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.