Black Dogs By Ian McEwan
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
- Black Dogs On Twitter
- "Black Dogs" - Feedback
- Calling All Book Fans!
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...
Black Dogs On Twitter
Tweets about Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
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- book rvw: Saturday, by Ian McEwan: maybe a bit hastily written after 9/11, but it's an okay take on modern anxiety (yawn?); read Black Dogs.
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- mechem
- book rvw: Black Dogs, by Ian McEwan: on the challenge of balancing the rational v. the spiritual both personally and nationally; must read.
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Other books by Ian McEwan...
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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...
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In Between The Sheets By Ian McEwan
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