leonard is an Englishman in his mid-twenties who was living with his parents when he was reassigned to a top secret project in Berlin.  It’s the 1950s, and the Berlin Wall has not been constructed yet.  A British/American team is tunneling under East Berlin with some sophisticated communications equipment so that they can eavesdrop on the Russians.  Leonard is naïve in many ways, including romance, shows signs of poor judgment, and is easily manipulated.  He falls in love with a divorced German woman, Maria, whose ex-husband still beats her up from time to time.  This fact alone would seem to be a red flag, but Leonard is no saint, either, imagining that Maria would enjoy being sexually assaulted.  What??  He is well aware that the Russians often raped civilian women as they swept into Germany after WWII.  Leonard’s wrong-headedness is not a matter of being innocent at all and totally defies logic.  In other words, Leonard is not the most lovable protagonist, and his behavior becomes even more appalling as the novel progresses.  In fact, he’s something of a bumbling idiot, but McEwan is known for his clueless characters who just seem to dig themselves into a deeper and deeper hole.  This and other underground tunnel metaphors abound, including the dark nature of this novel.

THE CHILD IN TIME by Ian McEwan

Stephen Lewis, a children’s book author, is in the checkout line with his 3-year-old daughter, Kate, when she suddenly disappears—presumably abducted.  As you might expect, Stephen’s marriage to Julie starts to crumble and they separate.  In the meantime, his friend Charles, a well-known politician, and his wife, Thelma, a physicist, have moved out of the city.  Charles has abandoned his career in an attempt to reclaim his childhood by climbing up and down a tree barefoot.  Stephen now distances himself from his friend, who is clearly mentally ill, while Stephen’s only real responsibility is participating in the work of a committee that is preparing a report on raising children.  The plot obviously focuses on children, specifically a missing child and the grief that ensues, but the title also mentions time, which is Thelma’s specialty and what her husband is trying to reverse.  In fact, there is a momentary glimpse into the past in which Stephen witnesses a rendezvous between his parents before his birth.  This book perhaps invites a second reading, as one reviewer implied that possibly a rogue time traveler smuggled Kate into another time period.  Hmmm.  I don’t think I buy that, and of course I have no idea what the author intended.  The bottom line is that her grieving parents are trying to find their way without her.  And, as bleak as this novel is, the ending makes reading it worthwhile.

AFTERLIVES by Abdulrazak Gurnah

In the early 1900s in East Africa, two young African men join the German army’s fight against the British.  Ilyas has a young sister under his protection but returns her to a life of physical abuse so that he can join the German colonial army in its fight.  The big question may be why, but the bigger question concerns his fate.  The other man is Hamza, who has never met Ilyas, but falls in love with his sister, Ayfia, after he has returned to his village after the war and she has been rescued by the man whom becomes Hamza’s work supervisor.  Both Ilyas and Hamza owe their literacy to the Germans, but Hamza suffers serious injuries that were not sustained in battle.  Ultimately, we have a love story set against a backdrop of European colonialism—first Germany’s and then Britain’s—in East Africa.  More importantly, I think, is the sense of community that surrounds these characters.  Some of their elders are obviously cruel, but others are willing to accept and assist someone like Hamza in need of a leg up.  Despite taciturn and even hostile exteriors, many people, including a pastor and a German officer, help Hamza become an asset to the community.  For anyone not familiar with the geography of East Africa or the impact of WWI on that part of the world, the historical aspect of this novel may be confusing.  However, the family saga is not.  It is easy to follow, and I found myself getting caught up in the lives of these characters, who like Hamza and Afiya, hope to catch a break after enduring so much adversity.

SIGNAL FIRES by Dani Shapiro

This novel opens with a terrible car accident.  Fifteen-year-old Theo is driving, because his older sister, Sarah, is intoxicated.  Another teenager in the car does not survive.  Sarah claims to be the driver, not only to protect Theo, but also because she so casually threw him the keys.  This tragedy becomes a secret that Sarah and Theo’s family will never discuss.  Years later a younger family moves in across the street, and, although the two families never socialize with one another, their lives become entangled.  This other family’s son, Waldo, has a genius-level IQ but is a disappointment to his father whose expectations Waldo will never meet.  Waldo’s passion is astronomy with a healthy dose of physics and maybe even a bit of metaphysics.  His interest in the death of stars leads him to a philosophy about the death of people as well, and his depth of perception is totally invisible to his father, who has anger management issues.  These two families are troubled in completely different ways.  Waldo’s is basically dysfunctional, while Sarah and Theo have guilt issues that go unaddressed.  The fact that their parents refuse to talk about the accident just adds fuel to the fire.  If you are thinking that this novel leans toward the melancholy, you would be right, but it is much more.  Sarah, Theo, and Waldo all have to figure out a way to navigate lives whose foundations are shaky.

WESTERN LANE by Chetna Maroo

Gopi and her two older sisters live in England and are still reeling after their mother’s death.  Their father has decided to turn his energies toward making his daughters excellent squash players.  Meanwhile, their father’s brother and his wife, who live in Edinburgh, have offered to raise one of the girls.  Eleven-year-old Gopi, our first-person narrator, is the most likely candidate, but she is also the best squash player by far.  She becomes friends with a boy named Ged who plays squash at the same facility, and they both register for a major tournament that will take place in a few months.  This tournament becomes the focus of most of the book’s characters, but an overheard remark leads to events that threaten Gopi’s participation.  This book definitely has melancholy overtones, but the prospect of the tournament keeps both the characters and the reader engaged.  The specter of the dead mother looms over everyone, and too many decisions seems to require debate over what she would do if she were still alive.  This frequent review of the dead mother’s possible opinion stifles her family’s ability to move forward and into a life without her.  The father is obviously depressed and struggling to be motivated to keep the family afloat, while he suffers disapproval over his friendship with Ged’s mother.  I don’t want to make this post longer than the book itself, but Ged’s mother, who has very little to say in this book, is probably my favorite character.  What she does say is wisely protective of her son and not open to discussion, and she stands her ground firmly without wavering.  Gopi’s aunt is also intransigent on a completely different issue and in her mind is protective of Gopi.  In reality, her stance is rooted in a bias regarding what girls should and should not do.

EASTBOUND by Maylis de Kerangal

Aliocha is twenty years old and has been conscripted into the Russian army.  And if that’s not bad enough, he is on the Trans-Siberian Railway, headed to an unknown destination.  After being attacked by another conscript, he decides that escape is the only answer.  Easier said than done, but he enlists the help of a French woman, Helene, who has left her Russian lover, with no particular destination in mind.  Here are two people who don’t know where they are going, but this train is going to take them there.  Helene sees another spontaneous fugitive like herself in Aliocha, a total stranger, but Aliocha is not above using intimidation in his frantic effort to convince Helene, or even a child, to assist him.  Packed with tension, everything about this book is small—the number of pages, the timeline of just a few days, and the cramped space of the train, contrasting with the vast Siberian landscape on the outside.  The setting is perhaps a bit claustrophobic intentionally, adding to the feeling of desperation that Aliocha is experiencing.  However, Helene’s plight, serving as his accomplice, is just as dire.  This book speeds along at a much faster clip than the 60 kph train.