![]() ![]() In the novel's opening pages, McEwan deftly introduces Roland and the two life-changing experiences inflicted on him two decades apart: sexual predation at boarding school, and marital abandonment as a new father. Intent on self-improvement, Roland strives to make up for his aborted formal education with an ambitious self-directed reading course, but he still rues his inability to cobble together more than a subsistence living with watered-down versions of his talents - playing piano in a cocktail lounge instead of a concert hall, teaching tennis instead of competing in it, writing greeting cards instead of great poems. Roland Blaine, the novel's effete protagonist, feels he never lived up to his potential - careerwise or otherwise - beginning with his dismal academic performance. It ranks among McEwan's best work, including Atonement. Set against the backdrop of 70 years of major global events, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, Chernobyl, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Covid pandemic, Lessons displays both breadth and depth. ![]() ![]() In Ian McEwan's expansive new novel, a man assesses his life's trajectory from childhood to old age, focusing especially on what he considers his wrong turns and disappointments. ![]()
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