This is far from the best novel by Ian McEwan. But even in a less novel, I think he still merits 4 stars. As allways the writing is clear, elegant and compelling.
The reason I felt it was less than some other books, was the overflow of themes and subjects. The book sometimes gives the impression of a story meandering on while touching difficult ideas, yet not taking the time to really dig into them.
Essentially it is about how people sometimes love eachother very much and yet do not (want to?) understand the other and are unable to build a life together. About how people remember things in a very different way and the illusions of the past we all have.

I gave this 3 stars yesterday, but as it's settled, I'm more and more taken with Black Dogs. What a writer! What a story! I'm still thinking about a lot of the passages and am bumping up my rating. My original review is below:

Once again, I'm incredibly impressed by Ian McEwan's writing and his ability to transport the reader so fully into a time and place that isn't at all familiar. That being said, I don't think this is a top McEwan for me-- it lacked a spark or something resembling joy but I can't quite put my finger on what's missing. I'm glad to have read it but I prefer On Chesil Beach as a slim study on a relationship I think.

The Innocent marked the end of my first period of reading everything McEwan wrote. It was the murder and mutilation that put me off. The discovery of horror in the mundane may have been essential to his short stories, but it just didn't seem to work in his longer fiction.
I came back to him with  Atonement, having read the Dunkirk scene in Granta: God, his prose was good! And in these later novels, he has solved the problem, his plots are horrific only when required.
Recently, I've been filling in the gaps, cautiously trying to find out when he first wrote a really good novel.  Enduring Love was particularly interesting in this respect. The Black Mac moment, the stomach churning moment of psychological horror was actually at the beginning of the story - can't get more essential than that.
Likewise with Black Dogs, though the narrative cleverly presents the moment at the end of the book. But here he falls at the last hurdle. The dogs' attack, given June's circumstances, was already disturbing enough. But then like sharpening a bullet he added a little too much: the discussion of what "the dogs had been trained to do...". At least he didn't describe it.

It is so good to get back to Ian McEwan. I haven’t read one of his books in more than a year and this one made me want to start a new binge.

As always, I revere his narrative movement, but this book, a story about a writer trying to come to terms with the existence of the ethereal versus a reality that is wholly tangible, has an altogether different kind of movement from his other books, and it creates sometimes painful dramatic tension.

With my hand stretched out in front of my face, I walked across the hall. Everywhere was a sweet smell I associated with June [his dead mother-in-law]. It came from the lavender soap she had bought in bulk. We were not even halfway through her supply. I groped my way across the living room and opened the door to the kitchen. The smell here was of metal and, faintly, butane gas. The fuse box and switch were in a cupboard on the wall on the far side of the room. Even in this darkness it showed as a blacker patch ahead of me. As I edged around the kitchen table, the sensation that I was being watched intensified. The surface of my skin had become an organ of perception, sensitized to darkness and to every molecule of air. My bare arms were registering a threat. Something was up; the kitchen did not feel the same. (92)

In this novel you see the normal movement he regularly creates by having a person move in space, but here there is also an almost palpable ephemeral vibration. It comes in memories, still places (like the kitchen in the quote), most interestingly in a trip to a concentration camp; in this case, the dead place is alive, but as a Jew I experienced it entirely differently than the protagonist did—McEwan’s writing allows this. It comes in the movement of history, in the visceral experience of mass grief, and, central to this book, to the movement of the heart versus its shadow: pure evil. It’s a terrific story that is both cerebral and heart-pumping.

And I particularly liked the ending, which could not be more applicable to today, although the book is copyrighted 1992. I don't think it is a spoiler to end with its message, cleverly delivered by someone other than the searching protagonist, that without each of us doing the personal work to live from our hearts, it doesn't much matter what goes on politically. If we don't do the work, we will be hopelessly caught in darkness.

رمانی درباره‌ی آدم‌های معمولی با آرمان‌های سیاسی.
راویِ انگلیسیِ ما در تلاش است تا زندگی‌نامه‌ی مادرزن و پدرزنش را بنویسد؛ آرمان‌گراهایی که بعد از جنگ جهانی دوم به حزب کمونیست انگلستان پیوسته بودند. مرد بعدها سناتور حزب کارگر می‌شود، ولی زن خیلی زود حزب را رها می‌کند. مرد با نیمچه شباهتی به بازارُفِ تورگنیف، ذهن علمی‌ای دارد و برای رسیدن به هدف صلح، کمی دروغ و جنگ را جایز می‌داند. زن در همان ابتدای ازدواج، در یک مسافرت، با دو سگ سیاه مواجه می‌شود که ترس مواجهه با آن‌ها یک نیروی معنوی را در وی بیدار می‌کند؛ به این نتیجه می‌رسد که برای رسیدن به صلح جهانی، آدم‌ها باید به درون خودشان برگردند و روی خودشان کار کنند، و نه پیوستن به جبهه‌های سیاسی مختلف.

I really enjoyed the writing in the last section of this novel, the account of Bernard and June’s travels around postwar France and June’s encounter with the black dogs. In the earlier sections I found all the references to the life changing event distracting, just tell the story. I can see what Mcewan was trying to do but I found the characters he used (upper middle class types) just frustrating. Even the section in Berlin when the wall was coming down he left me wanting more. A short novel, with some really good bits.

I was so incredibly conscious that I was reading an Ian McEwan novel the whole time, but I still liked it.

demasiado autobiográfica y un poco lenta.

Black Dogs is a complex and deep tale in which McEwan explores relationships, marriage and love, all the while craftily blending it into a Europe recovering from WWII. There is darkness and beauty, and love and evil, all melded in a dense but melodic and hard to penetrate package. 3-1/2 stars, rounded down to 3 because it just didn't seem to compel me.

Cani neri è un testo pluristratificato, irrisolto, al cui interno si intrecciano una serie di questioni e approcci di vita diversi, incastonati nel meraviglioso e complesso sfondo della guerra fredda, a cavallo tra la fine della guerra e il crollo del Muro di Berlino.
Il protagonista, quasi a voler sublimare la sua condizione di bimbo orfano all’età di otto anni per la prematura scomparsa dei genitori, fin da ragazzo si interessa alle vite dei genitori altrui, finché non si focalizza su quella dei suoi suoceri - che, secondo me, sono i veri protagonisti della storia. I due si amano, e si trascineranno quest’amore per tutta la vita, ma a causa di divergenze di punti di vista, mancanza di comunicazione ed eccesso di orgoglio si troveranno a vivere una vita di mezzo: troppo diversi per stare insieme, troppo innamorati per lasciarsi definitivamente.
E cosa sono questi cani neri? I cani neri sono stati effettivamente visti, c’è una storia dietro di loro, ma più che cani veri sembrano un’allegoria medievale, un male tutto europeo che durante la guerra fredda ci si è convinti di aver purgato, ma che si è solo nascosto tra le pieghe di vite mutilate a causa della Storia, nei futuri conflitti di un’Europa che si mostrerà pluricentrica e fragilissima

McEwan bence insan doğasının karanlık yönlerini en iyi işleyen günümüz yazarlarından. Henüz okumadığım birkaç kitabından biriydi Black Dogs. İkinci Dünya Savaşının hemen sonrası ile Berlin Duvarının yıkılışı zaman dilimlerinde, bir İngiliz çiftin, yaşadıkları travmatik bir olay sonrası siyasi görüş, dini inanç ve giderek duygusal olarak ayrı düşmeleri ekseninde, insanın içindeki kötülüğü ve ideolojilerin insanlığa ne ölçüde çare olduğunu sorgulayan çarpıcı bir roman.

Berlin kısmında, duvarın yıkılışının getirdiği coşkulu ortamda, tarihe meydan okurcasına kızıl bayrak taşıyan bir Almancı Türk'ün Neo-Nazi gençlerce kıstırılmaya çalışılmasının, bu esnada bize çok aşina "Auslander Raus" sloganı atılmasının, duvarın yıkılışının getirdiği özgürlük umudunun da bir yanılsama olduğunu da güzel anlatmış.

Türkçe'ye de zamanında çevrilmiş ama galiba şu anda piyasada yok.

The writing was good and in a way I enjoyed his writing style the most in this book. However I got a slight feeling I'd wanted more from this. It didn't seem as Ian McEwab fleshed out the story as well as he could and its a shame because I think it could have been a better book. One of the only books by his I've truly loved and think about often is Nutshell. Sadly that weird and obscure story telling he had in that dosent seem to be something he wanted/wants to explore more. I had hoped from the title that this book would be more leaning similar obscure vibes but sadly not.