The Comfort Of Strangers By Ian McEwan

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The Comfort Of Strangers - A Novel By Ian McEwan

The Comfort Of Strangers is Ian McEwan's second novel and was first published in 1981.

A bored couple journey to an un-named city in search of excitement. There they meet an enigmatic stranger who draws them into his world and in so doing, entangles them in a web from which there can be no escape...

The Comfort Of Strangers was shortlisted for The Booker Prize in 1981.
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Review Of The Comfort Of Strangers

Plot Summary & Synopsis Of "The Comfort Of Strangers" by Ian McEwan

The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan

The Comfort Of Strangers is set in an un-named city (un-named but it bears more than a passing resemblence to Venice!), Colin and Mary, a 30-something couple are there on holiday - but they are bored. Very bored.

Their relationship is stale and they wander aimlessly through life and through the streets of the city in search of some kind of relief from the boredom of their own selves.

One night, on a seemingly fruitless quest to find a restaurant that meets their exacting standards, they encounter Robert, a local man who is clearly sinister yet undoubtedly charismatic...he tells them the story of his life and somehow meeting this dangerous but extraordinary man invigorates Colin and Mary and they once again experience the unfamiliar joy of living...but this comes at a price...

Like hungry spiders, Robert and his wife Caroline draw them deeper and deeper into the web of their complex and disturbing lives until there is no going back...when Mary sees the danger it is far, far too late for escape...

Dark, menacing and ultimately extremely disturbing, McEwan unfolds this tale slowly and relishes every moment of the inexorable journey towards tragedy...

The Comfort Of Strangers is a horror novel. Not in the gory, blood splattered, hack and slash meaning of the term - but horrific nonetheless in a subtle, langorous, almost elegant fashion!

The Comfort Of Strangers is a superb follow-up to McEwan's first novel The Cement Garden. Very creepy and the ending, (although you can see it coming) is nevertheless, stark, shocking and disturbing...the fact that McEwan wrote the climax in an understated and clinically detached way, makes it even more so.

Like The Cement Garden, The Comfort Of Strangers is perfect for those who like psychological creepiness and I highly recommend it - one of my favourite Ian McEwan novels!


"The Comfort Of Strangers" by Ian McEwan on Amazon - available in hardback, paperback, audio and Kindle format

The Comfort of Strangers



The Comfort Of Strangers

The Comfort Of Strangers - Film

The Comfort Of Strangers movie

Starring:
Rupert Everett as Colin
Natasha Richardson as Mary
Christopher Walken as Robert
Helen Mirren as Caroline

Amazon viewer review:
"This is a strange, dark film that stings as much as the original novella and does so abundantly. McEwan, one of the most intelligent fiction writers around, cleverly sets this macabre story in Venice whose dark labyrinthine passages Schrader takes maximum advantage of, giving the film the creepy atmosphere it needs to make it so resonant. Recommended."

The Comfort of Strangers [Region 2]



Comfort Of Strangers [DVD] [1990]

More Novels & Short Stories By Ian McEwan

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The latest news about Ian McEwan, author of The Comfort Of Strangers

Guthrie's Christopher Hampton Celebration Will Include Three Plays, Screenings ...
... starring Emma Thompson and Jonathan Pryce and adapted and directed by Hampton; "Atonement" (2007), Hampton's adaptation of Ian McEwan's novel about lives changed by a lie during World War II starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy; and "Dangerous ...
The story behind Christopher Hitchens's March 2012 essay
By Benjamin Schwarz Christopher wrote and revised this issue's essay on GK Chesterton in the final weeks of his life, as Ian McEwan has movingly recounted in his article in The Guardian and The New York Times about his last visit with him.
My hero: Jarvis Cocker by Jon McGregor
I first heard Jarvis Cocker's voice when he read Ian McEwan's "Last Day of Summer" on Radio 1, some time in 1993. The reading sparked an early interest in McEwan's work, but it also led me to the music of Pulp, a love of which I've retained ever since.
Ian McEwan, author
Ian McEwan is a novelist and screenwriter. He has won many awards for his work, being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction numerous times and winning the award for Amsterdam in 1998. He was awarded a CBE in 2000.
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The Comfort Of Strangers - a novel by Ian McEwan
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