Ian McEwan - Enduring Love Book Review

This bestselling book, which has also been made into a film, details many different forms of enduring love. Whether it be the unconditional love of a mother for her children, the unrequited love of a stalker for his victim, the love of a career or in any one of a plethora of possible forms. The narrative is technically a first person retrospective narrative, however, it does have a distinct 'over-the-shoulder' feel. The story is told from point of view of Joe, a science writer obsessed with the apparently futile aim of getting back into 'real' science. The narrative also switches on a couple of occasions. For example at the end of the book there is a scientific report and during the book Joe attempts to write from the point of view of long-term girlfriend, Clarissa. Some letters are also included in order to purvey further information to the reader.

The novel begins with an immediately gripping first chapter based around a hot air balloon accident, in which a man dies and another man, Parry, develops a disturbing obsession with the central character. This first chapter acts as a drug and McEwan plays the part of dealer most effectively, feeding the reader enough to become hooker but holding back to the extent that they are desperate for more information - something McEwan, through Joe, is not afraid to confess, "I'm holding back...".

Enduring Love takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster, from sadness to laughter. McEwan uses a range of traditional devices; pathetic fallacy, pathos, personification, the cliff-hanger, comic relief, to name but a few and makes optimum use of the author's omnipotence - this can, however, be annoying at times and for people who have read a lot of McEwan's work it is possible to hear McEwan's voice dominating Joe's.

This novel, more successfully than any other that I can think of, spans across a wide selection of genres. Many librarian place it in the romance section due to its title and although romance is a part of it, Enduring Love does not really belong there. It is, at heart, a thriller.

Overall, while Enduring Love is not my personal favorite out of all of McEwan's works, it is a very successful piece and has met critical acclaim. The author does a fantastic job of convincing the reader that they are reading a piece of non-fiction and manages to appeal to fans of almost every genre. For this reason I give Enduring Love by Ian McEwan a Great Book Guide score of 85% - a very respectable score.