Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Lessons
    Lessons
    Lessons
    Audiobook17 hours

    Lessons

    Written by Ian McEwan

    Narrated by Simon McBurney

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines’s life is turned upside down. He is two thousand miles from his mother’s protective love, stranded at an unusual
    boarding school, when his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.

    Twenty-five years later, Roland’s wife mysteriously vanishes, and he finds himself alone with their baby son. He is forced to confront the reality of his rootless existence. As the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster spreads across Europe, he
    begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.

    From the Suez and Cuban Missile crises and the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Covid pandemic and climate change, Roland sometimes rides with the tide of history but more often struggles against it. Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace
    through every possible means—literature, travel, friendship, drugs, sex, and politics. A profound love is cut tragically short. Then, in his final years, he finds love again in another form. His journey raises important questions. Can we take
    full charge of the course of our lives without damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we learn from the traumas of the past?

    Epic, mesmerizing, and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times—apowerful meditation on history and contingency through the prism of one man’s lifetime.

    Editor's Note

    Moving and melancholy.…

    History unfolds through the eyes of one ordinary man in the latest novel by Booker Prize-winner McEwan (“Atonement”). Roland Baines faces childhood trauma, single parenthood, and a lagging career — along with some of history’s most horrific events, from the Chernobyl disaster to the Covid-19 pandemic. Through each experience, readers glimpse how lives are shaped by small disappointments and major disasters alike. This sweeping story is moving and melancholy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateSep 13, 2022
    ISBN9781705058572
    Lessons
    Author

    Ian McEwan

    Ian McEwan (Aldershot, Reino Unido, 1948) se licenció en Literatura Inglesa en la Universidad de Sussex y es uno de los miembros más destacados de su muy brillante generación. En Anagrama se han publicado sus dos libros de relatos, Primer amor, últimos ritos (Premio Somerset Maugham) y Entre las sábanas, las novelas El placer del viajero, Niños en el tiempo (Premio Whitbread y Premio Fémina), El inocente, Los perros negros, Amor perdurable, Amsterdam (Premio Booker), Expiación (que ha obtenido, entre otros premios, el WH Smith Literary Award, el People’s Booker y el Commonwealth Eurasia), Sábado (Premio James Tait Black), En las nubes, Chesil Beach (National Book Award), Solar (Premio Wodehouse), Operación Dulce, La ley del menor, Cáscara de nuez, Máquinas como yo, La cucaracha y Lecciones y el breve ensayo El espacio de la imaginación. McEwan ha sido galardonado con el Premio Shakespeare. Foto © Maria Teresa Slanzi.

    More audiobooks from Ian Mc Ewan

    Related to Lessons

    Related audiobooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      'Wellness' Is A Perfect Novel For Our Age, Its Profound Sadness Tempered With Humor

      Sep 20, 2023

      Nathan Hill's stunning new novel about the stories we tell about our lives and our loves, and how we sustain relationships throughout time, is both funny and heartbreaking, sometimes on the same page.

      3 min read

    • Article

      'The Plot' Works As Literary Satire, But Its Mystery Fizzles

      May 16, 2021

      Jean Hanff Korelitz's tale of dirty deeds in the world of letters skewers pompous male authors with sly humor — but her approach to the central mystery might have you guessing the ending too soon.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Summer Beach Reads

      Jan 10, 2021

      Summer Beach Reads
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Narrow Room

      Sep 12, 2023

      She shakes out the blanket, wraps it around her middle, and sits down. The room is cold and dim and full of quiet. She takes the top book from the stack, and her marker out of the book: Sonnet 49. Against that time (if ever that time come). Against t

      34 min read

    • Article

      Ursula K. Le Guin

      Jun 15, 2018

      He was thinking of Lookfar, abandoned long ago, beached on the sands of Selidor. Little of her would be left by now, a plank or two down in the sand maybe, a bit of driftwood on the western sea. As he drifted near sleep he began to remember sailing t

      15 min read

    • Article

      O Fortuna, Velut Luna

      Sep 15, 2018

      What is Miss Treece’s trouble, according to a popular notion? The man A has failed to show up. Arousing herself at the restaurant, she fixes her lipstick when her solo supper concludes and takes herself down the stairs situated behind the bar. There,

      3 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Girl, Banana

      Aug 21, 2023

      By the time I was 25, there were only two things I remembered about Mumma. The first was that she smelled of watermelons, the second was that we were happy. We’d taken our father’s name of course, but a name is only half a story. The other half exist

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Trouble Gene

      Jul 1, 2020

      One clear thing about trouble—it can set you back to zero, a personal cone of silence. And reading, writing, listening allow entry into that troubled solitude; you disappear into it regardless t of the time or place you really are in, be it bed, kitc

      12 min read

    • Article

      From ESTRANGEMENT

      May 1, 2022

      From ESTRANGEMENT
      4 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Jan 1, 2021

      The sun is a disaster waiting to happen,The gypsy trombone player starts to blareLa Vie en Rose again, and Hello, Dolly.I turn Fairouz up not to have to listen. The gypsy trombone player starts to blare,today, and yesterday, at noon, at seven.I turn

      3 min read

    • Article

      Quantum Radio

      Feb 22, 2023

      Quantum Radio
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Library

      Nov 4, 2021

      The Library
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Last Friend on Earth

      May 4, 2023

      It was as if Doreen Saunders had been waiting for me, passing the time until my arrival. She might as well have been sitting in a rocking chair, knitting needles clicking, jam tarts cooling on the side, the door wide open, waiting for the next visito

      6 min read

    • Article

      Pickpocket

      Jun 1, 2020

      Pickpocket
      7 min read

    • Article

      Somehow

      Mar 15, 2018

      Somehow
      4 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems by Noah Warren

      Dec 1, 2020

      Some waves came up overnight, though in Norderney, there was no weather.At the commercial wharf, a thin stream of white exhaust rose vertically from the ferry.The first service would depart soon. The puddles lay dark in the stone streetsand in the ga

      3 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Jun 1, 2023

      Table Talk
      11 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      When making an axe handlethe pattern is not far off. —Gary Snyder My mother was either horizontal on the couch,or vertical, a plumb line from her spineto the top of her head to the ceiling that spinswhen she drinks, alcohol and an air bubbletrapped,

      4 min read

    • Article

      Let’s Play Dead

      Mar 3, 2020

      There was a man, let’s call him Henry VIII. There was his wife, let’s call her Anne B. Let’s give them a castle and make it nice. Let’s give her many boy babies but make them dead. Let’s give him a fussy way of being. Let’s make her smart and sneaky,

      17 min read

    • Article

      Push

      Aug 4, 2022

      Push
      5 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Nov 1, 2019

      Four Poems
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Plague Legends

      Dec 1, 2021

      The Plague Legends
      12 min read

    • Article

      A Little Love

      Apr 5, 2023

      A Little Love
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Lessons

    4/5

    133 ratings27 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      I finished it one minute ago and I am stunned…
    • 4/5
      Lessons, Ian McEwan, author; Simon McBurney, narratorThis story spans decades. As it travels back and forth in time, covering the current events and how people deal with them, a great many characters are introduced. Varied themes are also introduced, making it hard to follow at times. Soldier on, because the novel is very well worth the read. It covers an assortment of friends, family and prominent people, all multifaceted, and illustrates how each one experiences and deals with life and death decisions.Roland Blaines was sent to a boarding school when he was eleven years old. Adrift and lonely, he becomes involved with his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, who was able to mesmerize and control him. Although he cares deeply for her, it is a very inappropriate relationship that profoundly influences his entire life. Eventually, Roland frees himself from Miriam. He meets Alissa Eberhardt. They fall in love and marry. Roland is a musician and a writer, but Alissa is more serious in her desire to be an author. She becomes very beloved and successful, but only after she abandons Roland and their newborn son to follow her career. Roland raises their son Lawrence by himself. As time passes, Roland wonders at the success of others. He searches for answers in relationships and extracurricular activities. He never achieves much success as a writer; he is busy raising Lawrence and searching for his elusive purpose and fulfillment. He travels, socializes and studies.Enter Daphne, a married woman with whom he falls in love. When she is free, they marry. Their relationship is short-lived, and when he loses her, he flounders. Quietly, he drifts and questions the meaning of life. Roland studies his own memories, when he witnesses his mother’s loss of her memory. All of Roland’s relationships, his friends, his family and his lovers, have lives fraught with issues. Is anyone’s life really perfect? These issues and how they are explored are what makes this novel so interesting, even if it is confusing at times with its tangents and myriad number of characters. The reader witnesses how they all process the current events they face, in their individual time frames, and watches as they deal with them effectively or sadly, fail. Their courage, bravery and thoughtfulness are examined, as traumatic current events, like the Holocaust, the anti-Nazi White Rose Movement, the Vietnam War, the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant disaster, the Covid 19 Pandemic, and other illnesses that we are all heir to, appear on the pages of the book. The reader experiences, with the characters, what they are going through in order to survive.Through these characters and the myriad number of events, we learn about how Roland deals with life, and as we consider his philosophy, we also consider how we deal with the traumatic events in own lives. As we learn about Roland’s views about America, as well as his politics, his social conscience, and his struggles, our own thoughts about life intrude into our consciousness. The issues of the day have invaded his life and ours, and as he must deal with them, so must we. Is there a right and wrong way? Is one side right and one side wrong or is there a compromise solution? Roland is against the Vietnam War, afraid of the radiation coming from Russia’s nuclear plant meltdown, aware that he is getting old and becoming less relevant to those around him. He notices that rather than he being preoccupied with worrying about them, they are now worrying about him. Isn’t this something we will all face?As Roland makes his way through life, searching for answers, he learns about family secrets. His life seems to be a roller coaster of ups and downs, but in the end, Roland learns about love, sacrifice and loyalty. He understands that life has so much more to offer than he realized. As he ages, he grows wiser and concentrates more on the upside of life, even as it shortens its horizon. He recognizes there are things he simply cannot change.The novel explores the many kinds of lessons we all learn and have to face. Roland learns that it is best to pick oneself up, dust oneself off, and go on with a smile. While I really enjoyed the story, even with its many tangents, it was often a bit too wordy, sometimes making me lose the sense of continuity.
    • 5/5
      A long book, but really worth the time. Great piece of writing for me - perhaps this is especially the case for me as an aging man. Women may see things differently. At times I was confused by the time jumps and I thought McEwen was giving too much context and background and not enough of the main story but in the end he pulled everything together - not in a neat way, but showing how incredibly messy, disappointing and complex life is.
    • 5/5
      This is a sprawling, multi-generational epic of a book. It's as different from most of Ian McEwan's other books as it could be. I have read that it is semi-autobiographical, but I'm not sure that it actually is. If it is, then Ian McEwan has led a very full life. The book runs from the late 1950's to 2021. The book is written from the viewpoint of Roland Baines who we first meet at he age of 7, and ends with him in his 70's. It covers everything from world news to culture and humanity from Roland's viewpoint . It is a coming-of-age novel like no other, and one thing that I took away from it is that humans continue growing and learning all of their lives. The real question is how much do early childhood traumas affect a person's growth, mental health and adaptability as one ages. Some very traumatic events happened to Roland beginning when he was 14, and the traumas affected his growth and development for the rest of his life. When another traumatic event occurred to him when he was in his thirties, it further cemented his preconceived notions of himself and of his life. I found it difficult to get through this book. Maybe there were too many relatable events and it sometimes felt like I was examining my own life. As always, the language and the descriptions from Ian McEwan are wonderful, and they brought the book to life. Near the end of the book Roland is contemplating his life from the lofty age of 72, and he sums it all in this rumination: "The temptation of the old, born into the middle of things, was to see in their own deaths, the end of everything." But everything is not ending, and we wish we could be there to see the end. I am sorry to leave Roland after living with him in this book for 2 weeks, but I see he has achieved a peace and and understanding at the end that will help him through the remainder of his life. I hope that I can do the same. The coincidence here is that I am Roland's age and I have gone through some soul-searching of my own. This book is certainly not light literature, but it is important literature. No one by Ian McEwan could have written this masterpiece of a novel.
    • 4/5
      This is my fifth McEwan novel. It's structure is almost the opposite of Saturday, my favorite, in that the latter took place all in one day whereas Lessons spans nearly all of one man's life. It felt too long, with too many very long digressions about things like the German White Rose movement that did not seem quite relevant. I imagine we (or Roland) were supposed to take some sort of lesson from all the digressions, but I found them mainly boring.The best and most compelling writing was about the piano teacher, which makes me think McEwan was most emotionally vested in what happened, true about his life or not.
    • 5/5
      An incredible portrait of a man, Roland, who was unmoored by the woman who was his piano teacher at boarding school. Later in life, another woman dealt him an unexpected blow which changed the course of his life again. Throughout it all McEwan follows Roland, and others, through the changes in the 20th and 21st centuries. It rang so true and is a story of a life not usually found in fiction.
    • 5/5
      Eleven-year-old Roland Baines’ life changes dramatically when his Africa based parents decide to send him back to England to attend a boarding school and get the classic education. While the political landscape forms itself after the Second World War, the boy takes piano lessons with Miss Cornell who will shape not only his idea of music, she will become his first love. Incidentally or initiated by fate, Roland’s life will remain closely connected to global events, be it the cloud coming from Chernobyl, the beginning and end of the Cold War, or major crises such as AIDS and the pandemic. As we travel through his life, he has to learn some lessons, some taken light-heartedly, others a lot harder and leaving scars.I have been a huge fan of Ian McEwan’s novel for years and accordingly, I was keen to open his latest novel “Lessons”. What I have always appreciate most in his books is his carefully crafted characters who – hit by events outside their control – need to cope and to adjust. He is a wonderful narrator who easily makes you sink into the plot and forget everything around you. Even though “Lessons” does not focus that much on a single question as in “The Children Act” or “Saturday” and was much longer than most of his former writings, I hugely enjoyed how his protagonist’s character unfolds in front of us and becomes who he is when his life closes.The novel has been announced as “a chronicle of out times” and admittedly, that’s just what it is. By the example of Roland, he illustrates the last six decades, he chronicles British and European politics, arts, music and mind-set. Roland’s process of learning does not stop, life is a continuous process of trial and error, of mistakes and good decisions which all leave their mark.Interestingly, the protagonist is a rather passive character. He only ever reacts to what happens, his piano teacher’s advances, his wife’s running away, his career: Roland does not actively shape his life, it is the first and foremost the women he encounters who make him move and – even though they all remain minor characters – it’s them who bring the verve and dynamics into the action.I can imagine that some readers will find the novel a bit slow and lacking focus, yet, I totally adored it and enjoyed every minute of the read.
    • 4/5
      This novel is an expansive story covering the lives of many people over a timespan covering a multitude of decades. There is no denying the exquisite prose of McEwan and his ability to weave characters and situations into a solid book.The reader meets the main character, Poet Roland Baines, as he's waking from a dream like state. Memories of his dominatrix-like piano teacher when he was 11 years old gets the story off the ground. We will go back to those days but first he is reminded his wife has abandoned him and their baby son. Oh, and then there is a news report of a nuclear accident and the cloud is moving in their direction. As he prepares for the inevitable poisonous gas he reminisces about his parents, his childhood, his wife and in a Forrest Gumpish sort of way, the many historical markers that left an impression on his life.Although I count McEwan as one of my favorite authors I'm beginning to believe that for me, his shorter novels work best and, to this day, many have left a lasting impression. The wordiness of Lessons taught me a thing or two and that may be the point of Lessons. Life itself is a lesson.
    • 2/5
      Sorry, Ian McEwan this Lessons was quite the struggle for me to get thru. Our protagonist, Roland, has his life shaped by an affair he has as a young teen. And his life doesn’t turn out well and I think we’re supposed to think it’s because of how he was sexually abused as a teen. I say think because it’s not laid out overtly in the book. Sprinkled throughout the book are history lessons which I didn’t think added much to the book. I actually contemplated not reading the last chapter because I truly didn’t think much of Roland, didn’t think he had an interesting life and just didn’t care what was going to happen to him. Ian McEwan is a brilliant writer but in the future, I’m going to give myself permission to stop reading if I’m not connecting with it.
    • 5/5
      When he asked himself if he wished none of it had happened he did not have a ready answer. That was the nature of the harm. Almost seventy-two and not quite cured.from Lessons by Ian McEwanLife happens. It sears its brand into our skin and we can’t ignore its legacy. We choose our way or are buffeted about by the storms of life–and by love, that relentless tyrant that enslaves us. Every generation is captive by the times with its wars and conflicts, the threats to health and life. We are always wrestling with ourselves and with the world.As a teen, I resented the intrusion of the world into my life, complicating the process of growing up with war and rebellion, social upheaval. I became pregnant during a time of hope only to despair when wars and collapsing towers and school shootings bookended my son’s childhood.Still, I was lucky. I was never victim, was given freedom to chose between love and dreams and was content with my decision.Lessons by Ian McEwan is a remarkable novel. Disturbing, yes. Long, yes. Beautifully written, yes. It has left a lasting impression on me with it’s immersive story and panoramic view of history and insight into how we fail and how we endure.It’s the story of a man’s life spanning from the Suez Canal Crisis to the Bay of Pigs to the Covid pandemic, the relentless march of history deeply intertwined into his story. As it was in his parent’s lives, and his wife’s parent’s lives, taking us back to WWII. Every time the world seems to correct itself, advancing to a fabled golden age, our dark angles push us back into fear and division.By what logic or motivation or helpless surrender did we all, hour by hour, transport ourselves within a generation from the thrill of optimism at Berlin’s falling Wall to the storming of the American Capitol?from Lessons by Ian McEwanThe novel begins when Roland and his seven-month-old son are abandoned by his wife who chooses a career as a writer over love and family. Their love affair had been intense, an addictive relationship that Roland had been seeking to recreate since he was a child, groomed and sexually abused at school by his piano teacher. He was sixteen when she proposed they marry, and when he rebelled, she sent him packing, warning he would spend his life seeking what they had.The once promising child, who could have been a concert pianist, he never finished his education. He wastes his youth and talent, settles for survival, flees a healthy relationship until nearly too late. And, in his golden years, discovers a deep love in the form of a child.The temptation of the old, born into the middle of things, was to see in their deaths the end of everything, the end of times.from Lessons by Ian McEwanI am seventy this year. I think a lot about my life and its choices, and for the first time I fear the end of this body and being in this world. My old optimism that the world always rights itself again is fraying. I morn the destruction of this planet. The novel spoke to me.Roland learns that life turns out right, no matter what our choices. Alissa contributed amazing, lasting, literary masterpieces although she died alone. He accomplished nothing of note, but has a loving son and granddaughter.The end of the novel finds Roland reading to his granddaughter, considering the deeper meaning. “Do you think the story is trying to tell us something about people?” he asks her. She responds, it’s about cats and dogs, not people. “A shame to ruin a good tale by turning it into a lesson,” he thinks. As she leads him by the hand, he knows he is “passing on to her a damaged world.” But this child with all her innocence offers hope. To Roland, and to us.I was given a free egalley by the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.
    • 2/5
      DNF at 21%. Lessons focuses on the life of Roland Baines, a man who has lived through many of the major events in the latter 20th century. Through him, we see these events as they unfold and how they affect Roland.Right off the bat, I'll admit I've never read any of McEwan's other work, although several have been on my to-read list for years. I didn't really know what to expect going into this book, and I think in some ways I'm glad for that. It's clear that McEwan has a command over prose, and the chapters flip back and forth through time easily. My biggest issue (and the factor that made me DNF this book) is how meandering the book is. Perhaps this is remedied in later chapters, but when I reached an extended chapter specifically about Alissa's mother's past, I just found I was absolutely not interested. And it's not a small section you can easily skip over; it's interspersed with details about Roland and Alissa that I was actually interested in. But once I was brought out of the story for that long, it just didn't feel worth it for me to stick with the book, which was disappointing.I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book, but it also hasn't turned me off from reading the McEwan books already on my list. If you're a die-hard fan, you'll probably be reading this anyway, and if you're not, I think it could go either way for you. Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for providing a copy for review.
    • 3/5
      The longest 431 pages I think I've ever read- I threatened to quit so many times - it was like a relationship that wasn't abusive enough to leave, a little bit dull and you hoped it might get better eventually but stayed due to inertia . - in the end, I felt very little toward any of the characters - for all the lovely prose, there wasn't much depth in the end.
    • 4/5
      This novel tells the life story of protagonist Roland Baines over the course of sixty years. Roland spends part of his childhood in Libya, where his father serves in the British Army. He is sent to English boarding school, where he is abused by his piano teacher. He marries Alissa, who leaves him and their son to pursue literary fame. His mother harbors a family secret, which eventually is revealed. The novel is told in third person, focused on Roland. It is mostly a linear story, with sections that loop back to reminiscences of the past. The author reflects the passage of time by referencing world events, such as the White Rose movement, Suez Crisis, Cuban Missile Crisis, Cold War, fall of the Berlin Wall, Chernobyl, AIDS, Brexit, the January 6th insurrection, and the Covid pandemic. The primary conflict is supplied by Roland’s abuse at the hands of his piano teacher and its aftereffects. Roland’s life trajectory is derailed at an early age. He starts drifting through life and has trouble making decisions. It is a story of lost potential and missed opportunities. From his wife’s perspective, it is also a story of potential achieved, but at a terrible cost. This is a rather lengthy book. Several of the subplots seemed more like digressions and my mind wandered occasionally in the first half. The narrative picks up in the second half, when we find out family secrets and Roland confronts the women who have disrupted his life. The writing is elegant and detailed. It is a story of memory, trauma, and coming to terms with the “what ifs” of life.
    • 3/5
      Roland is insufficiently present.
    • 4/5
      A wide-ranging social novel about one boy's/man's life with the politics and events of 20th-century Europe as a major backdrop/overlay—Suez Canal, Bay of Pigs, fall of the Wall, Covid, etc. Very well done and just jam packed full of everything, including some major side-eye at the literary writing life. I liked it a lot—it covered so much ground that it ran fast and slow, but there was an underlying, understated excitement about being alive in the world that came through at all times.
    • 5/5
      The long life of Roland Baines is shaped by the 3 most important women in his life; his mother, his wife… and his piano teacher. All three significantly transgress the norms of their times (and in the case of his piano teacher, the norms and indeed laws of any time). His mothers trangressions don’t become known to him until relatively late in life but still play a part in shaping him. The behaviour of his piano teacher has a much more direct impact - she grooms, traps, sexual abuses and imprisons him - and in escaping from these golden handcuffs (for Baines does not pretend he didn’t enjoy a lot of this) he abandons his education and his promising piano playing career. As for his wife - she walks out of the door one morning, abandoning him and their baby, to successfully pursue an artistic career, something men have often done but women hardly at all. Roland leads an underachieving, aimless and yet relatively satisfied life, played out against world events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the mass dillusions of Brexit (all three, it is implied, proceeding directly from the other) with McEwan’s usual very detailed and historically immaculate digressions around all three subjects. It’s an enormously satisfying piece of work; likeable, complex characters, moral questions handled with subtlety and nuance, never predictable and often funny. So highly recommended. Minus half a star though, because I just cannot quite believe in the piano teacher. Sexual obsession is one thing - imprisonment of a child, quite another. This is not to say that such things don’t happen; of course, they do, and the 1960s attitude would certainly have been for the boy to shrug it off and soldier on. But I just couldn’t stop myself hearing Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May” in the background - I couldn’t quite suspend disbelief But still, highly recommended. Ian McEwan is always at his best when exploring the impact on a child of external events they have little, or no, control over
    • 5/5
      Another book that I’d been saving for holidays and thank you to Vintage for the proof copy. Lessons by Ian McEwan unveils the life of Roland Baines, from his liaisons with his piano teacher as a young boy through his wife leaving him and their seven month old son to go back to Germany and become a great novelist. He muddles through a variety of jobs – from a hotel foyer pianist to a tennis coach for middle aged wannabes – and vaguely hopes for fulfilment through his relationships with the few around him who keep in touch. Will the past come back to interfere with the more comfortable final act that he is moving into? Set from the end of WWII to the present day, the backdrop of events takes influence over Roland’s life in familiar ways. This is McEwan at his best, with the back stories providing a solid structure and the characters drawn in fine detail with their flaws evident as a feature of their humanity. It’s a British Jonathan Franzen with more subtlety, less obvious jokes and a clever infusion of class.
    • 5/5
      A 72 year old Londoner reflects on his life's journey. Along the way Roland Baines' life is impacted by world events: the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Berlin Wall (and later its downfall), the cultural revolutions of the 60s and 70s, Thatcherism, Trump (thankfully without being named), Johnson, Covid, global warming are all included and commented upon.The story follows Baines from his early life as an Army brat, schoolboy in England, to failed attempts at establishing himself in a proper profession or field of work. Of major influence is an encounter with an older woman which effects his relationships with a series of women that follows.There are interesting digressions about the White Rose resistance group in Nazi Germany and life behind the wall in East Berlin. The book also has literary characters and themes regarding the role of fiction and poetry as writers and readers.I found that being of the same age group of added benefit in relating to and becoming invested in Roland's efforts to build a life of meaning. The book spans almost 3/4 of a century of Western civilization and near the end some conjecture and wonder on what is to follow as the 21st century unfolds.A most satisfying read.
    • 5/5
      It is interesting to see how novelists develop over the course of their career. In an uncharacteristically progressive move for such a conservative institution, my school had its own paperback bookshop which was managed by members of the Sixth Form, including me for a brief period. An obvious benefit was the opportunity to browse through the stock, but I was also grateful for the access to promotional material from the various publishers whose books we sold. That was how I first became acquainted with the name of Ian McEwan, whom Picador were promoting as one of their coming young writers. Having started with a couple of collections of short stories ([First Love, Last Rites] and [In Between the Sheets]), in which the preponderance of what seemed unconventional sex particularly caught our teenage boys’ attention, McEwan moved on to novels, starting with [The Cement Garden]. These led to him being included in Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Writers’ list published in 1983. Now, almost forty years on, Ian McEwan is one of the grand old men of British … indeed, world literature.This latest novel, considerably longer than most of his recent books, which might fairly almost have been deemed novellas and weighing in at around 500 pages. I don’t know to what extent it might be based on McEwan’s own life – it certainly covers a similar period, with Roland Baines, the protagonist, being born in the late 1940s, and living through worries about the Cuban Missile Crisis as he entered his teens, and then rejoicing in the fall of the Berlin Wall, and then learning to adapt to a post-Brexit world. The plot is far too involved to offer a decent synopsis here, but essentially it follows the Roland’s life, and allows him (or McEwan himself) to offer various observations on what befalls him.I found it an excellent book – one of the best novels I have read this year, and I was caught up in it right from the start. Roland Baines is far from perfect as a character, and occasionally behaves badly, but he is essentially an empathetic figure. McEwan also captures the feel of the different times at which parts of the book are set with great sensitivity.I might also add a note of personal significance for myself. I started keeping a formal list of the books that I read on 1 January 1980, and this book was number 5,000. I am glad that this milestone was achieved with such an excellent book.
    • 5/5
      Magnificent
    • 4/5
      Thank you Netgalley and Mr. McEwan for the ARC copy of "Lessons." This was an extremely slow paced book, definitely felt like a McEwan book. This is not "Atonement" but definitely a good read. The book is about the life of Ronald Baines which is in a way connected with historical happenings around the world. This is the first book where I encountered the COVID-19 virus. I have so many fucked up feelings regarding the book and with the characters. Would I read it on my own volition? Probably not. However, I would not deny its literary merits and that Mr. McEwan is one of the renowned author alive today.
    • 4/5
      Confession time. I am a plot-driven reader. Character-driven “epics” – especially tomes that exceed 400 pages – rarely hold my interest beyond the first half. Given this fact, combined with what I considered an unnecessarily convoluted narrative structure, “Lessons” was only mildly fulfilling. This takes nothing away from McEwan’s uncanny ability to make multidimensional characters spring to life.
    • 5/5
      Lessons, from Ian McEwan, is a mix of sprawling and focused, taking the reader through half a century of both personal and world history. And boy do both histories offer plenty of lessons.I'm not particularly surprised when I find a McEwan book to be an at times uncomfortable read. I mean this as a good thing, I think being uncomfortable can make you look more closely at what is causing it and why. What the reader also gets here is a look, or perhaps many looks, at how things that happen in one's life can have long-lasting consequences, from personal trauma through to traumatic world events.Because Roland lives through so much and seeks so many ways to come to terms with his life, there are many avenues into the story for the reader. We are likely to see ourselves in some aspect of Roland, even if we try to deny it. Of course, we wouldn't do this or that, well, what I did wasn't quite the same. We know better. We aren't him, but he represents the vast majority of us.Fortunately, since any one of us likely sees ourselves in only one aspect of Roland and his responses to what happens, we can keep enough distance to view his life as, well, a lesson. What would we have done different; how did we react to some of the events as compared to him, and in general what would be ideal ways to respond to some of life's obstacles?I would recommend this to readers who like to read books that span an entire lifetime, especially ones that weave personal and world history together in telling a person's story. Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.
    • 5/5
      Thought provoking story of Roland Baines' life from 1948 to present day. Current events are braided into the decisions he makes from elementary school (The cold war Suez Canal crisis) through England's Brexit decision. As an adolescent he is lured into an abusive sexual relationship with his piano teacher because of his pubescent response to the Cuban Missile Crisis and fear of nuclear annihilation. This thread follows through out the book as he makes various fits and starts toward careers as a muscian, poet, journalist.There are quite a few points for reflection through out the book which the author does not answer, he provides different point of view to consider
    • 4/5
      This is McEwan's longest novel to date, no doubt because it's his first novel following pretty much the full lifespan of a character's novel. It's a novel that covers a lot of bases - key world events viewed from the lens of an ordinary Brit, adolescent sexual experiences with an older female teacher, a wife who leaves her family to pursue her writing ambitions (threads of Doris Lessing there) - yet somehow I can't help but feel that given this big life canvas to work with there was a missed opportunity for something a little more special.It's a good novel, for sure, but it lacked the shock factor of McEwan's earlier novels which threw me off course and had me silently applauding his crazy imagination as I read. As a result it reads like many other decent novels I've read that quickly become forgettable.McEwan seems to have moved in his senior years of writing towards more of a political and social commentary bent, and I for one miss his old form of just relaying a damn good story. He was trying to give an everyman's view of key historical events, but at times it felt contrived to have the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Chernobyl, etc. etc. right up to Covid lockdowns all squeezed into one novel.At the literary festival earlier in the month he spoke at length about this novel and said it's the book where he's most used aspects from his own life. Maybe that subconsciously constrained where he took the novel on some level.He's a writer that can both astound and disappoint me. This is the thirteenth novel of his I've read now, and I said I was done with him some years back as I felt I'd read his best work and everything else was disappointing me. I'm glad I did go back to him, as this was a worthwhile read, but I wish he'd find some of his old sparkle (although his form could definitely be hit or miss even at his best).4 stars - an epic novel, yet it fails to deliver in terms of creating a heartfelt relationship between the reader and the protagonist. Given this is the story of one person's lifetime, it therefore feels like it falls short from what it could have been.
    • 3/5
      Roland’s life is tainted by sexual abuse he experienced at age 14-16. But, being that age, he didn’t really experience it as negative until much later. But this experience culminated in his leaving school and a life of aimless wandering and indesciveness.
    • 5/5
      Interesting, enlightening, thought provoking, poignant and entertaining... superb.