Ian McEwan

Since reading Atonement during my trip to the UK, I've all of a sudden become fascinated by Ian McEwan. And coincidentally, the New Yorker just recently had a very good and lengthy profile of McEwan. He's at the top of the literary world right now, and I hadn't realized how far back his relative prominence in that world existed. He's been friends with Christopher Hitchens (of political talk show fame) and Martin Amis since the 70's.

He's apparently quite a thinker, interested in science, and does a quite bit of research before writing his books (What good author doesn't?). McEwan also has an interesting family history which includes discovering just a few years ago that he has an older brother born from his mother and father, but when his mother was still married to another man (or was it his father still married to another woman? already mixed up on that).

I see his name quite often now. Maybe he's just high on my radar. He's given some thoughts on John Updike, had his endorsement on the front cover of the Roman Republic history book Rubicon by Tom Holland (another book I picked up during my UK trip), and has been interviewed by Richard Dawkins on being an atheist. Here's McEwan's website, and the Richard Dawkins interview:

The man's all over the place. Err...will he get overexposed??

Atonement by Ian McEwan

It's slow at work and so another book review submitted to Amazon. I don't get enough time to read that many books, but the long plane rides on my UK trip (and no TV at my grandmother's) afforded me the time. I picked up Atonement and McCarthy's The Road at DFW airport while awaiting my departing flight. I almost selected McEwan's Saturday instead but thought perhaps I should read the book that's brought him his recent fame. As I mention in my review, I hadn't yet read any of his work yet. Saturday may be my next novel to read though there are some non-fiction books at the front of my queue. Here's the review:

This was my first Ian McEwan read, and it was a good one. This was an interesting story though not really a whole lot happened in it, and somehow it went for a few hundred pages. The reason for that was McEwan's precise and extensive descriptions of characters' thoughts and the story's various settings. McEwan is rather amazing at imagining the possible details of a one's thoughts, details that most people might not ordinarily be conscious of, but upon reading them ring true. The limited plot is lengthened also by the story being told from several viewpoints, particularly in Part 1. It was all very intelligently done.

But was there really any atonement in this story? At least atonement when it counted? I don't know if the title really applies considering how things turned out.

I hadn't ever planned to see the movie. Seemed to be a chic flick, but after this reading, I plan to rent/on demand it. I guess by being from the England and reading it while on my recent trip there, I appreciated an English story.