Black Dogs By Ian McEwan
"Black Dogs" is a novel by multi-award winning British author Ian McEwan, first published in 1992.
In 1946, a young couple, Bernard and June, set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they plan an idyllic holiday, only to encounter an experience of evil so terrifying, it alters their lives and the lives of their descendents for ever.
One of Ian McEwan's shorter novels, "Black Dogs" is an intricate and beautifully woven meditation on the nature of good and evil.
"Black Dogs" was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1992
"Black Dogs" By Ian McEwan - Table of Contents
Ian McEwan - Black Dogs
- Plot Summary Of "Black Dogs" By Ian McEwan
- Excerpt From "Black Dogs"
- Reviews Of "Black Dogs" By Ian McEwan
- Essay - "Bringing the Past to Heel: History, Identity and Violence in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs"
- Study Resources For "Black Dogs" By Ian McEwan
- "Black Dogs" On Amazon UK
- "Black Dogs" On Amazon USA
- More About The Author Of "Black Dogs" - Ian McEwan
- IanMcEwan.com
- Ian McEwan On Wikipedia
- "Black Dogs" - Feedback
- Word of the Day
- Other Novels By Ian McEwan
- Other Novels By Ian McEwan
- Short Stories By Ian McEwan
- Black Dogs Links
Plot Summary Of "Black Dogs" By Ian McEwan
Synopsis of the plot of "Black Dogs" By Ian McEwan
"Black Dogs" by Ian McEwan is not a straightforward simple tale, where Event A is followed by Consequence B culminating in Climax C. We know early on in the book what the "big event" is and the "big event" is not really what the book is about...it's about lots of things. McEwan is not one to tell a story only on one level.The plot of "Black Dogs" involves distinct parts moving backwards and forwards in time as the tale unfolds. It starts with a preface describing the early life of the narrator, Jeremy. Orphaned at a young age and left in the "care" of his older sister and her dysfunctional family, he became drawn to the parents of a succession of friends throughout his youth. Observing their interactions from a neutral perspective, he was able to see the reasons why conflict arose between parents and their children and frequently became closer to the parents of his friends than their own children were.
The story proper starts in 1987, where Jeremy is now a publisher of academic textbooks and is happily married to Jenny and has several children. Although he is now a parent himself, he is still very much drawn to Jenny's parents, June and Bernard Tremaine and it is June and Bernard's personalities and experiences that form and shape much of this novel.
Jeremy is writing the memoirs of the Tremaine family and to this end, goes to visit June in a nursing home where she is dying of leukaemia, with the intention of getting her version of a kind of "family myth" regarding a sinister and genuinely life-changing experience that she and Bernard had during their honeymoon in France in the 1940's. Jeremy knows that his wife Jenny has lived with the effect that this experience had on her parents and the consequences arising from it, all her life and which led to her irritation and partial alienation from June and Bernard.
As Jeremy tries to get to the root of what actually happened all those years ago, he finds out that nothing should ever just be taken at face value...
"Black Dogs" is not for lovers of fast-paced thrills, but if you're looking for a book that takes it's time and builds layer upon layer of detail to the plot and makes you really think beyond just the words printed on the page, you'll find this book a pleasure.
Excerpt From "Black Dogs"
Extract from "Black Dogs" By Ian McEwan
- Bold Type: Excerpt by Ian McEwan
- Excerpt from Black Dogs - the scene where June encounters the dogs...
Reviews Of "Black Dogs" By Ian McEwan
Book reviews - "Black Dogs" By Ian McEwan
- mjohnharrison.com - the official m john harrison website
- M John Harrison's review of "Black Dogs" from The Times Literary Supplement 1992
- Black Dogs by I. McEwan - Reviewed by Ann Skea - Eclectica Magazine v3n1
- Black Dogs - Book Review by Ann Skea, Ian McEwan, Eclectica Magazine v3n1
- enotes.com's review of "Black Dogs
- enotes.com's review of "Black Dogs"
Essay - "Bringing the Past to Heel: History, Identity and Violence in Ian McEwan's Black Dogs"
Manchester University Press Article 2007
- Manchester University Press Article 2007
- "Ian McEwan's 1992 novel Black Dogs employs postmodern understandings of history while also critiquing these same perspectives. In particular, by depicting the efforts of its protagonist, Jeremy, to write a memoir of his parents-in-law, it draws attention to the subjectivity of historical writing..."
Study Resources For "Black Dogs" By Ian McEwan
- ReadingGroupGuides.com - Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
- Reading Group Guide discussion questions for Black Dogs
"Black Dogs" On Amazon UK
"Black Dogs" by Ian McEwan
"... As always in McEwan the characterisation is totally convincing, but it is the book's engagement with history that really compels. McEwan takes in war, revolution and the nature of evil, and the image of the black dogs haunted my imagination as it did the characters in the book. The scenes in Berlin as the wall comes down were also memorable, but more than anything I enjoyed this book because it made me think, and because it showed that the author himself had really grappled with the themes of the book without ever losing sight of the every day reality of being human."
"Black Dogs" On Amazon USA
"Black Dogs" by Ian McEwan
Black Dogs: A Novel
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"Set in late 1980s Europe at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Black Dogs is the intimate story of the crumbling of a marriage, as witnessed by an outsider. Jeremy is the son-in-law of Bernard and June Tremaine, whose union and estrangement began almost simultaneously. Seeking to comprehend how their deep love could be defeated by ideological differences Bernard and June cannot reconcile, Jeremy undertakes writing June's memoirs, only to be led back again and again to one terrifying encouner forty years earlier--a moment that, for June, was as devastating and irreversible in its consequences as the changes sweeping Europe in Jeremy's own time. In a finely crafted, compelling examination of evil and grace, Ian McEwan weaves the sinister reality of civiliation's darkest moods--its black dogs--with the tensions that both create love and destroy it."
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More About The Author Of "Black Dogs" - Ian McEwan
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Ian McEwan - British Novelist, Short-Story Writer, And Screenwriter
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Ian McEwan has been writing fiction since the 1970's and has written many bestsellers and received numerous literary awards and glowing critical acclaim.... It is difficult to sum up Ian McEwan's writing...a few words and phrases spring to mind...bo...
Here's my favorite link:
Ian McEwan On Wikipedia
Ian McEwan, CBE, FRSA, FRSL, (born June 21, 1948) is a Booker Prize-winning English novelist.
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Other Novels By Ian McEwan
Other books by Ian McEwan...
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The Child In Time By Ian McEwan
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"The Child In Time" is Ian McEwan's third novel, first published in 1987. The Child In Time deals with the tragic and upsetting theme of child abduction. Stephen Lewis, a children's book author, takes his 3-year-old daughter Kate on a routine Satur...
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The Comfort Of Strangers is Ian McEwan's second novel, first published in 1981. A bored couple journey to an un-named city in search of excitement. There they meet an enigmatic stranger who entangles them in a web from which there may be no escape.....
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"The Cement Garden" is Ian McEwan's' first novel, originally published in 1978. The Cement Garden is a beautifully crafted, but very dark tale of childhood and lost innocence... This is how the novel starts; "It was not at all clear to me now why w...
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The Innocent By Ian McEwan
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Other books by Ian McEwan...
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Amsterdam By Ian McEwan
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"Amsterdam" is a novel by multi-award winning author Ian McEwan, first published in 1998. The plot of "Amsterdam" follows two old friends, Clive, a composer and Vernon, a newspaper editor, who attend the funeral of a woman who had been a friend and...
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"On Chesil Beach" is a novel by multi-award winning author, Ian McEwan first published in 2007 On a summer evening in 1962, just before the "sexual revolution", two newlyweds sit down to dinner in the honeymoon suite of a Dorset hotel. Edward and Fl...
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"Atonement" is a novel by award winning writer, Ian McEwan, first published in 2001. "Atonement" was made into a multi-award winning film which was released in 2007 The plot of "Atonement" follows the life of Briony Tallis, from naive teenager to el...
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Saturday By Ian McEwan
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"Saturday" is a novel by multi-award winning author, Ian McEwan, first published in 2005. "Saturday" is the story of a day in the life of a 48 year old London neurosurgeon, Henry Perowne. The novel is set on Saturday, 15th February 2003. Henry wake...
Short Stories By Ian McEwan
Other books by Ian McEwan...
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In Between The Sheets By Ian McEwan
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"In Between The Sheets" is a collection of short stories by award-winning author Ian McEwan, first published in 1978 Like McEwan's earlier short story collection, "First Love, Last Rites", the individual stories in "In Between The Sheets" are linke...
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First Love, Last Rites By Ian McEwan
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First Love, Last Rites is Ian McEwan's first collection of short stories and was originally published in 1975. This collection was Ian McEwan's first published work and comprises a collection of eight short stories, all of which are summarised indiv...
Black Dogs Links
Websites and articles about Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
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- ReadingGroupGuides.com - Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
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- 7th Decade Thoughts: Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
- Black Dogs by Ian McEwan. I have always been somewhat suspicious of Ian McEwan. I first read Amsterd...
- chapters.indigo.ca: Black Dogs: Ian Mcewan: Books
- Idealistic and madly in love, Bernard and June are on their honeymoon in the mountains of France. Th...
- Black Dogs in Paperback in Ian McEwan Books - Tesco.com
- Black Dogs, Ian McEwan. ... Breadcrumb. You are in:. Books Home Page · Ian McEwan; Black Dogs...
- Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
- Ian McEwan weaves the sinister reality of civilization’s darkest moods — its black dogs — with...
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- Black dogs /, McEwan, Ian. 1992. 2. The black dove : a Holmes on the range mystery /, Hockensmith, S...
- Horizon Information Portal
- Black dogs /, McEwan, Ian. 1992. 2. The black dove : a Holmes on the range mystery /, Hockensmith, S...
- mjohnharrison.com - the official m john harrison website
- The fourth part of Black Dogs presents the memoir itself, a perfect little Ian McEwan short story, a...
- Black Dogs Ian McEwan | WHSmith
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- Black dogs /, McEwan, Ian. 1992. 2. The black dove : a Holmes on the range mystery /, Hockensmith, S...
- Black Dogs, Ian McEwan, Book - Barnes & Noble
- BARNES & NOBLE - Find Black Dogs by Ian McEwan. Enjoy book clubs, author videos and customer rev...
- BookLounge.ca | Books | Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
- Set in late 1980s Europe at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Black Dogs is the intimate stor...
- Strand Bookstore: Black Dogs; by Ian McEwan
- Strand Bookstore, New York City booklovers treasure trove - home to 18 miles of books, new books, us...
- BLACK DOGS by Ian McEwan, Kati Nicholl, Steven Mackintosh ...
- BLACK DOGS by Ian McEwan, Kati Nicholl, Steven Mackintosh ISBN : 9780007296446 books from Pickabook....
- Amazon.com: Black Dogs: A Novel: Ian McEwan: Books
- One of his great literary triumphs, Ian McEwan's "Black Dogs" is an engrossing ... Ian...
- Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Black Dogs: A Novel
- Set in post second world war Europe (mostly France) and extending to the late eighties, Ian McEwan&#...
- Literary Encyclopedia: Black Dogs
- Black Dogs. Domain: Literature. Genre: Novel. Country: England, Britain, Europe. Ian McEwan (1992)....
