První setkání s McEwanem (šla jsem si do knihovny pro úplně jiné knížky, které tam zas nebyly). Sedla mi většina povídek, přestože jsou občas bizarní, nechutné, šokující... taky v tom byla spousta jiných citů, než jen ten hnus, co si z toho někteří možná odnesou jako hlavní vjem (a není se čemu divit, je to občas dost síla).

Morboso y turbio, te das cuenta que estas leyendo algo bueno cuando te genera algo y no te aparta de querer seguir leyendo, este es el caso. Es increíble lo asqueroso que pueden llegar a ser algunas de estas historias (sobre todo la primera) pero que quieras seguir leyendo, aunque tengas una cara de asco terrible.

La mejor historia para mi es la de geometría de los cuerpos o algo así, me mata la anécdota de que el protagonista tiene un pene embalsamado de un familiar en el escritorio.

(2.5) There’s a nastiness to these early McEwan stories that reminded me of Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn. The teenage narrator of “Homemade” tells you right in the first paragraph that his will be a tale of incest. A little girl’s body is found in the canal in “Butterflies.” The voice in “Conversation with a Cupboard Man” is that of someone who has retreated into solitude after being treated cruelly at the workplace (“I hate going outside. I prefer it in my cupboard”). “Last Day of Summer” seems like a lovely story about a lodger being accepted as a member of the family … until the horrific last page. Only “Cocker at the Theatre” was pure comedy, of the raunchy variety (emphasis on “cock”). You get the sense of a talented writer whose mind you really wouldn’t want to spend time in; had this been my first exposure to McEwan, I would probably never have opened up another of his books.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.

There is some very disturbing content here. At turns Nightmarish and hallucinogenic, but always compelling in a rubbernecking way. He went on to far greater and enjoyable material, but there is plenty in this debut collection to suggest a talented writer has been introduced to the literary stage.

One of the reviews on the back cover of First Love, Last Rites reads, "There's an assured and terribly macabre depravity about Ian McEwan's short stories..." I would have to agree with this statement. However, McEwan saves what could be a read about despicable people by coloring them with a sense of innocence, of curiosity. Most of their horrific deeds (including trying to have sex with one's younger sister, a husband and wife who make Taylor and Burton in Virginia Woolf seems like the Bradys, dressing your adolescent nephew as a girl and getting him drunk on wine, etc.) are not predetermined. Most of their actions are spontaneous, the characters' motives unknown to both the reader and the character. Even a story like "Butterflies," a first person chronicle of one of the worst crimes imaginable, is rendered mildly sympathetic, at least enough so that we don't turn away and shut the book, or move on to the next story.
These are not stories for the faint of heart. McEwan is tapped into the darker recesses of the human psyche, those parts we don't share with the world, or even admit to oursleves. But the writing is so crisp, vibrant, assured, that we will follow it anywhere.
The world is not all rivers of gumdrops and candy cane mountains, this we all know. Everyone has creeping thoughts that, for the most part, they don't act on. Thankfully we have Ian McEwan to show us what the people who do act on those thoughts are made of. And that these people are still human.

The teaser on the back cover says "... as terrifying as... Stephen King..."

Uh, no. Not at all.

Gruesome? A little. Perverted? Yeah. Sheer horror? Hmm, missed that. A "splendid magician of fear"? Whoops, missed that one too. McEwan is morbid, I'll grant you that, but macabre? Nope. Maybe I'm too jaded by what passes for entertainment these days. The prose is okay, but "crafted with a lyricism and intensity that compel us to confront our secret kinship with the horrifying..."? It failed to do that for me. Perhaps I have already arrived at my "secret kinship with the horrifying" and McEwan's words have no power to compel me to do anything beyond turning the next page in hope of finding out what all the fuss is about. This is my second McEwan book, and I have been disappointed with both. I have Atonement sitting on my shelf and I am actually dreading the attempt to read it. At this moment I will likely never get around to it, unless I have exhausted everything else in print first. In the meantime, I keep asking my self "what am I missing?"

Two stars because he is a competent wordsmith, but this juvenile collection of shock storytelling, all style and no substance, deserves just one star.

A nasty little debut (1975) from McEwan (or 'Ian Macabre', a nickname his early novels earned him). Plenty of incest, child abuse, lots of ejaculating, murder, and mental illness, makes this short story collection anticipate quite nicely the blossoming 80's shock lit UK fiction of Martin Amis (Dead Babies, Money), Iain Banks (Wasp Factory), Graham Swift (Waterland), and others, himself included (Cement Garden to Black Dogs, really) which aimed to shake up the literary establishment with bad boy transgressive texts.

His talent and potential is clear, but almost eclipsed by the overbearing subject matter. Not a fun read, but interesting if you want to get a fuller idea of the breadth of his career.

Absolutely sickening to read some of these. I adore Ian McEwan’s writing, however, I did not enjoy this collection of sexual frustration and perversion

A collection of sickening & disturbing short stories. Can’t fault the writing because clearly the point was to shock and unnerve the reader - mission accomplished. I bought this years ago and my copy is from 1975. I probably wouldn’t have bought it if there had been a blurb.

Goddamn the first two stories are total doozies (sp?), imaginative with extraordinary prose, and worth four stars, even if the rest of the book seemed to fall off for me.

Yes yes it was well written stuff I suppose but really I found myself losing interest quite rapidly towards the end. What started out feeling like a more verbose version of early Martin Amis quickly turned in to something quite dull I suppose. The final two stories felt like they would last FOREVER.

The writing of these stories of everyday people doing everyday things before the perverse or shocking (not in the sense that it was a surprise) twist was a novel idea that kept me reading and interested longer because of the first person narrative longer than if it had been a critical third person style but that wasn't enough to entertain me.

I've never tried any other McEwan books, this was the only one that sounded even remotely of interest to me and in that it seems to have failed. It certainly didn't help seeing the author photo on the jacket and corrlating it with the descriptions of his paedophiles, rapists and murderers in his stories; ridiculously I'm sure but I couldn't help but think "I really wouldn't be surprised if he had written from experience" after that.

I would not recommend starting to read McEwan with this collection of short stories, or start getting into short stories with this collection. They are disturbing and odd involving incest, murder, and abuse. McEwan gives you get an inside look at how a psychopath thinks. In all honesty this is not his best works. On the positive side - they are short stories so you don't have to spend a lot of time to get through this work. This book consists of the following short stories:

Homemade
Solid Geometry
Last Day of Summer
Cocker at the Theatre
Butterflies
Conversation with a Cupboard Man
First Live, Last Rites
Disguises

How did this book find me? I'm working my way though McEwan's writing.