Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #292 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Joe planned a postcard-perfect afternoon in the English countryside to celebrate his lover's return after six weeks in the States. The perfect day turns to nightmare, however, when they are involved in freak ballooning accident in which a boy is saved but a man is killed

In itself, the accident would change the couple and the survivors' lives, filling them with an uneasy combination of shame, happiness, and endless self-reproach. 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.

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 de-familiarisation. But Enduring Love and its underrated predecessor, Black Dogs, 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. --Alex Freeman

Amazon.co.uk Review
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.

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.

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 Enduring Love and its underrated predecessor, Black Dogs, 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.

Bill Bryson, Sunday Times
'I cannot remember the last time I read a novel so beautifully written…utterly compelling from the very first page'

Customer Reviews

Hypnotic psychological thriller
From the very first chapter, this is a gripping psychological thriller. A freak accident with tragic consequences is just the beginning of the nightmare for Joe, a science writer, who finds himself being stalked by a stranger who protests undying love.

McEwan's writing is always good, creating an atmosphere of tension and suspense, and his characters behave mostly in a very human and plausible way. At times the story becomes a little far fetched, particularly at the end, where events seem to unfold very suddenly and not entirely believably. However, for the most part the story is horrifying in its convincingness.

It is a testament to McEwan's writing skill that he is able to weave in aspects of science into this story without seeming dull or irrelevant. His digressions into the world of science also act as a good way to spin out the tension in certain critical scenes.

Overall, an impressive read and one I looked forward to picking up at the end of the day. It's star rating reflects the stretches of credibility in parts of the plot, but there's not many thrillers that remain entirely plausible throughout.

Gripping - and just a little implausible
This is my first McEwan, and it drew me in entirely from the opening lines of Chapter One. The opening scene is beautifully, movingly, and intriguingly presented, and it sparks a ravenous curiosity in the reader.

I thoroughly enjoyed McEwan's narrative in the early parts of the book, however the characters never really sat comfortably for me nor evoked my sympathy.

The writing was really powerful in places - and then rather self-conscious in others. Maybe this is because McEwan was trying to stay true to the case study he presents in the Appendices.

The denouement felt a bit over-worked, as if McEwan was trying too hard for plausibility. The lack of viewpoints other than Joe Rose's through the book leads to an ending which feels rather rushed and contrived.

Some scenes are presented with masterful suspense and subtle pointers, yet when the action finally happens it feels weak. McEwan strikes me as being a very intellectual writer, which is great, and I wonder if some of the immediacy of the action suffers because of that.

I would have liked a bit more on Jed Parry, maybe an insight into his mindset or explanation about why he was in that Oxfordshire field, and why he became so entranced with Joe in particular, though I guess this isn't possible with a first person account. If there'd been an omniscient narrator instead this would have been more feasible - and I think might have made a more powerful, more convincing narrative, although a rather different type of book altogether.

The case study included in the end was enlightening, though it left me with lots of questions about why McEwan couldn't have broadened the scope of his novel to explore the facts of the case study more thoroughly, and in a more literary sense, rather than tagging on some scientific notes to the end in a kind of "told you so" gesture.

An extremely thought-provoking read, compelling in parts, though perhaps a bit narrow in scope, and with a bit of a dashed-off feel about it. Nevertheless a great discussion book!

Twitchy, but very readable
The love that truly endures in this novel, is the love of the obsessed male stalker for the male protagonist, Joe. Joe's relationship with Clarissa comes under unbearable strain after Joe and the crazy Parry are thrown together after a tragic accident.

My problem with this novel was, that although like all the McEwans I have read it is hugely enjoyable and something I looked forward to reading; the typical McEwan mix of visceral with cerebral digressions made me constantly impatient to get on with the resolution of the plot.