Will it reflect badly on me if I say this book isn't sordid enough to be entertaining or truly affecting? Considering how unsettling and uncomfortable it already is?

Four siblings, ranging from 6 to 17, who have too close for comfort of a relationship (if the word "incest" flashed in you mind, you are correct - it is not a spoiler, the "action" starts on page 2), witness both their parents die within the weeks of each other. When their mother dies, they make a decision to bury her in the cellar a More...

I saw the movie version of The Cement Garden in the theater when I was fifteen, and completely freaked out. For years afterwards it stayed high on my list of all-time favorites. I haven't seen it again since then, though, so I have no idea what I'd think now, but at the time I just thought it was the greatest thing ever. Incest! Allegory. Incest! Foreigners! Incest! Cement. Incest! Adolescence. Tragedy! Incest! What more do you want from a film at age fifteen?

Reading this book was definitely col More...

I don’t read the works of a particular author in chronological order. If I want to sample an author, I go straight to his/her most famous work. If I like it, I read 2-3 more of his popular ones and if I still like them, that’s the only time I go to his or her earlier works then probably do the reading chronologically. Of course, I am talking here of authors that have more than 5 works to their name and did not get international fame in their very first or only book.

This is what’s been happening More...

Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden is, quite clearly not for everyone. There are several severely disturbing incidents throughout the book that might make some readers wonder why they bought it, and where is the nearest bookstore to return it? There are other groups both of a religious/fascist nature (the two are not always mutually exclusive) that might have it pencilled in on their "things to burn" list.

In the hands of a lesser writer, much of this book would seem vulgar. However, in McEwan's cap

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A profoundly disturbing, but very well written book. Had I realised the true nature of it, I doubt I would have read it, and somehow the fact it is told in such an unjudgemental way almost makes it worse.

"I did not kill by father, but I sometimes think I helped him on his way", is the opening sentence. It is set in a hot summer in late '70s England. Four children live a rather isolated life in a very insular and not entirely happy family. Their father dies, and not long after, so does their moth More...

Flying through The Cement Garden, I would first advise against reading it just before bed, especially if some Gruyere had been nibbled that evening. Finishing the novella in the cold light of day, I find it remarkably creepy. McEwan achieves perfect pitch. I dare say he strikes closer to The Destructors by Greene than anything else. Many people cited Lord of the Flies as a cousin (no pun intended) but that harrowing tale is reductively feral whereas the trauma of Cement Garden and Graham's lads More...

I picked up this book at the library because "Atonement" wasn't available. Having seen the movie version of "Atonement" I figured that reading one of Ian McEwan's earlier works would be an ideal way of getting a good idea of what McEwan's writing style is like.
Having now read "The Cement Garden" I must say that whoever continued reading his books were brave people. If I had no idea that his storytelling abilities had improved I would never again read one of his books. In fact, I would probably l More...

This is Ian McEwan's first book, and it shows in some ways -- it's far more explicitly (and sexually) creepy than his more recent novels. But the essential McEwan style -- polished, smooth, but with unexpected word usages -- is already here, as is the essential McEwan plot structure: something terrible happens, decisions are made, and then the ramifications play out for the rest of the novel. I would probably recommend this book mostly to people who are already fans of McEwan's later novels (e.g More...

"The Cement Garden" is the strangest book I've ever read, and probably the grossest too. The narrator is a disgusting, 15-year-old boy named Jack who lazes around the house, doesn't much care for bathing, and harbors sexual feelings for his older sister. When his mom dies (dad's already dead), it's Jack's idea to bury her in a trunk in the basement with cement. The descriptions of the smell the trunk emitted still make me cringe and overall, as another reviewer said, the book leaves you feeling More...

This reminds me of Cocteau's 'Les Enfants Terribles.' It has a similar storyline, although the children of 'Cement Garden' have less of the restlessness of the ones in Cocteau's book. I'd say 'ennui' is an appropriate word for much of the narrator's tone. Still, if you like books with adolescent siblings creating their own little world, with a strong incestuous undercurrent, this is one for you. It's short enough to read in an afternoon, especially if it's one of the long, lazily hot days descri More...

this is the first novel by Ian McEwan that I have read. it is concise and tightly written and you really get the impression that McEwan understands his narrator, a 14-year-old boy who's parents have recently died, leaving four siblings on their own.

the two older siblings in effect become the head of the household, and make a decision to keep the family together that has troubling consequences.

that one can relate to the narrator is equally disturbing and heart breaking...

This book is fucked-up, sick, and creepy...I loved it. I love McEwan's style. He doesn't clutter his writing with unnecessary words, yet he says so much. His writing is sharp and clean. He is so good at invoking a specific mood at the very beginning of a novel, and then continuing to give the reader that same feeling throughout. Then, just when you're sufficiently creeped out or unnerved or whatever it is you've been feeling, it gets even more intense.

The book is a first-person narrative told b More...

This book begins in a creepy, ominous way. If you can make it through the first two chapters, keep in mind that it only gets worse. This is the story about a family that in the midst of tragedy isolates itself to its own detriment. It is very much a story about England, the allegory running thick; but it is simultaneously a very psychological novel, very specific, about a family falling apart.

What makes this short novel truly sparkle, however, isn't just the disturbing plot (and it is extremely More...

This early short novel by Ian McEwan lays out quite clearly what his later works will reveal of his gifts -- with incredible economy, McEwan creates an utterly memorable (and disturbing) story of the kind of crisis point that can arise in the most ordinary lives.

It's summer, and four children (ranging in age from about kindergarten to teens) are suddenly left orphaned in a house surrounded by abandoned and crumbling homes. Fearful that if they contact the authorities they will be split up and pl More...

I like that, while I was reading "Atonement," people kept saying what a great writer of sex scenes McEwan was. "The Cement Garden" sort of confirms this idea and paints it black at the same time.

I finished it three days ago and my memory of it is already starting to fade, so maybe that doesn't bode well, but this was a tiny tour de force and I was fairly thrilled with it all the way along.

A few of the middle bits feel like an aimless study of aimlessness, and the character of Sue is just sort More...

So far, I think I feel pretty much the same about all of McEwan's books, this one being no exception. They are dark and clever, fast reads, and seem almost designed to become major motion pictures. 'Atonement' and 'Enduring Love' already are, after all, though 'Black Dogs' might've been more difficult. They are literary books, to be sure, but somehow his characters and their plights rarely seem to capture me. It is as though they are being viewed from behind a pane of glass. (Voyeurism is defini More...

This book is just ruthlessly horrible. It's stunning. I hated it.

But I can't claim I didn't know what I was letting myself in for. A disquieting atmosphere permeates from the very first pages, and no event in the plot comes as a surprise. The story builds slowly with a strong sense of the surreal as the children become more and more detached from outside reality and, in their shared guilt, more and more unhealthily dependent on one another - yet it always feels believable, and that's what gives More...

Nella mia statistica personale, impiegare dieci giorni per leggere un libro di centocinquanta pagine è eccessivo, al limite del vergognoso… Ora, basta stabilire perché ci si è messo così tanto: ci sono quei libri che ti prendono a tal punto, che sei TU che leggi a decidere di centellinare ogni pagina, ogni parola per tenerlo con te il più possibile, perché sai che dopo ti mancherà… oppure te lo porti appresso ovunque vai, con l’illusione così me lo finisco prima possibile, e me lo levo di torno, More...

Po dlouhé době zase kniha, která člověka nutí číst stále dál a četbu nepřerušovat, zjišťovat, kam až je autor ochotný zajít a zda to všechno nesklouzne v nějakou perverzní lacinost. Nesklouzlo.

"'Jdou si pro tebe,' řekl jsem a o pár centimetrů ruce přiblížil. Chabě se pokusila chytit mě za zápěstí, proklouzl jsem jí pod rukama a sevřel ji pevně rukavicemi kolem hrudníku přesně v podpažních jamkách. Jak se Julie smála a smála a lapala po dechu, smál jsem se také, celý pryč ze své moci. Najednou se More...

As has been the case so many times before, my initial inspiration for reading the novel in question, British author Ian McEwan's "The Cement Garden" (1978), was an article that I found in Jones & Newman's excellent overview volume "Horror: Another 100 Best Books." But unlike so many of the other books discussed in that volume and its earlier companion, "Horror: 100 Best Books," "The Cement Garden" features no monsters, no ghosts, no supernatural happenings, no zombies, no murderers and no ot More...

Ian McEwen’s first novel, The Cement Garden, shares the suffocating claustrophobia of DH Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers and the same preoccupation with the weird intimacy of familial love. Is it unfair to compare and collapse novels in this way? To see such parallels that it becomes difficult to separate plot? (What are the other doppleganger novels?) If the author self-consciously evokes a predecessor is that more excusable than the author who (seemingly) accidentally replicates the themes and ques More...

Other reviews have said a lot about this novel: it's screwed up, it's disgusting, it's a masterpiece, it's powerful...

...the only thing I have to say about it really is that it's bloody boring.

Yes, a couple of kids decide to bury their dead mum in some concrete in a trunk in the basement. Yes, it's narrated by a slovenly, grotty, 15 year old boy who seems to be prone to violence and sexual behaviour. Yes, there's some weird incesty bits mixed in. But did it disturb me? No. I didn't really get th More...

Книгу я решила прочитать, попав на активное обсуждение этой книге в Книжном Клубе. Меня заинтересовало то, что мнения разделились радикально - одни кричали(да, именно кричали!), что это отвратительная книга, полная гадостей и т.д. Вторые же, точнее двое, говорили о том же, о чем и я хочу сказать.

Да, книга непривычная, прямолинейная и резкая. Она ужасающе реальна. Родители умирают и дети посвящены сами себе. Жалкие попытки старшей дочери Джули взять хоть что-то под контроль быстро заканчиваются. More...

Possibly one of my least favorite books. I read 'The Cement Garden' a few years ago expecting to enjoy it very much since McEwan is so widely respected in terms both literary and commercial, and the story is gothic, involving children, dead parents and a buried secret. I found it disappointing, though--and not a little bit disturbing. The prose was cold, the situation was cold, the characters frigid and unbelievable. And the writing overall, I thought, or perhaps the perspective and interest, se More...

simple and very quick to read, finished this within a day and a half.I found it very difficult to know what to feel for the majority of the book - shock and disgust seem somewhat unwelcome considering the circumstances laid out early on. The implied incestuous activity between the siblings makes one both uncomfortable yet oddly sympathetic. it is not out of sexual attraction that these actions occur, but with the pure necessity of being wanted; being held - simple actions which cannot be fulfill More...

This book is strangely compelling at the same time that it makes you think "ewww." If you ever wondered whether it would be ok just to leave a bunch of kids to fend for themselves without an adult around, this book will tell you what a bad plan it would be--in case Lord of the Flies hadn't already given you the heads up. In this case the kids don't hate each other. They love each other a bit too much. Like I said, "eww." So the puzzle is what makes you keep reading and wanting to know what More...

I am usually a fan of raw, real pieces of writing. This novel in particular gave me several emotions--ie shock, disgust, worry, and there was a touch of sadness. I really felt for the children left without a path. Really makes you wonder what would happen if we didn't have such a structured way of living our lives. Now, of course I think incest is simply the grossest thing out there, but I wonder how many people have suppressed a certain feeling? I know when I was really young, in elementary sch More...