****UNPOPULAR OPINION***

I really enjoyed the author's past book, Atonement and not because of the movie. The story is complex, complicated and relatable.. However, this newest book I could not get into. The premise seemed like my kind of fiction book, but there was very little happening throughout the story. The plot was also choppy. I really struggled to finish reading this and honestly, I skim read most of it.

Cannot recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group and Ian McEwan for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Available: 9/13/22

*4.5 stars rounded up!

The story of one man's lifetime--from 1948 to the present day--a very introspective and personal tale set in the midst of the broader global events and political upheaval of those years.

Roland Baines's father is a rather domineering military man, the mother fairly meek. They've been stationed in Libya where Roland has had a carefree childhood. But Roland's real life lessons begin at the tender age of eleven when he is brought to England to attend Berners Hall boarding school, 2000 miles away from both mother and home.

Roland's father wants him to have piano lessons and so this is how he happens to fall into the clutches of Miss Miriam Cornell, an attractive though frightening and controlling young piano teacher who recognizes the young boy's vulnerability and proceeds to sexually groom Roland over the next five years. He only manages to decide to break away from her when she proposes marriage when he turns 16. Her behavior is depraved and their relationship, which begins at such a tender age for Roland, definitely distorts his future relations with the women he'll meet in his life.

Roland could have been a concert pianist, he's that talented, but instead he turns to minor jobs to support himself: he plays piano in lounges; he writes poetry; he teaches tennis. One lover calls him 'a restless fool.' He can't seem to settle on anything.

When he falls in love and marries a German girl named Alissa, he soon finds himself abandoned, along with their seven-month-old son. It seems she wants to be not just a writer, but the best writer of their generation, and feels she cannot do that tied down as wife and mother in their cramped home.

This reads like a memoir and it could very well be that the author has drawn on some of his own experiences to create this character and the situations he deals with. Both were born in 1948, as was I. That could be why I relate so well to Roland's life story because I too grew up in the uncertain times depicted: Chernobyl; the Suez Crisis; the Cuban Missile Crisis; the fall of the Berlin Wall and finally ending with the current pandemic.

I have to admit Ian McEwan is one of my favorite authors. This is the eighth book of his that I've read and all have been either 4 or 5 star reads for me. His prose is beautiful; he zeroes in on his characters' humanness, their brokenness, with compassion. This is an epic story but it's very readable and entertaining.

I received an arc of this novel from the author and publisher via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and the opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Ian McEwan is clearly feeling intimations of mortality in this profound novel covering the life of a man who, in some respects, resembles the author.

The pivotal moment (at least in retrospect) of Roland Baines’ life is when he goes to his flirtatious piano teacher’s house during the Cuban Missile Crisis, determined to have sex in case the world is destroyed. Roland is 14 and the tumultuous affair with Miriam Cornell carries on for another 2 years but reverberates through much of the rest of his life.

From this point on, Roland bungles and drifts through life, making what he sees as regrettable choices along the way. He’s there for significant historical global moments - the aftermath of World War II, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chernobyl, COVID - and significant national events - the rise and fall of Thatcher, the rise and fall of New Labour. But these only provide a backdrop to Roland’s reflections and relationships: with girlfriends, his two wives, and above all else, with his son, Lawrence.

The novel loops through time. Roland’s present, the chronological narrative spine of the novel, seamlessly sparking connecting overlapping memories and giving the perspective of the peaks and troughs of a life.

Roland is hardly an Everyman. He has the privilege of a private education and the English middle class ability to scrape by and muddle through on the meager earnings of a tennis coach, lounge pianist, and minor journalism. As a metropolitan liberal his political views are disconnected from much of the rest of the country but are echoed comfortably in his social circle.

For me, the heart of Roland, and the novel, is his relationship with Lawrence. When his German first wife abandons him, leaving him with the baby, suddenly Roland has a purpose beyond himself which he steps into with grace and success.

There are so many wonderful vignettes in this very long and very English novel. The characters each have their own story and there is no rush to make them concise. Lessons are absorbed rather than learned along the way but not in a didactic or moralizing way - they are simply passively offered to be taken and shared as the characters please.

I was enthralled by the elegant writing and captivated by the slow moving depth of the plot. Highly recommended it if you’re looking for a very particular English (and sometimes German) perspective on the last 70 years.

Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

Lots of drawn-out descriptions of not very interesting things, barely anything happening - a vague, dull story about a boring man. I'd expected it to be livelier or more compelling in its scope but this read like a plodding, joyless experience. I gave up at the 100 page mark - definitely not one of McEwan's better efforts.

This is a very well written and dense novel, with our main character Roland Baines whole life explored against the backdrop of many historical and major events. Ian Mcewan is extremely intelligent and it shows, but I couldn't help being bored at times at the breadth with which some political topics got discussed. I had more interest in Roland's actual life, which had its own tragedies and I would recommend looking at trigger warnings for.
It is a very long and slow story taking place over almost 70 years, with McEwan's beautiful language but that doesn't stop it from dragging at times. The characters are a strong point and feel very real with their flaws.
3.75, rounding up.
Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf Doubleday for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is destined to be a big hit, the "witness to history" angle is really well fleshed out. It's a big, rich story with such engaging characters, Roland is always tilting at windmills, but somehow it remains endearing throughout.

Lessons

This stunning novel manages to be both grand in scope and also an intimate look at the life of a man who experienced the world post World War II through the pandemic. “Lessons’” prologue opens with 11-year-old Roland Baines at piano lessons with his boarding school’s teacher, a young woman who gently pinches his thigh when he makes a mistake. This is a relationship that will both scar him and create an unforgettable memory of love.

In the first chapter, it’s 1986 and a nuclear cloud from Chernobyl is heading for London. Roland is aware, but he is sitting across the table from a detective while attempting to calm his infant son. Roland’s wife has disappeared, and the detective is wondering whether Roland murdered her.

The story spirals out from there. Roland’s father was in the military and they live in Libya before he is sent to boarding school at eleven. He will forge ties with Germany through his German/English wife, he will travel the world, see the Wall fall, be a loving single father, create a community, be in the thick of global events, try to be the best he can and fail in many, many areas.

I’m not sure I ever finished another Ian McEwan novel, but I loved every page of this one. It took two tries to get going—the opening disturbed me so much I had to back down for a while. But once you launch into Roland’s life after that, the story snatches you away and you are by his side until the end. Highly recommended.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for an advanced copy for this novel that takes place at some of the most epic times in the last century and this one.

Life is a series of moments, sometimes shared by others sometimes just ourselves, but each moment, no matter how big or small, life- changing or life- damaging, moments tick away and make our days. How a person deals is really how a life is lived. Face them and life might be grand, or it might not. Let them overpower you, crush you, make every decision exhausting life might might not be as enjoyable, or it might be a live lived. Ian McEwan in his novel Lessons follows the life of one boy into a man, or man- child from the post war to the pandemics of today.

Roland Baines is a an English child, born after the war who comes of age in the post-war dream of what Europe and the world is supposed to be, except reality gets in the way. Sent to a boarding school far away, young Roland is a misfit outsider who finds himself under the sway of an attractive piano teacher by the name of Miss Miriam Cornell, an unhealthy attraction in everyway. The aftereffects taint Roland's life and ability to feel and find love. Married to a woman whose dreams don't include him or their child, Roland finds himself alone a parent who can barely handle taking care of himself. At the same time the world is changing, the Suez crisis weakening Britain's standing in the world, the Cuban Missile Crisis making the safety of the world in doubt, and finally Chernobyl, which causes Roland to finally face some of the mysteries in his own history.

McEwan has a way of making world events mix in his fiction trapping and freeing McEwan's characters in a variety of ways. The outside world is as much a character as any that appear in this book, and as with the other characters is treated with respect, and developed well. The story takes it's time, not revealing itself at once but becomeing clearer as the reader goes on. Roland isn't a great guy, sometimes he is kind of annoying, but the weight of events, of actions, and abuses take there toll on the man, something that McEwan is quite good at showing and suggesting. Seeing the world through Roland's eyes are interesting, no matter how closed Roland tries to keep them.

Similar, but much larger in scope than his other books. Atonement and September were all based on events that happened in one day, this is scattered across almost seventy years. Roland is lost, confused by love, a survivor of sexual assault, trying desperately to find something in life that was as magical as a youth he kind of remembers. A book that like like all of Ian McEwan's works read wonderfully and stay in the mind long after the pages are closed.

This one is hard to rate. While I feel the novel was good, my own personal opinions are marring my rating. This book covered a lot of major events of the 20th century over about a 70 year period which I found interesting. However, after I certain point I found myself bored with no real climax or build up. The book seemed to just go on and on while not really going anywhere at the same time. However, it was well written with a lot of interesting facts.

Review A multi-layered epic, dense with European history covering a span of 70 years. Interesting twist on the me-too movement. Even though it was a bit of a struggle to read (only because I am not the versed in the details of Eurpean history), I appreciated the layered protagonist and his free-spirit lifestyle.

Thanks to NetGallery, Knopf and Ian McEwan for the ARC

~~Sharon
The Writer's Reader
https://thewritersreader.wordpress.com

I tried, I really did, but I couldn’t finish this book. This reaction was an unwanted shocker because I love the three McEwan books I read (especially Nutshell). I was salivating, expecting to devour his latest, waiting for his words to do the trick. They didn’t.

When I’m looking at the bottom of the Kindle page and I groan every time the “percent read” doesn’t change (seriously, I’m still only at 14 percent? Really?), I know I’m in trouble. This baby is long, almost 450 pages, and there’s just no way my head, my eyes, and my heart are going to agree to plod on. They rule—the goody-two-shoes perfectionist (and book optimist) wants to finish, wants to make it all right, but that chick has no say; she’s just along for the ride.

I always have trouble ditching a book, but my wise book woman inside gives me the go-ahead. Too many books a waitin’, too little time to trudge through something that isn’t grabbing me.

My MO is to try to analyze why this book isn’t cutting it. I came up with a bunch of things: there isn’t any dialogue, there’s little interaction, the writing style is detached, it’s too quiet, it’s all one big distant narrator voice, there’s too much history. And mostly, it’s just too damn slow and boring. There’s a weirdo piano teacher-woman who affected the main character when he was little, and a current wife who has disappeared. Both of those stories initially drew me in, but the book meanders and the two threads get buried. And face it, there just aren’t enough action verbs.

As usually, McEwan’s language is to die for, but the language couldn’t save this one for me.

Other readers liked this book; I sure wish I did! Please read the positive reviews; I’m pretty sure I’m an outlier. Other reviewers say the last part of the book is the best, but I didn’t have the patience to get there. It was just too dense and snooze-festy for me. But god do I hate giving a McEwan book a bad grade, I really do.

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.

"They had always been there, past, present, future, and he hadn't noticed how language divided up time."

2 stars

This book started out leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth- and it never went away. The abuse is a lot, and combined with the overly dramatic prose. I never connected with the character, in fact I grew to hate him. The highlight for me was what his first wife decided to do- I was on her side. It spans over a long time, just sort of telling you every horrible thing that is happening. If you are a super fan of the author, maybe you will enjoy this one; but it's note for everyone.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest opinion.

Ian McEwan is a beautiful writer but unfortunately this particular book is exceedingly dull and as unfocused and meandering as the main character’s life. There are definitely touching and thoughtful moments throughout but as a whole it felt like there was little if anything driving the story forward and every time I I picked up a thread that was finally going somewhere, it would immediately drop and digress elsewhere: I don’t like to leave books unfinished, so I did ultimately get to the end, but it took quite a bit of work to get there.

I received a free ARC ebook from NetGalley in exchange for an unbiased review.
Calling Lessons by Ian McEwan a sweeping novel in scope is an understatement. While reading this book I felt like I was revisiting the historical highlights of my life but with an understanding and connection to other momentous, worldwide events that no one has at the time of said event. Readers see the world through the eyes of Roland Baines who is born in post World War II England. Anyone of a similar age can easily name dozens of geopolitical events that occurred in the last seventy years but Roland's experiences are all colored through the lens of a child sexually abused by a music teacher. Everything that happens to him as an adult, every decision he makes, is predicated on that experience. He never really lives up to his potential but does spend a young restless life traveling the world which provides him a unique, somewhat personal, view of history.

When he marries and has a son, once again his life does not follow a familiar pattern. His wife, Alissa, has dreams of her own that have been stymied by her past. When she abandons Roland and their young son, Roland appears ill-equipped to handle the load. Missed opportunities are disguised with music and literature and travel. Events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall, terrorist attacks, climate change and the pandemic are all threaded through Roland's life. His reactions, his fears are - in many cases - analogous to those of readers. The world frequently seemed on the precipice of disaster.

McEwan is one of those rare writers who can take the scope of these huge events and personalize them in a way that does not diminish but rather expands their impact. Lessons is a slow burn of a read.

I was a big fan of Atonement and was excited to get an advanced reader's copy of Lessons. Knowing the style of Atonement, I knew this could potentially be gritty and sad.

Maybe it was the timing of my read, but I couldn't get past the first few chapters. Child abuse, grooming, and nuclear fallout were too much to handle emotionally. I'll chalk it up to too much dark reality in my daily media to want it in my pleasure reading at the moment.

The author as always has beautiful diction and paints emotions and scenes well. Hoping to pick up this title again later.

This was an epic, sprawling, long journey by a beloved author. I've read that it was somewhat autobiographical, which is incredible and made for a more personal and meaningful read. I have only read one of Ian McEwan's books previously, after having already seen the film, but I enjoyed it nevertheless and this book is a close second to Atonement in my opinion.

I enjoyed the character development in the novel. Overall, I liked the writing, but found the political discussions/rants to be unnecessary.

I am a massive fan of Ian McEwan, and his work has never disappointed me, so I approached this work with trepidation. The length, as well as the description of an introverted character juxtaposed with world events over many years, suggested this might not work.

I was pleasantly surprised and as gripped by this as any other McEwan work. The premise sounds contrived, and in the hands of another writer, it might not work, but I found this flowed freely, and the references were interwoven carefully and appropriately and added to the narrative.

This is very character-driven, and as well as Roland, other characters stayed with me long after the last page. There is a beautiful empathy in the prose, which could be explained by the autobiographical elements.
There is so much in this book that I would love to see Lawrence's story further explored in another work in the future.

As a musician, I appreciated the accuracy of the detail around the music performances - this is not always the case in general fiction.

A lovely example of how history can be explored through fiction.

Thank you, Net Galley, for the ARC

Although I have the highest regard for Ian McEwan as a proven author, This is the first book of his that I really did not like. Way too long. Too much politicizing. I found myself skipping through some of the rants.

Ian McEwan quickly became one of my favorite authors after I read Atonement. I treasured his back catalog and purchased each of his new books. Unfortunately, his newer work has not found the same status on my shelf. I did not find myself pouring over the language in this book, but paging ahead to get past the political ramblings. This is a long book, not a short one where words are used precisely and the plot turns ever so carefully. Oh well!