acerben

When I first came to this book, I was in the middle of my summer vacation, I had been binging on books for about a week and wanted to take my time on this one. I haven't seen the movie so I had no preconceptions about what to expect, the characters were brand new to me, I didn't even know what actors played the roles. The book started out fairly slowly, the first 60 pages alone was quite a struggle to persevere through, there appeared to be quite a lot of irrelevant things going on. Many characters were introduced, not all of whom would particularly matter to the overall story but as I discovered later on, they were required for additional depth for events that create the story. It was a tad overwhelming at first, having to memorise so much information about so many characters so early on in the book but I managed it. I should mention that I'm a student in London, half of my family were in London during World War 2 so I know personally the locations described inside (I also know for a fact which places McEwan describes but chooses not to name, my Uni owns them as a matter of fact). I found that his description of London away from the center as "... an agglomeration of dull little towns" to be as totally accurate today as I'm sure it was then. He accurately portrays the tension in pre-war Britain, the fear amongst the younger generation with the assurances of the elders that no-one would be mad enough to start another war through to the grim sights later on. I found that the descriptions were informative and detailed without being unnecessarily heavy, a difficult balancing act to maintain. The smaller touches towards the end gave it an additional charm, but I won't ruin it by saying what they are. I would recommend that you read this book before you see the movie. I'm never sure whether the movie will be able to live up to the images I've conjured up in my mind of dirty wartime London by intermingling the descriptions with my own experiences so if you don't live in London, google image search some outer London scenes before you read it.

2022-09-04 07:00