On a windy spring day in the Chilterns, the calm, organized life of science writer Joe Rose is shattered when he witnesses a tragic accident: a hot...
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Mar 05, 2008
Kelly
rated it: 
I didn't think it was possible for me to be this impressed and awed by Ian McEwan again, after Atonement. I thought there's no way that he writes something that absorbing and brilliant again. I thought I'd have to settle for something just okay or repetitive tricks, but I didn't. Ian McEwan's novels tend to revolve around a single event, a single moment, or day. This day will change the character's life and everyone around them. It shows the past and the future spiraling around this one narrativ
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Jun 26, 2009
Barbara
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On an idyllic spring afternoon, Joe Rose and his wife were enjoying a picnic, when their lovely day was forever changed. A hot air baloon, which had made a dramatic appearance into their scene, went out of control. Many people rushed to assist, but one man perished in their uncalculated attempts at rescue. Jed Parry, another of the would-be rescuers approached Joe, an atheist, and invited him to pray with him. This confrontation is merely the beginning of the turmoil that Parry created in the we
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Jun 01, 2011
Joan
rated it:
Even though there are still two class meetings to go, I finished the last two assignments after class yesterday. Just couldn't stand not to read to the end. Psychologically intricate, superbly written, with many plot twists at the end. I look forward to our remaining discussions.
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Jan 16, 2011
Manny
rated it: 
Even though I liked much of Choupette's review this morning, I disagreed with her conclusions... so, although I'm clearly in the minority here, let me present my take. Choupette starts off by observing
really what the book is about is the conflict between a way of thinking based on logical scientific reasoning and one based on emotions. Literature, versus science: "Do the scientific illiterates who run the National Library really believe that literature is mankind's greatest achievement?"More...
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Jan 01, 2010
Kathleen
rated it:
One of my friends (I don’t remember who at the moment) told me she really likes Ian McEwan because each of his novels is so different. Well, she also meant that she has really enjoyed each of his novels that she has read. After all, you could have an author who writes each novel in a different style and with a quite different theme and manner of working through it, but still dislike his/her novels. This being my first novel by him, I can’t make comment, but next one I read I will be watchful
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Jan 17, 2008
Martine
rated it:
Ian McEwan is at his best when he writes about obsession, and here he does just that. Enduring Love is the story of Joe Rose, a science journalist who gets involved in a freak ballooning accident in which a man dies. This fact alone is enough to plunge him into shock and feelings of guilt, but if that weren't enough, he also gets to deal with a stalker -- a man he met briefly at the site of the accident and who has since become convinced that they are meant to be together. Before the day of the
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Nov 11, 2010
Mariel
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Ian McEwan's Enduring Love and Saturday have some similar ideas. Culpability, survivor's guilt, do we ever really know anybody?, haves verus the have-nots from not only position of material things and social stats, but uneven mental playing fields. Hell, they have similar stories. In Enduring Love, an idyllic afternoon is ruined after a freak hot air balloon accident. Only one man really attempts to save the kid. Joe cannot go back to living with blinders on about himself. Sure, the guy was a Bi
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Jun 08, 2007
Kate
rated it: 
I don't know about this book.
On one hand, when all is said and done the narrative feels simply like an intricately-written case study, though occasionally punctuated with inconsistently glorious descriptions, for an odd psychological disorder that even with all of Ian McEwan's brilliance is still only mildly interesting.
On the other hand, it's McEwan's wonderful writing combined with a first-person perspective, which gives us the rare treat of a character reflecting intro More...
On one hand, when all is said and done the narrative feels simply like an intricately-written case study, though occasionally punctuated with inconsistently glorious descriptions, for an odd psychological disorder that even with all of Ian McEwan's brilliance is still only mildly interesting.
On the other hand, it's McEwan's wonderful writing combined with a first-person perspective, which gives us the rare treat of a character reflecting intro More...
Apr 11, 2008
Amy
rated it:
What a wonderful, disturbing change to think of love as something sinister.
I meant to just reach over on my bookpile next to my bed, snatch Enduring Love and read it for an hour or so before I got dressed and walked to school. I wound up hardly moving for the rest of the day and certainly not getting out of my pajamas because I just couldn’t put this down. An example: even the title made me think. I picked it up thinking that the word “enduring” was meant as an adjective to des More...
I meant to just reach over on my bookpile next to my bed, snatch Enduring Love and read it for an hour or so before I got dressed and walked to school. I wound up hardly moving for the rest of the day and certainly not getting out of my pajamas because I just couldn’t put this down. An example: even the title made me think. I picked it up thinking that the word “enduring” was meant as an adjective to des More...
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Apr 27, 2008
Amy
rated it: 
This is why McEwan is a good writer. He take an event and puts it in slow motion for the reader. He throughly examines it from the protagonist's point of view but then also steps back from that and examines it from an omniscient view. Then he plays with the perceptions of the reader and the protagonist. This is pretty much the same gig he used in Atonement (and to some extent in Saturday). Makes for quite the page turner. This is precisely the small problem I have with his writing. He creates an
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Mar 19, 2008
Mimi
rated it:
i can't believe i finished reading a book, yeehaw.
suggested by our babysitter extraordinaire.
i really enjoyed this book. mostly from the writerly perspective. mcewan is just so comfortable with language. it just seems to swoon out of him. the beginning of the book is much stronger, before the story sort of spirals into absurdity. but i suppose there are those stories in the real world.
the struggle between science and art is embodied in this character, joe. in all aspec More...
suggested by our babysitter extraordinaire.
i really enjoyed this book. mostly from the writerly perspective. mcewan is just so comfortable with language. it just seems to swoon out of him. the beginning of the book is much stronger, before the story sort of spirals into absurdity. but i suppose there are those stories in the real world.
the struggle between science and art is embodied in this character, joe. in all aspec More...
Apr 25, 2009
Eve
rated it:
This reminds me of the Audrey Tautou film about how things are never as they appear...I think it was called "He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not". One's perception of an event can transform the lives of another being. Tragedies either make or break familial bonds of love, and in the end you find out what foundation your relationship was built on.
We all hope that ours would be an "enduring love" that like Shakespeare said, "looks on tempests and is not shaken." More...
We all hope that ours would be an "enduring love" that like Shakespeare said, "looks on tempests and is not shaken." More...
Jan 20, 2009
Chana
rated it:
Just a taste of the writing: (page 1) "What idiocy, to be racing into this story and its labyrinths, sprinting away from our happiness among the fresh spring grasses by the oak." and this, (page 39) "I watched our friends wary, intelligent faces droop at our tale. Their shock was a mere shadow of our own, resembling more the goodwilled imitation of that emotion, and for this reason it was a temptation to exaggerate, to throw a rope of superlatives across the abyss that divided
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Jan 16, 2012
Judith
rated it:
I read this book after seeing it mentioned in a NYT article about rereading favorite books. According to the article this is a book that author Stephen King said he returned to for periodic rereading. I find it interesting to learn what books are admired by famous authors, and of course a famous author rereading a book is a double endorsement. I don't always like McEwan, but this one really intrigued me on a number of levels.
The initial story is about a couple picnicking in the E More...
The initial story is about a couple picnicking in the E More...
Sep 11, 2011
Marc
rated it:
Quite unusually, especially for any of Ian McEwan’s novels, I have seen the dramatic production (film or television play, I am unsure) of this book before I read it. The unforgettable opening sequence, of a runaway hot-air balloon is as unforgettable an opening as I have ever seen. I was glued to the drama being played out on television, and watched the play/film to the end, without at the time even knowing its author or name.
Then, a few years later, to read the book, one is filled w More...
Then, a few years later, to read the book, one is filled w More...
Feb 01, 2011
Philippe
rated it:
'Black Dogs' was the first McEwan I read and I found it rather rewarding, so I went on to read most of his earlier books too. However, I felt my liking for this author dwindle as I grew more familiar with the Mc Ewan formula: little tales of obsession with plots collapsing under their own weight typically somewhere halfway through the book. So I left Mc Ewan alone for a while and passed over Enduring Love and Amsterdam. It was through reading marvellous 'Atonement' , his latest novel, that I bec
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Jan 25, 2011
Winston
rated it:
Ian McEwan’s anecdotal narrative-within-a-narrative of postmodern epistemology explores the possible and fantastical frames of minds converging upon a ballooning accident, which precipitates that single explosive moment when Jed Parry is thrust into a psychopathological obsession with the narrator, Joe. Just as Jed’s delusional narrative of Joe’s irresistible affections for him impose immense strain on Joe’s relationship with his common-law wife Clarisse, Joe’s preoccupation with Jed’s potential
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Oct 29, 2010
Stuart
rated it:
• Enduring Love by Ian McEwan, Vintage (Random House)
245pps, 24 chaps, + appendix + closing letter, 98,000 words.
A thriller written by a master of the language. Not for the faint-hearted or those lacking in education, this story relates the series of events that lead up to the stalking of the main character by a seriously disturbed and potentially violent would-be lover. The man is obsessive and deluded and follows the pattern of psychosis defined as de Clérambault’s Syndrome. In su More...
245pps, 24 chaps, + appendix + closing letter, 98,000 words.
A thriller written by a master of the language. Not for the faint-hearted or those lacking in education, this story relates the series of events that lead up to the stalking of the main character by a seriously disturbed and potentially violent would-be lover. The man is obsessive and deluded and follows the pattern of psychosis defined as de Clérambault’s Syndrome. In su More...
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Sep 13, 2010
Eli
rated it:
Every so often Ian McEwan picks up a familiar plot-driven genre and rebuilds it with a slow, dark emotional engine. The Innocent, which was made into a movie I didn't like much, was a spy thriller and a Hitchcock-like can-things-possibly-get-worse murder thing, wrapped around a love story and a painful character study, and shaped by the two meanings of the title (the hero's youthful ignorance, and the way the plot leads him to do worse and worse things without being really guilty of anything);
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Mar 16, 2011
Kerstin
rated it:
This was my first book by Ian McEwan and I have to say I am really impressed and will check out some more of his work.
Joe and his wife Clarissa are out for a picnic, when an out of control hot air balloon emerges on the field nearby. Joe and a handful of other guys in the area rush to help the pilot and despite their best efforts, one of them looses their life. Jed Perry, a young guy and one of the rescuers, invites Joe to pray with him, which he refuses as he is an atheist. Little did More...
Joe and his wife Clarissa are out for a picnic, when an out of control hot air balloon emerges on the field nearby. Joe and a handful of other guys in the area rush to help the pilot and despite their best efforts, one of them looses their life. Jed Perry, a young guy and one of the rescuers, invites Joe to pray with him, which he refuses as he is an atheist. Little did More...
Feb 23, 2011
Tina
rated it:
This book was interesting but I don't think I liked it as much as some people. The story is beautifully written in poetic prose and first person narration. The story focuses on Joe Rose and his long time girlfriend Clarissa who are out enjoying the day on a picnic. They witness an older gentleman and a young boy in trouble in a hot air balloon. Joe and some other passersby run off to help but it ends in tragedy as one of the helpers dies. Here Joe also meets Jed, another helper who turns out to
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Jan 09, 2011
Brian
rated it:
McEwan gives us a tragedy; an incompetent balloon pilot,a frightened boy, and men attempting to anchor the balloon who know nothing about ballooning and by their actions turn it into a fatal accident. The result is the disruption of their lives, a before and after story. If they had done nothing but observe there would have been an accident not a tragedy I was drawn into it from the first page with the description of the outcome before describing the accident. Not many writers can do that. Lo
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Jul 10, 2010
DJ
rated it:
Ok,So this was my third Book of Ian McEwans and I have to say one thing that I really love about him is how diverse his subjects and writing style are for each book.....
I do not know if this will go down as my favourite McEwan but I am fairly convinced that it is one that I will never forget!!
This is a story about a group of people brought about by one of those fateful occurences that none of us would wish to experience......
An absolutely beautiful,harmonious day is dramaticall More...
I do not know if this will go down as my favourite McEwan but I am fairly convinced that it is one that I will never forget!!
This is a story about a group of people brought about by one of those fateful occurences that none of us would wish to experience......
An absolutely beautiful,harmonious day is dramaticall More...
Jan 12, 2009
Kimberly
rated it: 
Wow - this book goes from one extreme to the other! 5-stars for the beginning of the book, but 1-star for the remaining content.
The beginning of this story really captivated my attention with a very descriptive accounting of a runaway hot-air balloon and the tragedy that follows. Every little detail had me so engaged in the story. I loved the way this beginning was written so much that I would read it again. But just the beginning of this book.
Unfortunately, the story goe More...
The beginning of this story really captivated my attention with a very descriptive accounting of a runaway hot-air balloon and the tragedy that follows. Every little detail had me so engaged in the story. I loved the way this beginning was written so much that I would read it again. But just the beginning of this book.
Unfortunately, the story goe More...
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Dec 06, 2011
Marianne
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Enduring Love is the 7th novel by Ian McEwan. The novel tells of the aftermath of a ballooning accident. Joe Rose and his partner Clarissa are on a picnic in a meadow when an unpiloted hot-air balloon with a small child on board drifts their way. Several men run to assist, and one of them dies. Joe encounters Jed Parry, who fixates on him and is convinced that they love each other and Jed is destined to bring Joe to God. This is an interesting novel which questions what legally constitutes haras
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Apr 17, 2011
Kristīne
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Nov 11, 2010
Justin
rated it:
This was my first experience with McEwan and, what can I say, the dude really surprised me!
This book grabbed me with its expert handle on internal dialog. I often found myself wondering how McEwan was able to weave the complex web of thoughts that sped across the page. His characters, especially the main characters, whose first person voice the book is told in. It seemed so real, a yin-yang of chaos and order that we all seem to have swirling in our brains. It reminded me how close w More...
This book grabbed me with its expert handle on internal dialog. I often found myself wondering how McEwan was able to weave the complex web of thoughts that sped across the page. His characters, especially the main characters, whose first person voice the book is told in. It seemed so real, a yin-yang of chaos and order that we all seem to have swirling in our brains. It reminded me how close w More...
Aug 06, 2010
Cindy
rated it:
Ugh, I hate giving such a low rating to a book by McEwan because he writes such beautiful prose, but the plot was such a letdown I also cannot justify giving it a higher one.
McEwan's writing is beautiful, there is no doubt about that. I’d read Atonement, and it was as good as the movie made the story out to be. This book also explores some interesting ideas about love, trust, faith and reason. However, as interesting as the plot's premise is...dear God, what a disappointment at the More...
McEwan's writing is beautiful, there is no doubt about that. I’d read Atonement, and it was as good as the movie made the story out to be. This book also explores some interesting ideas about love, trust, faith and reason. However, as interesting as the plot's premise is...dear God, what a disappointment at the More...
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Jul 30, 2010
Steffi
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Bei den Romanen von Ian McEWan wünsche ich mir manchmal, ich könnte mehr als fünf Punkte vergeben. Mal wieder bin ich erstaunt und berührt über die Fähigkeit McEwans, die besondere Beschaffenheit der Beziehungen zwischen Menschen, insbesondere Liebenden, zu beschreiben ohne dass es entweder kitschig oder analytisch-kalt wird. Auch die Veränderungen, die äußere Ereignisse auf Menschen und ihre Beziehungen haben können, hat er hier wie immer großartig beschrieben.
Und bei aller Psychologie un More...
Und bei aller Psychologie un More...
Apr 20, 2011
K.D.
rated it:
Attention getting fast-paced first 3 chapters. Then the story gets a bit boring in the middle as the narration kept going on circles. I could not get the connection between the love of the couple for each other and the love that the crazy guy has for the male protagonist. However, the last 2 chapters including the 2 appendices really brilliant! It's my first time to read Ian McEwan and I am looking forward to read more of his works. I will be buying Atonement next month!
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