Random Things Tours: Lessons by Ian McEwan

 

Do we really live to learn a lesson? When we gonna learn the lesson(s) if any, anyway? Does it count who is really learning from us - to be or to be the opposite of us - as long as we are long gone...? Of course, there are so many cheap and very cheap versions of our lives that delve into the simplified versions of ourselves that we are tempted to emulate from media and self-help books, but instead of learning, we rather should consider ourselves the own authors of our lives. The only lesson of life I accept is learning to exist.

I do have a great literary admiration for Ian McEwan whom I often review on my blog - and still have some books on line for reviews - and for his interest in wrapping everyday topics into his stories or novels, from Artificial Intelligence to climate change. His latest, Lessons however, do have a different tone and the references are much richer and expansive. 

Roland Blaine, born in 1948, the main voice of the story, is tracing his life story. There are several milestones that marked his life, starting from the moment when his then wife left him with a seven years old child, because she felt suffocating, unable to fulfill her literary dreams. Or the sexual predator woman teacher who abused him during his school years. Or his inability to overcome his modest condition, despite the dreams invested in him and his career. As he recalls his more or less distant experiences, he is back and forth from his small, micro-history to the larger than life international events unfolding: WWII, Suez Crisis, Chernobyl, Covid lockdowns, to mention only a few. Could be compare our own history to the world´s history and therefore try to iterate our own history within the world´s. Does it life work through lessons, anyway?

In many respects, Blaine´s story includes biographical elements from McEwan´s occurrences as well, and not only by sharing the same date of birth. There are personal details regarding his lost brother, the affairs of his mother, among others. Hence, a third level of interpretation, when the personal life of the author is intertwined with the life of the literary characters. 

As usual, McEwan works on different levels of interpretations and reading keys, which makes the reading even more rewarding intellectually.

I will continue to be skeptical about ´life´s lessons´, but Lessons will stay with me for a longer time, for both the precise writing and the intense intellectual challenges.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own