It's not possible to dislike an Ian McEwan book - the writing is brilliant, passages of luminous prose and you always know from the very first word you're in the hands of a master. But this isn't one of his best. It felt somehow a bit hollow, maybe because he tried to weave a story around too many heavily philosophical and ideological themes without the compensation of characters who were believable and gripping enough to carry them.

This is one of the ones that I finish reading and realize that it will be a while before it sinks in. Not dramatically--it wasn't difficult, it was poignant at times, but a lot of processing is going to have to happen on its own before I can have a real opinion.

A great novel about the conflict between rationalism and spirituality, the failure of communism and the forces of evil in society, told throught the story of a marriage in the second half of the 20th century. As in most Ian McEwan novels, the story pivots around a fantastic, vividly described incident (in this case an encounter with two scary black dogs) that stays with you long after you've finished reading.

Beautiful, moving and subtle observations of life, thoughts and ideals. The incident of the black dogs doesn't happen until the end and in the classic McEwan way where a single, short episode charts the course for major character change - it's just in this case we see the change before the incident.

The writing here is stunning - particularly memorable for me was when the narrater tells of an incident with a family in a French hotel; particularly evocative and moving and a perfectly drawn observation of character.

If you enjoy this book then I'd also recommend The Lighthouse by Alison Moore.

I'm really not a big fan of his prose apparently, but I liked the general vibe (esp. in Berlin and towards the ending)...

83rd book of 2020.

My McEwan ratings vary so much that he appears to be a yo-yo on my profile. Some I rate horribly low. If you couldn't care less about what I rated his other novels, skip to the following paragraph. Most recently, I gave his 2010 novel [b:Solar|7140754|Solar|Ian McEwan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1320510358l/7140754._SY75_.jpg|7404751] a brutal 1 star (Mean review here). I also rated [b:The Cement Garden|9957|The Cement Garden|Ian McEwan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1166111732l/9957._SY75_.jpg|1189398], [b:Amsterdam|6862|Amsterdam|Ian McEwan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1403191209l/6862._SY75_.jpg|933082] and [b:The Innocent|6868|The Innocent|Ian McEwan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328208960l/6868._SY75_.jpg|1401823] 2 stars. [b:On Chesil Beach|815309|On Chesil Beach|Ian McEwan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1436962381l/815309._SY75_.jpg|1698999] marked a high point for me, when it hit 3 stars, and I believed it would be the highest McEwan could score from me. I was wrong. [b:The Child in Time|6869|The Child in Time|Ian McEwan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386920711l/6869._SY75_.jpg|565440] bagged a wonderful 5 - which I'll link here because it's a nice positive review: This is me being nice to McEwan.

So, Black Dogs. I knew before starting this book that Winston Churchill famously called his depression his 'black dog'. I can't remember why but I went through a phase of being rather interested in him as a teenager, where I discovered this fact, and many others, like how he always had to stand away from the edge of train platforms, for he didn't trust himself enough and was worried he would jump in front of one. This book is about depression. It's also about memory, about love, about politics, about God, about spirits, about fate, about the Second World War, about evil and violence, about marriage, and children, and orphans. This book is only 174 pages long.

As readers, McEwan makes us trip through this novel. I've thought about using this verb a lot, but I'm settling with it. Trip is clumsy, yes, but it is also sudden, and above all, random. Of course tripping isn't random as such, one trips because one is clumsy, or fails to notice an uneven cobblestone, or else is drunk... But the tripping that happens in this novel takes us through different countries and time - England, Berlin, France. We trip from 1989 and 1946 as Jeremy writes the memoir of his father and mother-in-law, who are not divorced but never see one another, who live in separate countries. There are long drawn out scenes- seeing the Berlin Wall on a television set, actually being at the Wall in 1989, a brilliant hotel scene concerning a random family, and of course, at the novel's peak - the scene with the black dogs, who are...what? Real? Depression, as they were for Churchill? Or evil itself?

This book whispers. I find it funny that the McEwan books I hate are rated so well, and this that I loved is rated so poorly. Despite the bias I have against McEwan, despite the premonition that I will hate any of his books before I start them, I liked this one from the very first line.

Ever since I lost mine in a road accident when I was eight, I have had my eye on other people's parents.

Not only is it a beautifully weighted sentence, it is also a disarming one, slightly confusing, one first read. But from this sentence, the delicate but powerful novel unfurls. I found lovely wisdom in this book which I have not found in his other works, particularly his later work. Lovely lines like, He hates silence, so he knows nothing. I would write the whole observation out, but I won't for the sake of the length, but Bernard has a brilliant, moving thought on the war, which McEwan writes so skilfully. Here is just a part of it, For the first time he sensed the scale of the catastrophe in terms of feeling; all those unique and solitary deaths, all that consequent sorrow, unique and solitary too, which had no place in conferences, headlines, history, and which had quietly retired to houses, kitchens, unshared beds, and anguished memories.

Writer Gary Giddens said about this novel, "McEwan's narratives are small and focused, but resonate far into the night." I desperately wish to share the final paragraph of this novel, but I will not, because I believe that it must be read at the end of this bizarre, short-lived novel to strike its note, which is like a solitary train horn - indeed as Giddens suggests - which resonates far into the night. To quote the book again, for this feeling applies to reaching the end of the novel, You know how it is when you've been with someone so intensely for hours on end, and then you're on your own again. It's as if you've been in a dream. You come to yourself. It is similar, for this novel is like fragmented dreams, and because those black dogs are black stains in the grey of the dawn.

The 'narrator' of this book is intrigued by his parents-in-law. His own parents died when he was young, but that's only part of the reason for his wanting to know them so thoroughly - the other is simply because of who they are, and how they became that.

At the beginning of the book our narrator is visiting June in a nursing home. She has lived most of her married life in France but has returned to England to live out the last few years allowed her by a terminal disease. The narrator is taking notes in order to write her memoirs and he is fascinated by how different (age and life's direction notwithstanding) she appears from her image in a photograph taken shortly after her wedding to Bernard. Bernard, on the other hand, is unchanged - the years have added to him, of course, but essentially he looks the same. What happened, wonders the narrator, to make June's features change so?

As we move through the story we are taken to June's and Bernard's wartime work in London, their honeymoon to France, and their love/hate relationship that keeps them married to each other despite living separately since not long after their third child was born. We also go with the narrator and Bernard to witness the breaking down of the Berlin Wall, and back to France to the property that June purchased after her life-changing experience with the dogs of the title.

All these things are interwoven in a novel that has great depth and powerful descriptions, while showing so well that who we are affects our perceptions, which in return affect who we are.

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 faith-based, spiritual journey. So, in spite of an enduring love and attachment, the couple part and pursue their own lives, shuffling children between the two worlds.

Constructed in flashbacks (and flash-forward’s, and assumed reconstructed events by the narrator), the human interest is never overwhelmed by subtexts that include exploration of class, gender, political and social change, power and evil. Exquisite story-telling ensures that both the reader and the narrator are glued to events until the revelation of event at the centre of the piece.

Like much of McEwan’s work, Black Dogs is an odd and at times unpleasant read. Like all good fiction though, it inevitably propel you to can look deeper and contemplate the ideas long after you’ve finished the book. Highly recommended.