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1NocturnalBlue
After quietly stumbling upon Atonement a couple of summers back, I went on a Ian McEwan bender that took me through 6 of his novels, half a short story collection, and a number of his essays. I'll try to focus on just two of his books, The Innocent and Enduring Love, but I'll probably be alluding to much of his post-The Innocent canon.
I read somewhere (can't remember where) that much of McEwan's writing hinges on one basic plot: the protagonist(s) have a moral lapse/moment of weakness which leads to a catastrophe from which said character either must emerge from scarred or be destroyed. While this is a bit of a simplification, almost all of his post-Innocent books (could be true of his earlier works but I have not read them yet) could fit in that mold whether it's Leonard and Maria's encounter with Otto, June's confrontation with the rabid dog, Vernon getting incriminating pictures of a rival or Briony bearing false witness to her cousin's rape.
The Innocent has the more traditional moment of weakness->catastrophe->emerging scarred. Just to set the scene: Leonard, a 25 year old sheltered virginal electronics operator is sent from Britain to Berlin immediately after WWII but before the erection of the Berlin wall. Mistrust is obviously abound between Britain and the Soviet Union, as Leonard's job in Berlin is one of electronic espionage alongside an American cohort led by Bob Glass. There's also mistrust between the Americans and Brits who are supposedly working together in Berlin. While doing this, Leonard meets and falls in love with Maria, a somewhat older German woman who has suffered a great deal during the war.
There's almost a domino effect of moments of weakness which leads to one of the most grotesque and comical climaxes/catastrophes I've ever seen. Moment of weakness 1) Leonard, perhaps out of insecurity about his inexperienced state, perhaps out of some overblown sense of his British superiority, nearly rapes Maria while trying to convince himself that she simply wants to be "conquered." This leads to an estrangement where even though Maria does take him back (and McEwan to his credit makes this plausible without wrecking this fascinating woman he's created), the earlier innocence of their blooming relationship is gone. Moment of weakness 2) After an engagement party, Maria and Leonard return to her apartment only to find her ex-husband Otto passed out drunk in her closet. They don't know what to do. Leonard tries to do the manly thing and throw the drunk out. Cue the catastrophe which involves manslaughter, dismemberment and a bizarre sequence that involves Leonard dragging suitcases full of carefully wrapped pieces of Otto around Berlin, having to pretend that they are important pieces of spy equipment that can only be opened by people with double super secret security clearance.
While Leonard and Maria do emerge from this catastrophe without going to jail or even having it become public knowledge, it is obvious the relationship is doomed (and alongside it the spy operation, but that's for another time). As McEwan later wrote in the denouement of Enduring Love, (I'm paraphrasing) as much as they would love to run into each others arms and cry and kiss and move on, the stress is corrosive and that much trauma has corroded their relationship beyond repair. Leonard and Maria are not destroyed but there is certainly much innocence lost.
Innocence is not so much lost as is comfortable domesticity in Enduring Love, a somewhat ironic title when you realize whose "love" is the most enduring. This novel alters the sequence in that instead of the major catastrophe resulting from an accumulation of incidents, the catastrophe is what sets things in motion. And what a catastrophe it is. One moment, Joe Rose is having a picnic with his common law wife Clarissa. Next thing he knows he and four other strangers including Jed Parry are trying save a hot air balloon with a scared little boy in it from being blown off to parts unknown. In a bit of macabre irony the boy is alright but the uncoordinated altruism leads to the death of one of the volunteers.
The moments of weakness follow when Jed becomes unnaturally obsessed with Joe and stalks him. At first you're not sure whether Joe is crazy and he makes the mistake of not telling Clarissa what is going on. While Joe tries to be scientific and clinical about everything, this cold front alienates Clarissa and ultimately puts her in mortal danger first in a crowded restaurant then in her own home. As much as Joe tries to maintain his beloved rationality (almost in a manner similar to how Maria does immediately after Leonard kills Otto), it becomes obvious that he can't, whether it's in small lies about what flavor sorbet he was eating in the restaurant to trying to purchase and illegal gun from overfried ex-hippies.
The ending is more hopeful for Joe and Clarissa. As much as the ordeal as hurt their relationship, you can almost believe that there could be a chance for them, however slight. There is the notion of not wanting things to be "wasted." In The Innocent, the epilogue is set in Berlin of 1987 where Leonard bemoans the "waste" that is the wall, the spy operation and his chance with Maria, among other things. The epilogue of Enduring Love involves Joe and Clarissa proving to the widow of the dead volunteer that he was not having an affair at the time, something that she allowed herself to believe for month, causing her to be angry instead of grieving for her husband.
Black Dogs also would have been and interesting novel to compare to The Innocent because they are both set in postwar Europe with important events happening in Berlin. However, despite the short length of Black Dogs, to me it is more saga-like as it paints a portrait of a couple too in love to separate but too different to truly stay together. While that novel(la) is worth reading if for no other reason than for McEwan's neat trick of making the climax suspenseful despite being reminded the whole book how it all turns out. Also like in Enduring Love, Black Dogs features a couple that includes an overly rational male and a more emotional, but by no means weak, female. (Joe is a science writer, Clarissa a Keatsian scholar, Bernard a politician, and June a spiritual guru). Who knows, perhaps if Joe and Clarissa were to stay married, they would end up like June and Bernard- unable to truly live with each other because of the vast differences with how each view the world.
I read somewhere (can't remember where) that much of McEwan's writing hinges on one basic plot: the protagonist(s) have a moral lapse/moment of weakness which leads to a catastrophe from which said character either must emerge from scarred or be destroyed. While this is a bit of a simplification, almost all of his post-Innocent books (could be true of his earlier works but I have not read them yet) could fit in that mold whether it's Leonard and Maria's encounter with Otto, June's confrontation with the rabid dog, Vernon getting incriminating pictures of a rival or Briony bearing false witness to her cousin's rape.
The Innocent has the more traditional moment of weakness->catastrophe->emerging scarred. Just to set the scene: Leonard, a 25 year old sheltered virginal electronics operator is sent from Britain to Berlin immediately after WWII but before the erection of the Berlin wall. Mistrust is obviously abound between Britain and the Soviet Union, as Leonard's job in Berlin is one of electronic espionage alongside an American cohort led by Bob Glass. There's also mistrust between the Americans and Brits who are supposedly working together in Berlin. While doing this, Leonard meets and falls in love with Maria, a somewhat older German woman who has suffered a great deal during the war.
There's almost a domino effect of moments of weakness which leads to one of the most grotesque and comical climaxes/catastrophes I've ever seen. Moment of weakness 1) Leonard, perhaps out of insecurity about his inexperienced state, perhaps out of some overblown sense of his British superiority, nearly rapes Maria while trying to convince himself that she simply wants to be "conquered." This leads to an estrangement where even though Maria does take him back (and McEwan to his credit makes this plausible without wrecking this fascinating woman he's created), the earlier innocence of their blooming relationship is gone. Moment of weakness 2) After an engagement party, Maria and Leonard return to her apartment only to find her ex-husband Otto passed out drunk in her closet. They don't know what to do. Leonard tries to do the manly thing and throw the drunk out. Cue the catastrophe which involves manslaughter, dismemberment and a bizarre sequence that involves Leonard dragging suitcases full of carefully wrapped pieces of Otto around Berlin, having to pretend that they are important pieces of spy equipment that can only be opened by people with double super secret security clearance.
While Leonard and Maria do emerge from this catastrophe without going to jail or even having it become public knowledge, it is obvious the relationship is doomed (and alongside it the spy operation, but that's for another time). As McEwan later wrote in the denouement of Enduring Love, (I'm paraphrasing) as much as they would love to run into each others arms and cry and kiss and move on, the stress is corrosive and that much trauma has corroded their relationship beyond repair. Leonard and Maria are not destroyed but there is certainly much innocence lost.
Innocence is not so much lost as is comfortable domesticity in Enduring Love, a somewhat ironic title when you realize whose "love" is the most enduring. This novel alters the sequence in that instead of the major catastrophe resulting from an accumulation of incidents, the catastrophe is what sets things in motion. And what a catastrophe it is. One moment, Joe Rose is having a picnic with his common law wife Clarissa. Next thing he knows he and four other strangers including Jed Parry are trying save a hot air balloon with a scared little boy in it from being blown off to parts unknown. In a bit of macabre irony the boy is alright but the uncoordinated altruism leads to the death of one of the volunteers.
The moments of weakness follow when Jed becomes unnaturally obsessed with Joe and stalks him. At first you're not sure whether Joe is crazy and he makes the mistake of not telling Clarissa what is going on. While Joe tries to be scientific and clinical about everything, this cold front alienates Clarissa and ultimately puts her in mortal danger first in a crowded restaurant then in her own home. As much as Joe tries to maintain his beloved rationality (almost in a manner similar to how Maria does immediately after Leonard kills Otto), it becomes obvious that he can't, whether it's in small lies about what flavor sorbet he was eating in the restaurant to trying to purchase and illegal gun from overfried ex-hippies.
The ending is more hopeful for Joe and Clarissa. As much as the ordeal as hurt their relationship, you can almost believe that there could be a chance for them, however slight. There is the notion of not wanting things to be "wasted." In The Innocent, the epilogue is set in Berlin of 1987 where Leonard bemoans the "waste" that is the wall, the spy operation and his chance with Maria, among other things. The epilogue of Enduring Love involves Joe and Clarissa proving to the widow of the dead volunteer that he was not having an affair at the time, something that she allowed herself to believe for month, causing her to be angry instead of grieving for her husband.
Black Dogs also would have been and interesting novel to compare to The Innocent because they are both set in postwar Europe with important events happening in Berlin. However, despite the short length of Black Dogs, to me it is more saga-like as it paints a portrait of a couple too in love to separate but too different to truly stay together. While that novel(la) is worth reading if for no other reason than for McEwan's neat trick of making the climax suspenseful despite being reminded the whole book how it all turns out. Also like in Enduring Love, Black Dogs features a couple that includes an overly rational male and a more emotional, but by no means weak, female. (Joe is a science writer, Clarissa a Keatsian scholar, Bernard a politician, and June a spiritual guru). Who knows, perhaps if Joe and Clarissa were to stay married, they would end up like June and Bernard- unable to truly live with each other because of the vast differences with how each view the world.
2margad
I'll look forward to reading your post after I've read The Innocent!
3kiwidoc
I guess if you are using the framework of McEwan's books as involving a protagonist who has a moral lapse, it would be interesting to apply that theory to his latest book, On Chesil Beach.
**POSSIBLE SPOILER**
This is a fabulous little book which uses the theme of sexually incompatibility as a basis to test the characters. This couple on their honeymoon in the late 1950's, face an evening of stress, sexual frustration/rejection and sexual abhorrence with each other.
Perhaps the reflected moral lapse would be the inability of the man to tolerate sexual reticence due to wounded pride or fear of failure, with the subsequent development, inevitably, of regret for lost love.
Or maybe it is the female who, in the face of premature ejaculation, finally visibly expresses her great abhorrence of the sexual act.
It is a thorny subject and it is with great enthusiasm that I see McEwan going back to his more shocking, socially threatening and 'socially closetted' themes such as we saw in his little masterpiece The Cement Garden (which I read too long ago to make any sensible comment about now).
I think that may writers would feel threatened to write about such basic human failings, especially with the worry of it all being seen as veiled autobiography!
Perhaps someone could suggest a good comparison book to consider with this one?
**POSSIBLE SPOILER**
This is a fabulous little book which uses the theme of sexually incompatibility as a basis to test the characters. This couple on their honeymoon in the late 1950's, face an evening of stress, sexual frustration/rejection and sexual abhorrence with each other.
Perhaps the reflected moral lapse would be the inability of the man to tolerate sexual reticence due to wounded pride or fear of failure, with the subsequent development, inevitably, of regret for lost love.
Or maybe it is the female who, in the face of premature ejaculation, finally visibly expresses her great abhorrence of the sexual act.
It is a thorny subject and it is with great enthusiasm that I see McEwan going back to his more shocking, socially threatening and 'socially closetted' themes such as we saw in his little masterpiece The Cement Garden (which I read too long ago to make any sensible comment about now).
I think that may writers would feel threatened to write about such basic human failings, especially with the worry of it all being seen as veiled autobiography!
Perhaps someone could suggest a good comparison book to consider with this one?
