A review by damianwayne
Lessons by Ian McEwan

emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I don’t think I’m the target audience for this book of I’m being honest. I haven’t lived enough life to recognise whether what McEwan is saying has a profound and real meaning or not. 

I don’t know if this being semi-autobiographical makes me like it more or not. It is still too suspended from his own life to make it particularly sentimental (although I was a bit emotional knowing that the dedication was to all his siblings, including his long lost brother), but it most certainly would not be anywhere near as cohesive without his real experiences. 

I feel like an awful person for saying that Roland’s experience with and the subsequent decades-long fallout from Miriam was the most interesting part of the book, but it’s true. Roland still cannot fully reckon with just how much damage her grooming of him had through the rest of his life, and seemingly he never does. I really hope Roland’s confusion and inability to separate (what he viewed as) love and her crime is just how unresolved it is and not McEwan saying it requires more nuance. Because it doesn’t. She was an paedophilic adult woman who groomed and sexually exploited her student from the age of 11. There is no leeway there. My concern is that by referring to them as, in a roundabout way, both complicit, McEwan is showing has not learned anything in the 21 years since Atonement was written where he called Lola and Briony just as complicit as Paul. The rapist and victim should never be presented as on equal standing in the matter. That makes me uncomfortable in rating this super highly.

However, I do believe Alessa’s transphobia is meant to be parodying JK Rowling and her insane black mould-driven rants. Thank you for that laugh.
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