Hayal edelim:
Yolunda giden bir ilişkiniz, fena olmayan bir işiniz var. Bir gün, tamamen tesadüfen, yolunuz bir yabancı ile kesişiyor. Birbirinize ettiğiniz birkaç kelam ile tanık olunan tuhaf bir hadise dışında bir etkileşiminiz yok. Siz hayatınıza kaldığınız yerden devam ederken bu yabancı bir anda yeniden karşınıza çıkıp “onun da sizi sevdiğini” söylüyor. O sırada siz: HA?
***
McEwan beyefendi yine bizi insan ilişkilerinin uçurum kenarına götürmüş. Tam uçtasınız. Aşağısı alabildiğine boşluk. İtişilecek yer değil. Ama itişmeden de işin içinden çıkılamıyor. Ne de olsa siz başlatmışsınız bu aşkı. Yabancı kişi öyle söylüyor. Önce başlatıp sonra hiçbir şey yokmuş gibi davranmak size yakışır mı?
***
Beşinci kitabını devirdikten sonra artık eminim. Bu adamın kitaplarını kıymetli kılan şey, okura “ben olsam ne yapardım?” sorusunu sordurtması. Okuru bu anlamda hikâyenin aktif bir katılımcısı kılıyor ve kitap sayfasının üzerindeki mürekkep izleri, üç boyutlu bir dünyaya dönüşüyor. Hikayeler anlatmak isteyen biri olarak bu yaklaşımı kendime örnek alıyorum. Okuru kurguya entegre etmenin duyguları sömürerek yahut korkudan altına işeterek değil ve fakat karar mekanizmalarını tetikleyerek de gerçekleştirilebileceğini görmek beni memnun ediyor.
***
McEwan ne yazdıysa gönderin gelsin. Not: “Beton Bahçe”, sen gelme canım, bir işim çıktı.
***
Sevgiler!

[Revised 11/2/22 and spoiler warning added]

Well we have to give McEwan an A+ for an original plot on this one. A ballooning accident leads to a man acquiring a male stalker who interferes so much in his life that it begins to endanger the first man’s marriage.

SPOILERS FOLLOW

The sudden and obsessive love is directed at our main character, a married male journalist who writes science articles for magazines. The onset of love is provoked by a tragedy – a ballooning accident in which a father is killed, dropping from clinging to the balloon, while his son is saved inside the balloon. A group of men in a park try to grab the balloon in a moment of “democratic chaos” of attempted rescue without a leader, with each doing different things and yelling different commands – “hold on, let go.” I’m not giving away any plot – we know all this from the blurbs and by the end of the first chapter.



Our journalist’s lover turns into a violent stalker. He’s also a religious nut whose goal is “to bring you to God, through love.”

The main story becomes how the journalist reacts to his stalker and how he shares his fear with his wife. It doesn’t go well and impacts what had been a good marriage. “What was so exhausting about him was the variety of his emotional states and the speed of their transitions. Reasonableness, tears, desperation, vague threat – and now honest supplication.”

Another theme is: how do you talk about a life-changing event like that and with whom? He constantly relives the event and experiences guilt or some “unnamed sensation” of “did I do the wrong thing?” The plot thickens when he visits the dead man’s wife who puts a whole new spin on the incident even though she wasn’t there.



This is McEwan, so we get tidbits about wine and vignettes about memory as surely as we get Johnny Walker and cats with Murakami. Because the main character is a science writer, we get snippets of scientific ideas – Darwin, DNA, the Hubble telescope, how brain scans show tricks of memory.

Some lines I liked:

“The pavements were empty, the streets were full. Cars were our citizens now.”

About an academic’s house in north Oxford: “No colors but brown and cream. No design or style, no comfort, and in winter, very little warmth. Even the light was brownish, at one with the smells of damp, coal dust, and soap.”

“I felt that empty, numbing neutrality that comes when one person in the room appears to monopolize all the available emotion.”

“At the time I had trouble deciding whether he was slightly clever or very stupid.”

This is a mid-career novel by McEwan, 1997. It’s about erotomania, the syndrome characterized by the delusional idea, usually in a young woman, that a man whom she considers to be of higher social and/or professional standing, who may be a complete stranger, is in love with her. He sends her signs and messages that only she can interpret, keeping the delusion alive. It can occur in males too, as it does in this story, especially in men who have social disabilities; are disconnected loners with no friends, and may already have schizophrenia or other disorders. McEwan doesn’t use the word erotomania though, he calls it by its original name, De Clerambault’s syndrome.



A good read and typical McEwan. It was made into a movie in Britain in 2004.

I don't know about this book.

On one hand, when all is said and done the narrative feels simply like an intricately-written case study, though occasionally punctuated with inconsistently glorious descriptions, for an odd psychological disorder that even with all of Ian McEwan's brilliance is still only mildly interesting.

On the other hand, it's McEwan's wonderful writing combined with a first-person perspective, which gives us the rare treat of a character reflecting introspectively using all of McEwan's power with words.

Now and again I was reminded of Paul Auster - the hints at future calamities and complications prior to their being actually narrated, the ambiguity as to whether events are real or imagined, the questioning of the protagonist's sanity.

Like Auster (but so much better), McEwan has a special talent for turning order into disorder. Strangely, in this book things return to some degree of order at the end; I'm used to there being no loose ends at the end of a McEwan novel, but usually it's because everyone's dead or something. I hate to imply that the ending was too happy just because it wasn't completely hopelessly tragic; it was more that it seemed plucked from thin air.

Definitely a 2.5-star book.

This reminds me of the Audrey Tautou film about how things are never as they appear...I think it was called "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not". One's perception of an event can transform the lives of another being. Tragedies either make or break familial bonds of love, and in the end you find out what foundation your relationship was built on.

We all hope that ours would be an "enduring love" that like Shakespeare said, "looks on tempests and is not shaken."
Question remains, is the tragedy a blessing bringing absolution or do we prefer living in ignorant bliss?

Enduring Love is Ian McEwan’s novel about two men, brought together initially by their involvement in a freak accident involving a hot air balloon. In the aftermath of this incident, our protagonist (Joe) finds himself in the awkward position (he’s an atheist) of being asked to pray with the man who ultimately ends up being the antagonist. He politely declines but the religious chap won’t take no for an answer and becomes deeply obsessed with Joe, proclaiming he loves him and that he knows Joe loves him too. Essentially, this is the story of how things go from slightly awkward to life-threatening.

This was a re-read for me, spurred by seeing a very cheap copy of the audiobook. I have to say, however, that I didn’t enjoy it as much as I did the first time.

Perhaps it’s because I already knew the ultimate outcome and remembered most of the twists along the way and, therefore, didn’t have that thrill of watching a plot unfurl and become clearer along the way. Perhaps it’s just because I’ve changed as a person in the fifteen or so years since I first read this book. I may have lost some of my patience for the rambling, tangent-filled style in which the protagonist/narrator writes.

I also wasn’t keen on the final part of the novel being comprised of two (fake) appendices, written about the characters from the point of view of a previously uninvolved third party. While the very end of these appendices gives you a hint of what happened to the characters after the main body of the book ends, the majority of their content is just a clinical rehashing of the story we’ve just read.

Despite these issues, I did still enjoy the book. It’s a story that resonates with me, having been in similar (but not so intensely serious) situations myself. Have most of us not found ourselves stuck with the prolonged, unwanted attentions and company of somebody we actively dislike but are, perhaps, too polite to shake off? Hopefully, it’s fallen short of actual stalking in most cases.

It’s very well written, too, with Joe being a classic example of the unreliable narrator. We’re aware from quite early on that the reality of the events Joe is narrating for us may actually be quite different from how he is portraying them. The relative reliability of different people’s viewpoints and observations is one of the central themes of the book and one that McEwan communicates extremely well.
When I first read this novel, I think I would have given it five stars but, on re-reading I’m going to give it a three star rating. Mainly because I can’t give it the 3.5 star 7 out of 10 rating I’d actually like to give it.

Somehow I feel Ian McEwan is not the author for me, though I have a list of his books on my shelf. The closest I got to liking one of his books was 'Atonement'. And did I mention, the female characters, protagonists in his books just don't cease to irritate me or would it be too harsh to say that I hate them?

Based on a case study of a mental disorder called 'de clerambault's syndrome' or 'erotomania' which is characterized by a strong urge of possession of a man/woman whom he/she considers to be of higher social and/or professional standing and to be in love with him/her; I found the story to be lacking originality and more to be the case study it represents.

Well, I simply couldn't endure this love!

«L'innamoramento è sempre un'esperienza estrema: quando ci si innamora, l'altro diventa un'ossessione»

L’inizio è facile da individuare. Eravamo al sole, vicino a un cerro che ci proteggeva in parte da forti raffiche di vento. Io stavo inginocchiato sull’erba con un cavatappi in mano, e Clarissa mi porgeva la bottiglia – un Daumas Gassac del 1987. L’istante fu quello, quella la bandierina sulla mappa del tempo: tesi la mano e, nel momento in cui il collo freddo e la stagnola nera mi sfioravano la pelle, udimmo le grida di un uomo. Ci voltammo a guardare dall’altra parte del prato, e intuimmo il pericolo. L’attimo dopo, correvo in quella direzione. Si trattò di un rivolgimento assoluto: non ricordo di aver lasciato cadere il cavatappi, né di essermi alzato, di aver preso una decisione, né di aver sentito la raccomandazione che Clarissa mi rivolse. Che idiozia, lanciarmi dentro questa storia e i suoi labirinti, allontanandomi di volata dalla nostra felicità, tra l’erba tenera di primavera accanto al cerro. Un altro grido e l’urlo del bambino, affievolito dal vento che spazzava le chiome alte degli alberi lungo le siepi. Accelerai la mia corsa. A quel punto, improvvisamente, da angolazioni diverse del prato, altri quattro uomini stavano convergendo sul luogo dell’incidente, correndo come me.

L'incipit è uno dei migliori di McEwan, è memorabile ,il dramma che si innesta in un quadro quasi bucolico
Poi la vicenda si fa un po' contorta ,ma è un bel romanzo , con una scrittura fluida e avvincente, sull'amore (malato)sulla follia, sulle certezze e sulle incertezze che all'improvviso ci scombussolano l'esistenza
Viviano dentro una nebbia percettiva in parte condivisa, ma inaffidabile, e i nostri dati sensoriali ci arrivano distorti dal prisma di desideri e convinzioni che alterano persino i ricordi. [...]Discendiamo da una stirpe di spacciatori di mezze verità i quali per convincere gli altri, escogitarono l’espediente di persuadere se stessi
Sull' ossessione che perseguita, su come una insistente minaccia possa danneggiare il nostro equilibrio .
3/4 stelle

I liked Atonement and On Chesil Beach much more to be honest.

After reading Atonement last year I bought a ton of books by McEwan. Really, I ended up buying everything that remotely appealed to me, some books I'm pretty sure I'm going to like, some I bought on a whim. Anyway, that's how I ended up having all these books on my TBR:

Sweet Tooth
The Children Act
On Chesil Beach (read a week ago, really good.)
Amsterdam
Enduring Love (first disappointing book by him.)

Sadly Enduring Love didn't work for me. The writing is still gorgeous and the first chapters were indeed really good, but I never clicked with the characters. It probably didn't help that I expected something completely different.

The thing is, Enduring Love bored me a bit. It's not a terrible book, not at all, nor a book I did not like after all, but just not my kind of story. It's simple: it wasn't my cup of tea. Atonement made me cry, On Chesil Beach left me drained and empty, Enduring Love fell flat. I didn't feel anything.

I'm going to read The Children Act soon, because I don't want to stop reading McEwan.

Estoy sorprendido gratamente con esta novela.

Es el primer libro que leo del autor (sí, lo sé, llegué demasiado tarde) y casi no tenía idea de qué se trataba. Tengo que decir que me llevé muy buenas sorpresas, hubo giros de tuerca que me coparon muuucho. Además, está excelentemente bien escrito y me dejó con muchas ganas de leer más de Ian McEwan. Hace tiempo que un libro no me generaba las sensaciones que esta historia me produjo. Empecé a leerlo de manera tranquila, pero después no pude dejarlo debido a lo atrapante que me resultó.

Un alt roman excellent al unuia dintre cei mai mari scriitori contemporani, după părerea mea.

Excelentă construcția unui narrator de a cărui credibilitate m-am îndoit și eu la un moment-dat, înclinînd să-i dau dreptate Clarisei. Sindromul lui de Clérambault, de care nu aveam habar (și pe care, tre să recunosc, l-am suspectat o vreme pe autor că l-a inventat :D ) prilejuiește o narațiune care ar trebui să se îndrepte vertiginos spre kitsch dar nu ajunge nici măcar la granița cu acesta.

Și evident, ca de obicei, ceea ce se verifică nu este durabilitatea iubirii de tip de clerambaultian (aia e verificat durabilă) ci durabilitatea sentimentului în cuplu – care se dovedește, ca întotdeauna, iluzorie.

Ian McEwan'ı okumaya başlayalı henüz bir yıl olmadı; ancak McEwan ile tanışmakta bu kadar geç kaldığım için arayı kapatmak adına adetim olmadığı halde kısa zamanda epey kitabını okudum.
Yeni bir kitabının yayımlandığını görünce (aslında önceden Can Yayınları'ndan çıkmış; ama o baskısı tükenmiş, YKY yeniden yayımlamış) hemen alıp okumak istedim.
Sonsuz Aşk, McEwan'ın okuduğum diğer romanlarına nazaran daha durağan ve daha az "şaşırtıcı" bir romandı diyebilirim. Yine de ben McEwan'ı okumayı seviyorum.
Siz de benim gibi kanmayasınız diye yazmak istiyorum, kitabın sonundaki "ekler" de McEwan'ın kurgusundan ibaret. Hakikaten böyle bir şey olmuş mu diye araştırayım derken öğrendim. :)

Ian McEwan's novels tend to revolve around a single event, a single moment, or day. This day will change the character's life and everyone around them. It shows the past and the future spiraling around this one narrative point in the story. He's at his best in this format, and that definitely shows in Enduring Love.

It is essentially a case study of a man suffering from extreme, disturbing delusions and a fierce obsession, and the man who struggles to deal with being the object of that obsession. But it never felt clinical to me. It did start a bit slow, a bit ponderously, I will admit that. But his language got me anyway, with a great deal of beautiful imagery and explorations on various themes. After that, McEwan rapidly builds the tension and suspense, despite the fact that the whole thing remains wrapped up in psychological analysis, rational reasoning and scientific analogy, the study of it is so rapid and consuming that it feels like constant action.

The "villain".. if we can really call him that manages to be horrifying and eerie and completely disturbing and yet, there is still a kind of terrible beauty to him that forces you to think about your own obsessions and your own loves. He represents the kind of all consuming romantic love that many people believe they want, that movies and literature celebrate, except gone off the rails. It raises such interesting, disturbing questions about the nature of love and reality, how we make our own worlds in life and just how far we can go with that before it is too far, what we are really motivated by in love, what being "in love" really means, does someone else need to feel what you feel to make it okay?... on and on. I think McEwan is certainly trying to make us all see ourselves, at least a little bit, in the case study of the "villain," and I think he's quite successful at it.