Genre Fiction
![Ian McEwan - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_ian_mcewan.jpg)
Lessons: A novel
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the best-selling author of Atonement and Saturday comes the epic and intimate story of one man's life across generations and historical upheavals. From the Suez Crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current pandemic, Roland Baines sometimes rides with the tide of history, but more often struggles against it.
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Two thousand miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl 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.
Haunted by lost opportunities, Roland seeks solace through every possible means-music, literature, friends, sex, politics, and, finally, love cut tragically short, then love ultimately redeemed. His journey raises important questions for us all. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without causing damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we really learn from the traumas of the past?
Epic, mesmerizing, and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times-a powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one man's lifetime.
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Two thousand miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl 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.
Haunted by lost opportunities, Roland seeks solace through every possible means-music, literature, friends, sex, politics, and, finally, love cut tragically short, then love ultimately redeemed. His journey raises important questions for us all. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without causing damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we really learn from the traumas of the past?
Epic, mesmerizing, and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times-a powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one man's lifetime.
Editorial Reviews
"McEwan's new novel is a profound demonstration of his remarkable skill. Lessons progresses in time the way a rising tide takes the beach: a cycle of forward surges and seeping retreats, giving us a clearer and fuller sense of Roland's life. He becomes a kind of Zelig character passing through momentous changes in the late-20th century. Indeed, even more than McEwan's previous novels, Lessons is a story that so fully embraces its historical context that it calls into question the synthetic timelessness of much contemporary fiction."-The Washington Post
"Insightful . . . Engaging . . . Expansive and unhurried, Lessons explores how one man's life is shaped by the unpredictable sweep of history."-Seattle Times
"What constitutes a successful life-particularly one damaged by a crime of passion? Ian McEwan's novel grapples with this question via the story of a troubled single father. Whether describing the day-to-day minutiae, a disturbing affair, or mammoth historical events, McEwan captivates with thoughtful, emotionally honest prose."-Christian Science Monitor
"Brilliant . . . a beguiling and irresistible read . . . A masterpiece of a novel that is simultaneously about the business of growing up and getting old, and the business of writing fiction. McEwan, an unparalleled master of social realism, performs a remarkable trick: He manages to create an ineffable sense of mystery out of a rather ordinary human life. How does McEwan pull it off? Through the patient accretion of closely observed detail and one beautiful, shimmering sentence after another." -USA Today [4-star review]
"Generous, ambitious . . . a masterpiece of modulation among pathos, fury, and affection . . . Consummate set pieces include a poignant account of how Roland's beloved second wife, Daphne, diagnosed with terminal cancer, spends her final weeks and hours. The physical struggle between Roland and Peter Mount, a smarmy MP who was Daphne's first husband, to seize her ashes and empty them into a rustic river is a tragicomic gem. The story of how Roland smuggles Animal Farm, a Velvet Underground album, and other contraband to friends in East Germany is a miniature, flawless thriller . . . Mc...
"Insightful . . . Engaging . . . Expansive and unhurried, Lessons explores how one man's life is shaped by the unpredictable sweep of history."-Seattle Times
"What constitutes a successful life-particularly one damaged by a crime of passion? Ian McEwan's novel grapples with this question via the story of a troubled single father. Whether describing the day-to-day minutiae, a disturbing affair, or mammoth historical events, McEwan captivates with thoughtful, emotionally honest prose."-Christian Science Monitor
"Brilliant . . . a beguiling and irresistible read . . . A masterpiece of a novel that is simultaneously about the business of growing up and getting old, and the business of writing fiction. McEwan, an unparalleled master of social realism, performs a remarkable trick: He manages to create an ineffable sense of mystery out of a rather ordinary human life. How does McEwan pull it off? Through the patient accretion of closely observed detail and one beautiful, shimmering sentence after another." -USA Today [4-star review]
"Generous, ambitious . . . a masterpiece of modulation among pathos, fury, and affection . . . Consummate set pieces include a poignant account of how Roland's beloved second wife, Daphne, diagnosed with terminal cancer, spends her final weeks and hours. The physical struggle between Roland and Peter Mount, a smarmy MP who was Daphne's first husband, to seize her ashes and empty them into a rustic river is a tragicomic gem. The story of how Roland smuggles Animal Farm, a Velvet Underground album, and other contraband to friends in East Germany is a miniature, flawless thriller . . . Mc...
Readers Top Reviews
P Jensen
The story of a damaged English boarding school boy has been told too many times to still be interesting. This is not McEwan at his best. I'm a fan, but here he's idling.
Kindle
The lesson seems to be we end up knowing nothing and we muddle through life making good and bad decisions So much packed into this book about a character formed by the times he lived in and through A potted history of the last 70/80 years Very engaging and clever We care about these people's lives A wonderful read
Earl
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.
KBWilliam de Rham
Mine is missing pages 23-54. Anybody else have this problem?
Karil Lowke
Wonderfully topical, an exploration of modern cultural, political and sexual attitudes and values, and of marriages and how they work.
Short Excerpt Teaser
1
This was insomniac memory, not a dream. It was the piano lesson again-an orange-tiled floor, one high window, a new upright in a bare room close to the sickbay. He was eleven years old, attempting what others might know as Bach's first prelude from Book One of The Well-tempered Clavier, simplified version, but he knew nothing of that. He didn't wonder whether it was famous or obscure. It had no when or where. He could not conceive that someone had once troubled to write it. The music was simply here, a school thing, or dark, like a pine forest in winter, exclusive to him, his private labyrinth of cold sorrow. It would never let him leave.
The teacher sat close by him on the long stool. Round-faced, erect, perfumed, strict. Her beauty lay concealed behind her manner. She never scowled or smiled. Some boys said she was mad, but he doubted that.
He made a mistake in the same place, the one he always made, and she leaned closer to show him. Her arm was firm and warm against his shoulder, her hands, her painted nails, were right above his lap. He felt a terrible tingling draining his attention.
"Listen. It's an easy rippling sound."
But as she played, he heard no easy rippling. Her perfume overwhelmed his senses and deafened him. It was a rounded cloying scent, like a hard object, a smooth river stone, pushing in on his thoughts. Three years later he learned it was rosewater.
"Try again." She said it on a rising tone of warning. She was musical, he was not. He knew that her mind was elsewhere and that he bored her with his insignificance-another inky boy in a boarding school. His fingers were pressing down on the tuneless keys. He could see the bad place on the page before he reached it, it was happening before it happened, the mistake was coming towards him, arms outstretched like a mother, ready to scoop him up, always the same mistake coming to collect him without the promise of a kiss. And so it happened. His thumb had its own life.
Together, they listened to the bad notes fade into the hissing silence.
"Sorry," he whispered to himself.
Her displeasure came as a quick exhalation through her nostrils, a reverse sniff he had heard before. Her fingers found his inside leg, just at the hem of his grey shorts, and pinched him hard. That night there would be a tiny blue bruise. Her touch was cool as her hand moved up under his shorts to where the elastic of his pants met his skin. He scrambled off the stool and stood, flushed.
"Sit down. You'll start again!"
Her sternness wiped away what had just happened. It was gone and he already doubted his memory of it. He hesitated before yet another of those blinding encounters with the ways of adults. They never told you what they knew. They concealed from you the boundaries of your ignorance. What happened, whatever it was, must be his fault and disobedience was against his nature. So he sat, lifted his head to the sullen column of treble clefs where they hung on the page and he set off again, even more unsteadily than before. There could be no rippling, not in this forest. Too soon he was nearing that same bad place. Disaster was certain and knowing that confirmed it as his idiot thumb went down when it should have stayed still. He stopped. The lingering discord sounded like his name spoken out loud. She took his chin between knuckle and thumb and turned his face towards hers. Even her breath was scented. Without shifting her eyes from his, she reached for the twelve-inch ruler from the piano lid. He was not going to let her smack him but as he slid from the stool he didn't see what was coming. She caught him on his knee, with the edge, not the flat, and it stung. He moved a step back.
"You'll do as you're told and sit down."
His leg was burning but he wouldn't put his hand to it, not yet. He took a last look at her, at her beauty, her tight high-necked pearl-buttoned blouse, at the fanned diagonal creases in the fabric formed by her breasts below her correct and steady gaze.
He ran from her down a colonnade of months until he was thirteen and it was late at night. For months she had featured in his pre-sleep daydreams. But this time it was different, the sensation was savage, the cold sinking in his stomach was what he guessed people called ecstasy. Everything was new, good or bad, and it was all his. Nothing had ever felt so thrilling as passing the point of no return. Too late, no going back, who cared? Astonished, he came into his hand for the first time. When he had recovered he sat up in the dark, got out of bed, went into the dormitory lavatories, "the bogs," to examine the pale globule in his palm, a child's palm.
Here his memories faded into dreaming. He went closer, closer, through the glistening ...
This was insomniac memory, not a dream. It was the piano lesson again-an orange-tiled floor, one high window, a new upright in a bare room close to the sickbay. He was eleven years old, attempting what others might know as Bach's first prelude from Book One of The Well-tempered Clavier, simplified version, but he knew nothing of that. He didn't wonder whether it was famous or obscure. It had no when or where. He could not conceive that someone had once troubled to write it. The music was simply here, a school thing, or dark, like a pine forest in winter, exclusive to him, his private labyrinth of cold sorrow. It would never let him leave.
The teacher sat close by him on the long stool. Round-faced, erect, perfumed, strict. Her beauty lay concealed behind her manner. She never scowled or smiled. Some boys said she was mad, but he doubted that.
He made a mistake in the same place, the one he always made, and she leaned closer to show him. Her arm was firm and warm against his shoulder, her hands, her painted nails, were right above his lap. He felt a terrible tingling draining his attention.
"Listen. It's an easy rippling sound."
But as she played, he heard no easy rippling. Her perfume overwhelmed his senses and deafened him. It was a rounded cloying scent, like a hard object, a smooth river stone, pushing in on his thoughts. Three years later he learned it was rosewater.
"Try again." She said it on a rising tone of warning. She was musical, he was not. He knew that her mind was elsewhere and that he bored her with his insignificance-another inky boy in a boarding school. His fingers were pressing down on the tuneless keys. He could see the bad place on the page before he reached it, it was happening before it happened, the mistake was coming towards him, arms outstretched like a mother, ready to scoop him up, always the same mistake coming to collect him without the promise of a kiss. And so it happened. His thumb had its own life.
Together, they listened to the bad notes fade into the hissing silence.
"Sorry," he whispered to himself.
Her displeasure came as a quick exhalation through her nostrils, a reverse sniff he had heard before. Her fingers found his inside leg, just at the hem of his grey shorts, and pinched him hard. That night there would be a tiny blue bruise. Her touch was cool as her hand moved up under his shorts to where the elastic of his pants met his skin. He scrambled off the stool and stood, flushed.
"Sit down. You'll start again!"
Her sternness wiped away what had just happened. It was gone and he already doubted his memory of it. He hesitated before yet another of those blinding encounters with the ways of adults. They never told you what they knew. They concealed from you the boundaries of your ignorance. What happened, whatever it was, must be his fault and disobedience was against his nature. So he sat, lifted his head to the sullen column of treble clefs where they hung on the page and he set off again, even more unsteadily than before. There could be no rippling, not in this forest. Too soon he was nearing that same bad place. Disaster was certain and knowing that confirmed it as his idiot thumb went down when it should have stayed still. He stopped. The lingering discord sounded like his name spoken out loud. She took his chin between knuckle and thumb and turned his face towards hers. Even her breath was scented. Without shifting her eyes from his, she reached for the twelve-inch ruler from the piano lid. He was not going to let her smack him but as he slid from the stool he didn't see what was coming. She caught him on his knee, with the edge, not the flat, and it stung. He moved a step back.
"You'll do as you're told and sit down."
His leg was burning but he wouldn't put his hand to it, not yet. He took a last look at her, at her beauty, her tight high-necked pearl-buttoned blouse, at the fanned diagonal creases in the fabric formed by her breasts below her correct and steady gaze.
He ran from her down a colonnade of months until he was thirteen and it was late at night. For months she had featured in his pre-sleep daydreams. But this time it was different, the sensation was savage, the cold sinking in his stomach was what he guessed people called ecstasy. Everything was new, good or bad, and it was all his. Nothing had ever felt so thrilling as passing the point of no return. Too late, no going back, who cared? Astonished, he came into his hand for the first time. When he had recovered he sat up in the dark, got out of bed, went into the dormitory lavatories, "the bogs," to examine the pale globule in his palm, a child's palm.
Here his memories faded into dreaming. He went closer, closer, through the glistening ...
