Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13905 in Books
• Published on: 1997-06-05
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
The Child in Time opens with a harrowing event. Stephen Lewis, a successful author of children's books, takes his 3-year-old daughter on a routine Saturday morning trip to the supermarket. While waiting in line, his attention is distracted and his daughter is kidnapped. Just like that. From there, Lewis spirals into bereavement that has effects on his relationship with his wife, his psyche and time itself: "It was a wonder there could be so much movement, so much purpose, all the time. He himself had none." This beautifully haunting book won a 1987 Whitbread Prize.

Observer
'Spooky - wonderful'

Synopsis
"The Child in Time" opens with a harrowing event. Stephen Lewis, a successful author of children's books, takes his three-year-old daughter on a routine Saturday morning trip to the supermarket. While waiting in line, his attention is distracted and his daughter is kidnapped. Just like that. From there, Lewis spirals into bereavement that has effects on his relationship with his wife, his psyche and time itself.

Customer Reviews

At times a difficult read, but ultimately a rewarding one
Well, to all those that didn't like this novel, and feel the need to attack it - guess what, it's literature, not everyone's going to like it. Criticism is fair enough, but some of the reviews are just childish and boring.

I found this to be a truly disturbing read - the opening incident is truly harrowing, and the aftermath is what leads the ptotagonist, Stephen, into a story of touching sensitivity; an exploration of loss and what it is to need to be found.

What I found interesting is that there was always something at stake for the characters in this novel, always something to be gained or lost, which really heightens the drama. It had a beautifully constructed narrative arc, and the ending for me was spot-on.

Not my favourite McEwan by any means, but for fans of his work, a truly rewarding read.

Warning when reading these reviews
Please bear in mind that as this novel is or has been used (as so many reviewers mention) as an A Level text, many of the reviews are coloured by having been forced to read it as part of an academic qualification. While this doesn't mean that their opinions are invalid, I think it does mean that they tend to overanalyse the content and structure of `The Child in Time'.

Nothing wrong with English Lit students but it can be hard to distance yourself from essay head and put on your reviewer hat for a while.

Personally, I do prefer some of McEwan's other work.

Is clever enough?
Ian McEwan is like champagne. In fact not just any champagne, but the most expensive champagne on the menu. He is superior, he exudes class, and he is the preferred taste of the refined.

In simple terms A Child in Time is a novel about child abduction, and a parents response to that. At a deeper level the story is hinged upon the two key themes of childhood and time, and is laced with satirical observations of modern society. "In every child there is a hidden adult and in every adult there is a hidden child" is a pivotal observation placed early on in the novel and one which repeatedly returned to. There is Kate, the child that disappears one day in a supermarket and held forever more as a child in her parents minds as they are robbed of her future, Charles, the adult who regresses to childhood in a breakdown, the surreal experience that Stephen, the father, has of floating back in time watching his parents discuss whether or not to have him aborted. Time, McEwan is saying, is not a constant. Time is malleable.

The plot itself is by no means the defining reason for reading this book. Character development is not done by McEwan for its own sake and therefore you never feel particularly sympathetic towards any of his characters. In every character detail (and one thing that Ian McEwan is renowned for is his almost exhaustive attention to detail) there an agenda. Every action or experience of any character is related to a theme. Children. Time. Children. Time. Every sentence is cleverly carved for achieve maximum literary effect. Even the structure of the text has a purpose as the observant reader will notice clever shifts between conditional, perfect, and imperfect tenses to demonstrate passage or insurmountability of time.

Essentially then this novel is clever. The plot is middling, the characters are average. But the overall package is clever. My problem though with this book, and in fact with McEwan in general, I just don't always need clever. I don't need to be reading a book and pouncing on paragraphs spotting on literary devices. Sometimes I just want to be reading a book because quite simply I am desperate to know what happens at the end.

Which is the thing with champagne isn't it? You would almost never turn it down. You even feel a little bit special to be drinking it. It makes you feel worthy. Yet, just sometimes, maybe you don't want champagne, you just want half a lager.