SJ Longthorne

It would not have been published if it wasn't written by Ian McEwan. McEwan is usually pretty good at opening chapters, then lets the rest of the book sort of taper off & perish like an elderly basset hound pining for its master. This doesn't even start promisingly.

He can't handle exposition at all, though his propensity for artless info-dumps was on display in ATONEMENT so it's hardly surprising that here it's swelled into full-blown elephantitis of the bland summary.

I know - certainly in my cultural echo chamber - it's de rigueur to bolster one's criticism by highlighting ideological violations, but can we go back to sometimes just criticising a novel because it's mediocre?

If Ian McEwan is 'the closest thing we have to a national novelist' we are fucked. Well & truly rogered. Rarely have I encountered something so sanded-down & dead. It's like being waterboarded with mayonnaise.

I wish Ian McEwan a happy life where he is loved & appreciated by those around him, free from suffering. I'm just saying his book is ass & if you don't think old white straight middle-class guys get a pass in the UK I am side-eyeing you so hard I'm actually looking out my ear.

What makes fiction 'literary'? If it's skill on the line McEwan has either lost it or sincerely can't be arsed. The first chapter is an edifice of workmanlike declarative clauses gummed together with cliches. If it's sophistication of ideas his work lacks them, utterly.

I know we don't have to tear books down to build up the ones we love. Slating this book is an end in itself.

I mean look, his last effort was a 'things sure are cockamamie grandpa' Andy Roonie monologue stretched to novel length where he got to roll his eyes at respecting folks' pronouns & the new culture of offence, so, y'know. I reserve the right to give his work a robust critique.