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 wit...
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Dec 17, 2009
Elizabeth
rated it: 
I want to love Ian McEwan based on Zadie Smith’s (hilarious) interview with him in the Believer book of Writers on Writing. Maybe Black Dogs wasn’t the place to start. It was interesting to see his life work paralleled against Roth’s in the New York Review of Books (Al Alvarez, July 19 2007), suggesting that McEwan, like Roth, came of age as a writer at a moment when sexuality had to be busted out and that he, like Roth, was in the vanguard of this. I was expecting something more original in his
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Oct 31, 2011
Cecily
rated it:
Very disappointing, and yet not a dreadful book either (I've read five other McEwan's, all 4* or 5*).
The narrator is preparing the memoirs of his dying mother-in-law and particularly wanting details of a terrifying encounter with black dogs more than 40 years ago that changed the direction of her life, and therefore that of her husband and children.
Jeremy describes his own childhood, contrasting it with that of his wife, and tells of trips to the care home to talk to his moth More...
The narrator is preparing the memoirs of his dying mother-in-law and particularly wanting details of a terrifying encounter with black dogs more than 40 years ago that changed the direction of her life, and therefore that of her husband and children.
Jeremy describes his own childhood, contrasting it with that of his wife, and tells of trips to the care home to talk to his moth More...
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Aug 24, 2009
Susan
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Mar 09, 2010
Maggie
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Would be 3.5 stars if possible. I forgot how well he writes. Even if I usually find him/his characters pretentious and unrelatable. There were those moments in this book as well, but I resonated too closely and personally with the classic Rational vs Spiriutal, Good vs Evil, White vs Black - vs Gray inner conflicts of the soul. What do we really really wish for - what "should be" , versus what really is, and how we reconcile the two. I like how McEwan's protagonist/storytelling device,
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Mar 08, 2010
Adam
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I don't understand how anyone could dislike this. It's basically a novel about ideologies and philosophies and how they apply to human beings, not about them in general, and McEwan's prose is so precise and fabulous that reading this whole thing, a book where barely anything actually happens except for near the end, was incredibly involving and fascinating. The characters feel like genuine people, there is no political condescension or sloganeering, just thoughtful human debate. I'm also constan
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Dec 17, 2009
Jonathan
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I guess I don't really care for McEwan but I can't stop reading him. I did like this book, I think he does much better in his shorter stuff.
Families are strange things, especially one's you marry into. I don't know when or how, but I do love my in-laws and I've been drawn into their dramas, much like in this book - although not as much traveling or Englishness. I liked how these people were drawn, flaws and all. I didn't think McEwan passed judgment on them or that the reader can eithe More...
Families are strange things, especially one's you marry into. I don't know when or how, but I do love my in-laws and I've been drawn into their dramas, much like in this book - although not as much traveling or Englishness. I liked how these people were drawn, flaws and all. I didn't think McEwan passed judgment on them or that the reader can eithe More...
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Nov 20, 2007
Georgia
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After reading Atonement, I was very excited to start Black Dogs, which is a totally different style of book (novella) with a totally different plotline (based before and during the fall of the Berlin Wall). Wow, was I disappointed. The plot is not intriguing, the characters are flat, and the action is minimal. When something eventful does occur, it's overly dramatized to the point of being ridiculous.
I hate to say it, but this book was pretty bad. If you really love how McEwan writes More...
I hate to say it, but this book was pretty bad. If you really love how McEwan writes More...
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Aug 06, 2011
Write a review...I have read many of Ian McEwan’s novels, and one of their most attractive features is being tied to specific times and places, and connected to specific events in recent history (e.g. “Saturday”). This is no exception, the time and place being, in part, 1988 and the fall of the Berlin Wall. But that is only the fulcrum around which the carefully-interwoven narrative revolves, stretching right back to the darkest days of the Second World War. An aspect of which is too horrendous
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Sep 19, 2011
Teymur
rated it:
Having read On Chesil Beach, Saturday, and Innocent I was waiting for more of those insights into human psyche and exact “feeling of time” descriptions. And you get some of it in the first part (“England of 40-s – “serious world of brown black and grey” etc.). But I felt both On Chesil Beach and Innocent were better in this respect.
Berlin wall part did not really connect much - I started Black Dogs immediately after the Innocent, and I couldn’t help feeling that the whole Fall of th More...
Berlin wall part did not really connect much - I started Black Dogs immediately after the Innocent, and I couldn’t help feeling that the whole Fall of th More...
Aug 15, 2010
Rachelle
rated it:
Anything Ian McEwan writes is worth reading. This book, BLACK DOGS, is arresting not only for the masterful storytelling but for the fascinating dialogue between a spiritualist and a skeptical rationalist. The debaters are married, but long estranged. Their mutual embrace of communism had cemented their union. When she begins to see signs of evil (the black dogs), of the metaphysical, their relationship begins to unravel. The creatures she sees (real? imagined? what about the bite marks on he
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Jul 04, 2010
Tony
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McEwan, Ian. BLACK DOGS. (1992). ****. Once again, McEwan has written a novel that explores the nature of violence and the ultimate redemptive power of love. The narrator of this tale is Jeremy. He was orphaned at an early age when both his parents were killed in an accident. He has learned to seek out surrogate parents as he is growing up – mostly the parents of his friends. When he marries Jenny, her parents become his foster parents. Jenny’s parents, June and Bernard, met during the
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May 20, 2010
Matthew
rated it: 
Another McEwan book about people who love each other but somehow fail to stay together. A theme he does well.
Here the people who love each other begin their marriage as idealists, British communists with ambitions to change the world. The husband remains political, dedicated to various causes even after he abandons communism. The wife has an experience with black dogs on her honeymoon, which sends her on a quest for spiritual truth. The black dogs and other scenes of danger add a More...
Here the people who love each other begin their marriage as idealists, British communists with ambitions to change the world. The husband remains political, dedicated to various causes even after he abandons communism. The wife has an experience with black dogs on her honeymoon, which sends her on a quest for spiritual truth. The black dogs and other scenes of danger add a More...
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Dec 28, 2010
Lauren
rated it:
I'm re-christening this season "The Time I Made an Over-the-Top Claim About How Much Love Ian McEwan and Had To Retract It A Day Later."
Seriously, though, I just read what appears to be universally recognized as one of his masterpieces, and although the prose was perfect as usual, I didn't love the plot or the way he illustrated his themes. The titular black dogs are supposed to be symbolic of an evil that always lurks nearby, particularly in the history of Europe, but I fou More...
Seriously, though, I just read what appears to be universally recognized as one of his masterpieces, and although the prose was perfect as usual, I didn't love the plot or the way he illustrated his themes. The titular black dogs are supposed to be symbolic of an evil that always lurks nearby, particularly in the history of Europe, but I fou More...
Jan 07, 2010
Paul
rated it:
He tries to meditate upon profound themes in a short span of 174 pages and he ends up being tiresomely symbolic and a real windbag too :
"But the next day, and the day after, and on all the succeeding days, they never set foot in the metaphorical landscape of their future. The next day they turned back. They never descended the Gorge de Vis and walked by the mysterious raised canal that disappears into the rock, never crossed the river by the medieval bridge or climbed up to cros More...
"But the next day, and the day after, and on all the succeeding days, they never set foot in the metaphorical landscape of their future. The next day they turned back. They never descended the Gorge de Vis and walked by the mysterious raised canal that disappears into the rock, never crossed the river by the medieval bridge or climbed up to cros More...
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Aug 26, 2009
William
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"Black Dogs's" closest contemporary in the McEwan oeuvre is probably the novel "Saturday," as both can be read to satisfaction without acknowledging their political genesis, though at some level trying to read these very timely novels outside of their context seems to sell the whole purpose short. That effort is especially true with 1992’s "Black Dogs," published closely on the heels of German reunification, thick with reflections on the Jewish Holocaust, and const
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Jun 10, 2010
Steven
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Dec 12, 2011
Ensiform
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The story of a young couple whose estrangement begins almost the day they’re married, as told by the fascinated son-in-law, an orphan himself. An amazing novel, as universal as the fall of Communism and the memory of genocide and as introspective as one young woman’s discovery of the mystical, of God, inside herself when she encounters some vicious dogs. As cosmic as the problem of pure evil and as ordinary as a bickering couple. Beautifully written, masterfully paced, and told with just the
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Jan 02, 2010
Zuzana
rated it: 
I expected something completely different when I had started my reading of Black Dogs by Ian McEwan. Especially the style was too plain, strict, and profane, as if it was a non-fiction, but perhaps despite its disclaimer it was intended to be like that.
Moreover, I have never clung to politics. A catch phrase, ‘I met evil and discovered God’ sounds quite like a cliché. When I consider I was born and brought up in one of those ‘eastern satellites of the Soviet Union’, and in one of those ‘li More...
Moreover, I have never clung to politics. A catch phrase, ‘I met evil and discovered God’ sounds quite like a cliché. When I consider I was born and brought up in one of those ‘eastern satellites of the Soviet Union’, and in one of those ‘li More...
Jun 20, 2009
Breck
rated it:
I'd been wanting to read something by Ian Mcewan and this was one of the shorter books and I saw; also, the premise sounded interesting. Without revealing much about the story, it follows a man writing a memoir about his parents-in-law. The mother-in-law is a mystic/believer and the father-in-law is a rationalist/atheist/former communist. The book involves a struggle between this husband and wife and their differing ideologies. Mcewan is an amazing writer and while the book was fairly slow
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Aug 06, 2011
Kris
rated it:
An interesting exercise in creative writing, Black Dogs ‘mashes up’ the concept of a constructed autobiography.
The story revolves around a frightening event which changed the whole life of the narrator's mother-in-law, and ripples throughout a family (continuing through to the extended family). Compounding the effect, the experience was not shared by her husband. Thus set in transit is a conflict of one partner’s pragmatic, scientific and materialistic beliefs set against another’s fai More...
The story revolves around a frightening event which changed the whole life of the narrator's mother-in-law, and ripples throughout a family (continuing through to the extended family). Compounding the effect, the experience was not shared by her husband. Thus set in transit is a conflict of one partner’s pragmatic, scientific and materialistic beliefs set against another’s fai More...
Apr 18, 2009
Laura
rated it:
I really liked this book in parts, but not in very many parts. I think McEwan is a brilliant writer all-in-all, but I found this pretty dry and lifeless for the most part. It was just okay, and I really only kept on because it's a pretty short book. I've also been reading Atonement along with this one. That one is light years ahead of Black Dogs in terms of pace and style. His language is so much more beautiful in Atonement too. The one element this one has in common with Atonement is McEw
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Jul 26, 2011
David
rated it:
Ian McEwan is a master of short fiction. This book differed from the other books I've read by him in several ways. First it is a fictitious memoir of a protagonist's in-laws covering years from WWII through the downfall of the Berlin Wall. With the exception of part four, and the incident involving the black dogs referenced in the title, there really is no plot here. The book mainly concerns itself with the rocky marriage of the Bernard and June, their political and religious differences, and
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Apr 11, 2010
Nida
rated it:
I really liked Ian McEwan's Atonement, love the way he writes, but Black Dogs disappointed me. It's a good premise and his writing style keeps you intrigued. I was waiting to finally learn about the black dogs, they are mentioned here and there throughout the book.Towards the end when you realize their significance...it was just very anti-climatic. The story is centered around Jeremy's fascination with his in-laws Bernard and June and what happened between them, but I wish McEwan elaborated mor
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Mar 04, 2009
Eliseh
rated it:
This is my fourth Ian McEwan, with a few more on my shelf to go. I got started with this McEwan diet upon reading Atonement. None I've read so far have lived up. This isn't an exception. Black Dogs is quite short (only about 280+ pages) and I'm sure could be read in one sitting, if one had the time, but I couldn't really get into it and it took me a few nights.
McEwan writes beautiful prose. The story itself is intriguing (the life-changing impact on a young woman who encounters More...
McEwan writes beautiful prose. The story itself is intriguing (the life-changing impact on a young woman who encounters More...
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Aug 21, 2010
Pamela
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How does McEwan do it time and again? Since my first reading of Black Dogs in 1994 it has perched on my shelves - along with many other McEwans - patiently awaiting my second dip. Now it will return to its well-deserved home to await the third.
In Black Dogs McEwan weaves multiple stories that encompass personal narratives (his narrator’s and that of his narrator’s parents-in-law) as well as the epochal (WWII, the fall of communism) and creates a matrix of the darkest of human materi More...
In Black Dogs McEwan weaves multiple stories that encompass personal narratives (his narrator’s and that of his narrator’s parents-in-law) as well as the epochal (WWII, the fall of communism) and creates a matrix of the darkest of human materi More...
Nov 07, 2011
Carla
rated it:
Not the easiest book to read but I'm glad I finished it because the final chapter explain a lot. Up to the end you sort-of know what happened and why the book is titled "Black dogs", but pieces fell together in the final chapter. Dark but intreging story about a man who comes through marriage into the life of a family that has fallen apart. He doesn't have parents since the age of 8 and is highly interested in the story of his father and mother in law (who have divorced). Something hap
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May 03, 2010
Savvy Suz
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McEwan is a master story-teller with a skill so razor sharp that his prose stays with you for days after setting down one of his just finished novels!
His uncanny insight into human psyche and his depth of honing, with an artist's delicate brush, the personal and evil side of nature are and at once unique and calculatingly brilliant.
Black Dogs is part love story, part spiritual journey, the idealism of youth, a meditation on nature and finally... and most importantly, about t More...
His uncanny insight into human psyche and his depth of honing, with an artist's delicate brush, the personal and evil side of nature are and at once unique and calculatingly brilliant.
Black Dogs is part love story, part spiritual journey, the idealism of youth, a meditation on nature and finally... and most importantly, about t More...
May 26, 2009
Jessica
rated it:
Considered one of Ian McEwan's less sensational novels, this story of a man trying to make sense of his in-laws' lifelong dispute between idealism and realism, rationalism and the supernatural, centers on an event his mother-in-law experienced on her honeymoon -- she was menaced by black dogs that may or may not have been tools of the Gestapo's occupation of a small French town -- and his own effort to understand the nature of truth. McEwan, as always, writes both sparingly and evocatively, and
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Dec 23, 2010
Matthew
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Between putting reading a few novels for school, Ian McEwan's Black Dogs has been sitting on my shelf, and needing a quick read between assignments I voraciously read it over a weekend. A short novel (150 pages), but large in scope and a novel that will no doubt leave a lasting impression on me.
Black Dogs focuses on Bernard and June Tremaine, two formerly jocund lovers but their opinions of each other turn to disdain quickly over some important ideological differences: Bernard's obses More...
Black Dogs focuses on Bernard and June Tremaine, two formerly jocund lovers but their opinions of each other turn to disdain quickly over some important ideological differences: Bernard's obses More...
Feb 24, 2011
Lorenzo
rated it:
Now I know where Jonathan Coe found the inspiration for "The Rain Before It Falls". These two novels seem written by the same hand. Astonishing.
Here it follows a little list, of some of the similiarities between these two novels.
- A dying elderly woman.
- Her memories.
- Her broke-up with the love of her life.
- Description of black&white photographs (for introducing characters).
- Love in the time of war.
- South of France.
- Bad s More...
Here it follows a little list, of some of the similiarities between these two novels.
- A dying elderly woman.
- Her memories.
- Her broke-up with the love of her life.
- Description of black&white photographs (for introducing characters).
- Love in the time of war.
- South of France.
- Bad s More...
