The Comfort of Strangers

"Un magnifico dolore al centro dello stomaco", non saprei spiegare meglio la sensazione che mi danno, ogni singola volta, i romanzi di McEwan. Magnifico.

Sinceramente?
Per me è un no assoluto e non capisco chi dice di provare invidia per chi ancora non ha mai letto McEwan.
Ho faticato a leggere 140 pagine per la lentezza assoluta, per le descrizioni così minuziose del nulla, di una città che dovrebbe essere Venezia senza mai essere nominata, per l'indolenza dei personaggi e dei loro antagonisti.
Zero emozioni, zero empatia e solo un finale decisamente splatter, inaspettato e del tutto irrazionale ed irreale dovrebbe rendere thrilling questa lettura????
Io non sono mai stata col fiato sospeso, né con la curiosità di sapere cosa sarebbe successo, per tutto il tempo ho agognato anzi che succedesse proprio qualcosa che mi potesse risvegliare dalla noia e dal torpore di queste poche pagine così lente, ma niente oltre al caldo, ai bar, ai negozi di vetro.
Niente da fare, appartengo alla schiera di quelli che a questo libro hanno detto sonoramente "NO"!!

I didn't quite like this. I couldn't find many redeeming features. Of course Ian McEwan’s writing is economical and beautifully crafted and in his unique way he can build this tension and take you with him but I couldn't bring myself to care for any of the characters. I couldn't identify with them. I felt that they were two dimensional. Yes, the story does take you along with that impending danger lurking in the background. But I wanted to find something satisfying about it.

Wonderful and quick piece from McEwan that so captivated me that I was able to finish it in less than one day. Of all of McEwan’s works that I have read thus far, the common theme is the impending feeling of dread that something pretty bad will happen (or at least come close to happening), and no book made me more nervous than this one.

The novel concerns an English couple, named Colin and Mary, who are vacationing in a city which is never mentioned, though one that sounds an awful lot like Venice, Italy. Mary and Colin have been together for quite awhile and “often forget that they are two separate people” and their lovemaking often climaxes or is interrupted by sleep. Still, despite the familiarity between the two, it seems like they still love one another very much. Mary is a divorced mother of two and sounds like she is pretty hot and Colin is also apparently quite the catch.

They are having a decent time on vacation, though you sense that things are just a little too touristy and a little too hot and they are looking forward to going home soon. One evening, they linger too long at the hotel and get lost while looking for a place to eat and are befriended by a local named Robert. Robert takes them to a bar and shares a bit of his rather odd life story. He later comes to their rescue and brings them to his house where they meet his wife, Caroline. As a reader, you are definitely weirded out by the Robert/Caroline relationship, especially when it is clear that there is some physical abuse going on. Robert is also quite a bit of a misogynist and makes all sorts of crazy pronouncements on the role of men and women in the world.

Anyway, it becomes increasingly clear that Robert and Caroline are even creepier than it might initially appear and they have formulated a really unhealthy attachment to Colin. Mary and Colin eventually happen upon Robert and Caroline again and you know that things are definitely going to get worse. Caroline shares with Mary that the physical abuse is necessary for sexual enjoyment between her and Robert and drugs Mary with some tea. (How very English.) Bad things happen, which McEwan in his mastery is intentionally vague about.

A few things I found really great about the novel were as follows:
•tMcEwan does an incredible job of describing that feeling that you can occasionally have during a vacation or when you are traveling when you have just sort of had enough, and you are tired of getting lost and the maps are confusing, and you don’t know where to eat and you just kind of want to go home.
•tSo much sexual depravity in the book. Obviously you have the Robert and Caroline situation in which sexual gratification comes through physical abuse and you also a pretty weird dynamic with the two good guys, Colin and Mary. After a renewed sexual attachment, Mary notes that she would like to chop off Colin’s arms and legs and leave just a torso for her and her friend’s enjoyment. Colin wants to build a machine where Mary is pleasured until her death. Yeah, pretty wild stuff there.
•tGreat use of that ominous feeling throughout the book. The moment you meet Robert, you know something bad is going to happen and you cannot stop reading until you find out what it is.
•tGreat use of being intentionally vague in the use of background information on the characters. We know they do all of these things, but we are really never given enough background to fully know why, especially with Mary and Colin.

This is a tense, dark and twisted novella. The atmosphere builds from the start. Colin and Mary are a couple on holiday in an unnamed city (although it certainly seems to be Venice). They meet a local couple , Robert and Caroline and the story becomes creepy and strange. I found it extremely difficult to put down, especially the later chapters even though I had seen the film years ago (making it impossible for me to see Robert as McEwan describes him, it was Christopher Walken the whole way). The story builds to the inevitable, violent ending.

Well, that was a bit pointless. Beautifully written, but utterly absurd in almost every aspect. I'm struggling to even think of enough things to say about it since 90% of the book is about our protagonists being incompetent tourists, while the other 10% is filled with random people being as entertaining as they are random. I also use the word 'entertaining' lightly here, since it's a very dark, somewhat voyeuristic kind of entertainment that you almost feel guilty for enjoying.

There's definitely some deeper meaning to a lot of the events, but it's difficult to forgive the ridiculous way they're setup. I'm not even going to bother going into the themes since they're quite silly and the book doesn't do much to make any sort of statement on them anyway. The pointlessness of it all is only exasperated by the characters who are in a constant state of surreal idiocy, which the author somehow manages to make seem plausible, yet thinking critically about anything they do, you're left rolling your eyes. It's not as bad with the other characters, but there's also only so much you can get away with using the "weird foreigners" trope.

I did the audiobook version and the narrator was great; complimenting the writing superbly. There were moments of curiosity at what's going to happen next and how things will ultimately play out which redeemed the book somewhat. However, those were few and far between, so while it doesn't deserve a one star, I can't really give it anything more than two.

Kıyıda köşede kalmış, çoğu kimsenin ilgilenmediği bir festival filmi izlemiş gibiyim. Sahil kasabasında bir çiftimiz var, onların sessiz iletişimlerindeki güçlü diyaloglara tanıklık ediyorsunuz bolca. Hele ki şu sıralar tatile gitme isteğiniz varsa içinizde, anlatılanlarla gitmiş kadar oluyor, ya da anılarınızı yâd ediyorsunuz. Çağdaş İngiliz edebiyatının bu önemli ismiyle tanışma kitabım oldu, belli betimlemeleri çok ben gözlerle bakar gibiydi hayata, sevdim. Kitabın büyük bir çoğunluğu, tatil gevşemesine an be an eklenen gerilim temasıyla süslüydü. Kitabın sonunda çözümleniyor gibi yaşanan olayın sonrasında ise kafamda kalan tek soru şuydu: Neden??

Sometimes I wonder about McEwan’s head...it must be a strange place he lives in:-) The vices and eccentricities of his characters are very remarkable, to say at least.
This is one of his early novels and for me didn’t show the control and power his style/language has in later books. At the same time, it allready shows his great talent, his love for the unusual, the strange twists of relationships that look very normal.
I liked it a lot but not as much as some of his other novels.