false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165604786m/6870.jpg 6870 39 Joe Rose has planned a postcard-perfect afternoon in the English countryside to celebrate his lover's return after six weeks in the States. To complete the picture, there's even a "helium balloon drifting dreamily across the wooded valley." But as Joe and Clarissa watch the balloon touch down, their idyll comes to an abrupt end. The pilot catches his leg in the anchor rope, while the only passenger, a boy, is too scared to jump down. As the wind whips into action, Joe and four other men rush to secure the basket. Mother Nature, however, isn't feeling very maternal. "A mighty fist socked the balloon in two rapid blows, one-two, the second more vicious than the first," and at once the rescuers are airborne. Joe manages to drop to the ground, as do most of his companions, but one man is lifted sky-high, only to fall to his death. <P> In itself, the accident would change the survivors' lives, filling them with an uneasy combination of shame, happiness, and endless self-reproach. (In one of the novel's many ironies, the balloon eventually lands safely, the boy unscathed.) But fate has far more unpleasant things in store for Joe. Meeting the eye of fellow rescuer Jed Parry, for example, turns out to be a very bad move. For Jed is instantly obsessed, making the first of many calls to Joe and Clarissa's London flat that very night. Soon he's openly shadowing Joe and writing him endless letters. (One insane epistle begins, "I feel happiness running through me like an electrical current. I close my eyes and see you as you were last night in the rain, across the road from me, with the unspoken love between us as strong as steel cable.") Worst of all, Jed's version of love comes to seem a distortion of Joe's feelings for Clarissa. <P> Apart from the incessant stalking, it is the conditionals--the contingencies--that most frustrate Joe, a scientific journalist. If only he and Clarissa had gone straight home from the airport... If only the wind hadn't picked up... If only he had saved Jed's 29 messages in a single day... Ian McEwan has long been a poet of the arbitrary nightmare, his characters ineluctably swept up in others' fantasies, skidding into deepening violence, and--worst of all--becoming strangers to those who love them. Even his prose itself is a masterful and methodical exercise in defamiliarization. But <I>Enduring Love</I> and its underrated predecessor, <I>Black Dogs</I>, are also meditations on knowledge and perception as well as brilliant manipulations of our own expectations. By the novel's end, you will be surprisingly unafraid of hot-air balloons, but you won't be too keen on looking a stranger in the eye. 31779 1997 Enduring Love total:3643|5:635|4:1453|3:1095|2:343|1:117| 3643 13075 4965 395 5 8 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 11 07:23:33 -0800 2008 Wed Mar 05 11:04:10 -0800 2008 more...]]> 1 3 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 02 16:32:51 -0700 2007 Thu Sep 06 09:51:10 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 4 false false Thu Jun 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Mar 13 16:25:50 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 26 10:02:20 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Thu Jan 17 11:54:32 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 17 13:30:49 -0800 2008 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 th...more...]]> 2 1 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Mar 26 10:06:02 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 08 13:57:49 -0700 2007
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...more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Apr 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 10 21:59:45 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 11 00:12:10 -0700 2008
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 certa...more...]]> 3 1 false false Fri Apr 25 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 27 10:03:03 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 27 10:10:09 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Mon Mar 17 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Feb 24 12:58:39 -0800 2008 Wed Mar 19 04:53:33 -0700 2008 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, befo...more...]]> 3 2 false false Tue Apr 21 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 04 04:06:01 -0800 2009 Sat Apr 25 09:33:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 20 13:57:14 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 20 14:07:37 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 0 false false Tue Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2006 Sat Jan 10 13:42:14 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 12 22:48:52 -0800 2009
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 l...more...]]> 5 1 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 26 15:43:35 -0800 2008 Tue Feb 26 15:46:52 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Sep 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 14 13:52:45 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 14 13:52:45 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun May 17 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue May 12 09:25:16 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 10:02:13 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Aug 06 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Jul 27 18:56:23 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 08 11:25:02 -0700 2009
Most lit watchers know this book provides a gusty wallop of a beginning. Natural fascination with human tragedy held me close and propelled me through the early ...more...]]> 2 0 false true Wed Feb 25 15:02:55 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 11 17:11:10 -0700 2009
Five men raced across a field to rescue a man dragged by an hot-air balloon buffeted by gusts. There was also a child crouching inside the basket. As the ballo...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Mar 31 05:10:56 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 11 05:50:46 -0700 2008
The book is far more sinister and engaging than the film, which seems to have taken liberties with the book, in my opinion.

It's an interesting comparison between science and religion and an unnerving tal...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Apr 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 18 13:21:57 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 18 13:27:49 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Sun Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Thu Sep 17 06:47:58 -0700 2009 Tue Oct 20 05:16:36 -0700 2009
A McEwan novel works on any number of levels, but when he is at his best, he can entertain, educate an...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 08 17:59:47 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 08 18:02:35 -0800 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=6870