Having reached the age of 75, the famous British novelist Ian McEwan released, undoubtedly, one of his best books. The book is called Lessons, is not autobiographical, but this does not mean that its economy does not contain, among other things, a number of events from the author’s life. Recognized by him as such.

Indeed, at one point at the end of the book, when the main character Roland Baines has his last meeting with his ex-wife Alice, an extremely successful German-language writer who even became a sure winner of the Nobel Prize, which of course he did not win, ahead of Hertha Müller, it is precisely the question of the ratio of reality and fiction. Alyssa has published what may be her last novel. A woman diagnosed with cancer had just had one leg amputated, and the loss of the other was almost certain. And in the book called slow decline of course, a bestseller, it finally appeared. He, Roland Baines. Or the man who seemed to be him. However, he is presented in the book inappropriately, deformed, that is, as a cruel, aggressive man, which Roland never was. So he decided to see his wife again. The woman who left him decades ago. And this is soon after the birth of the child. She did this, justifying her decision by the fact that until then she was wearing what she called wrong life. That she will tend to miss. What happened to her mother. Which, as we learn at the end of the book, is not at all what the French call it blue bass The police considered the reasons and circumstances of the disappearance unexplained, so for a while Bains became a suspect. Despite the fact that Alice sent short postcards from time to time. Were they real? Who could guarantee it?

The police will appear again in the novel. Someone, a diligent employee of hers, came across some documents that led to the conclusion that Baines had been sexually abused as a child and teenager. It was made by a former piano teacher. One Miriam Cornell. Who was in a hurry? the awakening of spring and who, when Roland was only 16 years old, almost kidnapped him, wanting to make the teenager her husband. And with Miriam Cornell, Roland will have one last explanation years later due to an unexpected visit from the police. A proposal to reopen the case and bring the woman to justice. But is Roland a complete sentimental loser? Not necessarily. At the end of his life, he does what he should have done before, that is, he marries Daphne, but their happiness is short-lived. Roland has a very good relationship with his son Lawrence, but also with the children from Daphne’s first marriage (with the cruel and financially omnipotent Peter), and in recent years he lives surrounded by many grandchildren. A wonderful ending to the novel. A wonderful symbolic preparation for leaving the stage. A gentle reminder of old age. No, it’s not for nothing that Ian McEwan chose Joyce’s quote as the motto of his book: “First we feel, then we destroy.”

Lessons it’s a detailed story of a half-miss. Sentimental is associated with a professional half-loser. Roland will not become a great pianist, as he thought, he will limit himself to playing for a few hours in restaurants. In journalism, he also fails completely, limiting himself to the status of some artilleryman. He also does not become literate, I have the impression that the narrator, omniscient, as in great novels, takes on the function of delegate. He is writing the life story of Roland Baines. The story that the main character would like to write himself, he entrusts his voice to the narrator, who becomes an invisible character. Extremely important.

But Ian McEwan is not camping Lessons to new conditions of individual existence. It does not aim at any great political or social mural. But he knows how to do it in such a way that all major planetary events between 1945-1946 and 2020-2021 can be found in the book. The action of which begins in the period marked by the tragic memory of the Second World War, and ends in the time of the pandemic. The construction of the Berlin Wall, its subsequent fall, the Cuban crisis, the nuclear disaster in Chernobyl, the years of Thatcher’s rule and the conflict in the Malvinas, the reunification of Germany and the reluctance of the West in this regard, the British political upheavals of Major, Blair, Brexit initiated by Nigel Farage, the quarantine with its inconveniences and the associated riots caused synthetically and percussively in Lessons. _ Read the entire article and comment on it on Contributors.ro