Enduring Love By Ian McEwan

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"The beginning is simple to mark. We were in sunlight under a turkey oak, partly protected from a strong, gusty wind. I was kneeling on the grass with a corkscrew in my hand, and Clarissa was passing me the bottle - a 1987 Daumas Gassac. This was the moment, this was the pinprick on the time map..." Joe

Ian McEwan proved he'd really found his feet with "Enduring Love".

Much hyped at the time of release, "Enduring Love" doesn't disappoint over a decade later...

Enduring Love has one of the most compelling first chapters of any book ever written. The narrator is Joe Rose, a successful science writer in his 40's. He has enjoyed a happy relationship with his common-law wife Clarissa for many years.

On the way home from picking Clarissa up from the airport, the couple stop for a picnic in the Oxfordshire countryside and as Joe starts to open a bottle of wine, his contented and secure life changes forever...

Hearing a cry, Joe and Clarissa witness a hot-air balloon clearly out of control. The basket of the balloon contains a terrified child and a frantic man is desperately trying to pull the balloon back to the ground. Joe and several other witnesses rush to help the man, but their efforts end in tragedy.

The aftermath of the events of that day affects all those involved, but decidedly unexpected reprecussions occur for Joe, Clarissa and Jed Parry, one of the bystanders who attempted to anchor the balloon.

Joe and Parry exchanged no more than a glance during the rescue attempt, but for Parry, that glance changed his life and turned Joe and Clarissa's world upside down...

The novel explores the theme of relationships (physical, emotional and spiritual) and the issue of trust. Echoing his earlier novel "Black Dogs", McEwan puts his characters into a situation where they are forced to question their values, beliefs and everything they hold dear and familiar in life.

Joe is the main character and outwardly the "victim", but McEwan introduces more than a tiny element of doubt about Joe's version of reality in the mind of the reader and does so in a compelling and very readable fashion...this is definitely a "can't put it down until I find out what happens" kind of book.

Highly recommended.

Enduring Love novel available from Amazon.co.uk

Enduring Love film [DVD] available from Amazon.co.uk

"I have no doubt that I remember his words correctly. He said 'Is that Joe?' I didn't reply. I had already recognised the voice. He said, 'I just wanted you to know, I understand what you're feeling. I feel it too. I love you'..." Joe

"Don't ever walk by me as if I wasn't there. Neither of us can be fooled. Never deny my reality, because in the end you'll deny yourself..." Jed

Enduring Love
Amazon reader review:
"Enduring Love is one of Ian McEwan's finest works. It is also one of the most beautifully written and emotionally engaging books to have come out of Britain in the past decade."

Enduring Love [DVD] [2004]

Enduring Love [DVD] [2004]

Amazon review:
"Enduring Love builds the taut delirium of a Hitchcock movie. Rhys Ifans, best known for his comic performances, curls his tall frame into a seemingly helpless but creepily aggressive shuffle; the haunted eyes of Daniel Craig and Samantha Morton make the crumbling of their relationship as suspenseful as Jed's stalking. Director Roger Michell (Notting Hill, Persuasion) uses fresh, jarring images and sinuous visual rhythms to craft a tight thriller with unsettling emotional layers. --Bret Fetzer"

Amazon review:
"In ENDURING LOVE, Joe (Craig) and Claire's (Morton) romantic picnic is disrupted after a hot air balloon drifts into a field, appearing to be in trouble. Inside the balloon is a young boy and the pilot whose leg gets tangled in the anchor rope. After three men, including Joe, rush to secure the basket and try to save the two passengers, it seems they cannot rescue the pilot, who eventually falls to his death and the young boy remains unscathed. When Joe and one of the other men, Jed, go to retrieve the body of the fallen man, Jed feels an instant connection with Joe--one that, as the weeks go by, becomes ever more intense."