Really great writing, this. I don't know why it's taken me - what - thirty years to get around to it?
It's told from the pint of view of a writer at the end of the (First) Cold War, looking back on the lives of a married couple who, in the thirties, had been youthful, idealistic communists. Over the years, she has rejected communism as just another manifestation of the fanaticism that had been present in nazism. He, on the other hand, has hardened in his views and become less idealistic and more ideological. Now, as the Berlin Wall comes down, he's having to confront the reality of the failure of the system he had supported.
The encounter with the black dogs, which is the triggering event for the wife's change of heart, serves as a focal point for the book's theme - the idea that evil is always there, in the shadows, and always ready to reassert itself in history.

The thing I really noticed a loved about this book is how few words it took to make these complex, realistic feeling characters. I mean, you have story, backstory, thoughts, and interactions all spun out in, like, three sentences of text. How does he pack so much meaning and life into so few words? As someone who tries to write, that is something I so want to learn.

But that’s not a thing you can easily write an essay on. If I were assigned to write an essay on this book, I’d have to choose something other than “jamming each individual word and even letter with life and energy: how to do this,” because I’m not sure I could tease out all the ways that is done here. Instead, I could choose something like “knowing others: understanding and misunderstanding,” or “faith versus practicality,” or “the intertwinage of love and disrespect,” but I think I’d go smaller. My essay would be “ the magic of coincidence.” Paragraph 1: the examples of coincidences from each section of the book (I failed to take studious notes, but I feel like every major section of the book had a pulsing red coincidence on display. Paragraph two would talk about how these coincidences managed to (somewhat paradoxically) add realism to the story. Normally I’d be all ”Coincidence = artifice,” but in the examples I can think of right now, they managed to yield feelings of realism. Weird. Paragraph three: not yet designed. I mean, how can I know what to write there until I see what I say in the first paragraphs?

This serious short novel is an episodic, fictional memoir told of the lives of the narrator’s parents-in-law. It describes their estrangement from each other in terms of a philosophical difference, between two views of the world that become irreconcilable. The husband, Bernard, believes in the materialistic, rational viewpoint, in which the ills of the world can be ameliorated with the right public policy and investment. The wife, June, believes there is true Evil in the world and inside of all of us, that can only be fought with meditation, contemplation, and God’s love and grace. Her idea of evil is embodied in the titular black dogs that attack her in the pivotal scene of the novel. The narrator is torn between their viewpoints, and examines moments in his life through their disparate lenses. If all of this sounds rather dry, McEwan’s prose is typically flawless. He chooses his images and moments wisely, stirring some deep waters with dread and uncertainty, as he recounts June and Bernard’s honeymoon trip through a war-ravaged Europe. He makes a rather esoteric exploration more urgent with examples of everyday “evil” that beggar logic: the gratuitous and violent punishment of a child, an ugly rumor that makes a woman’s rape even more sordid and humiliating. The black dogs run amok.

How does this author fit so much into so few pages? The big themes, science vs spirit, communism and disillusionment, the black dogs of depression, of war, of evil, of trauma. The small moments he writes so well. Family dynamics, good and bad. And near and dear to my heart, orphans.

It was a total accident to read this McEwan immediately after Wild Swans.

I wasn't too invested in this book. I think I realized it in the beginning when I kept asking myself, "but WHY is he so obsessed with June and Bernard's stories? And why did this couple let stupid ideologies come between them and their children?" I'm not sure I'd recommend this, as much as I love Ian McEwan...

I listened to this on a long drive last weekend. The writing was gorgeous, and some of the sections were interesting, but it didn't hang together as a novel. There was a section where a man goes for a walk and has dinner in a restaurant where he sees parents being horrible to a child, and gets into an altercation with the father. I loved it as a stand-alone piece, but didn't see what it was doing in the middle of this novel, unless I was missing something.
Also, the woman who has the incident with the dogs...if it's so traumatic (and it sounds it) why doesn't she leave France immediately? Why go on another walk, and then buy a house near where it happened.
Good writing isn't enough.

The narrator of the book, Jeremy, has a close relationship with his in-laws and interviews them over the years. He learns about their former lives as communists and their love for each other culminating with their separation. I liked the premise of the book, but it lost me a little bit toward the end.