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A review by houyhnhnm64
Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
3.0
I left it too long writing up my thoughts about this book, so I cannot and will not be too detailed. I have mixed feelings about Machines like me, as I have about most recent novels by McEwan. It is a very clever book, the plot is intricate and well thought-out, it touches on politics, it is also intriguing and relevant: artificial intelligence is all around us and in rapid development, with many scientists warning us that we humans are creating our own undoing. So when Adam, the robot that the novel's male protagonist Charlie has bought, befriends and beds his girlfriend (and neighbour) Miranda, well, there you have it, robots beat us in every department!
But for all its cleverness, the book failed to emotionally engage me, as many earlier novels by McEwan succeeded in doing. The political context feels a little as if it has been dragged in because surely some sort of political engagement is required, the scientific episodes feel as if someone who has just before going onstage collected the necessary information is giving a lecture. And these political and scientific digressions come at the cost of leaving less room for developing the interplay between the characters. If I think back to Black Dogs for instance, the political issues are very relevant to the story, and the characters come to life in a much more compelling way. Scientific digressions are absent. A more focused, and therefore, to my mind, better book. Maybe I will pick up one of these earlier McEwans for a reread...
But for all its cleverness, the book failed to emotionally engage me, as many earlier novels by McEwan succeeded in doing. The political context feels a little as if it has been dragged in because surely some sort of political engagement is required, the scientific episodes feel as if someone who has just before going onstage collected the necessary information is giving a lecture. And these political and scientific digressions come at the cost of leaving less room for developing the interplay between the characters. If I think back to Black Dogs for instance, the political issues are very relevant to the story, and the characters come to life in a much more compelling way. Scientific digressions are absent. A more focused, and therefore, to my mind, better book. Maybe I will pick up one of these earlier McEwans for a reread...