This story follows Roland Baines, whose life has been shaped by three women. His piano teacher, who abused him when he was barely a teenager; his wife, who left him, leaving behind their seven-month-old son; and another woman, whom he loved, lost and found again just before she died. As he raises his son alone, his personal journey unfolds against the backdrop of the great events of the 20th and 21st centuries. Rich in memories, traumas and wasted potential, but also in historical and cultural facts, this novel is the story of a life rooted in the last two centuries. With McEwan’s prose, truly magnificent.
“He took a break to make a sandwich, then wrote until midnight. Fifty-one small pages densely covered. He was woken at two thirty by the pressure in his bladder. That never used to happen. He wondered, as he stood draining into the bowl, whether he should be worried that his stream was so weak. He thought of Joyce, of Stephen and Bloom at the end of their day, pissing side by side at night in the garden. Ithaca. Once Roland had possessed Stephen’s trajectory, “higher, more sibilant.” Now he had Bloom’s, “longer, less irruent.” Roland didn’t much like his doctor. He wouldn’t go.”
Listened to as an audiobook