Lessons
By Ian McEwan

One of my favourite ever books is "Atonement", which I read in 2002 but still lives, rent-free, in my head all these years later, but I never got around to reading any more Ian McEwan, so I was excited to get the opportunity to review "Lessons". This book is completely different from what I remember of Atonement, the writing style, the voice, the mood, the setting. I found it difficult to settle into, however, once I got past the first three chapters I was totally committed. Not that it wasn't engaging, just not what I was expecting.

This is the story of Roland Baines, who appears to have a very similar life to the author. Roland is trying to find his footing in boarding school. He has been deprived of much of the physical and emotional affection he craves from his family. His father is a career soldier, a devoted father but abusive husband, his mother has her fair share of secrets and shame and is a detached parent. When the school piano teacher takes more than a passing interest in young Roland, his scholarly endeavors go out the window and his life turns on a pin.

What follows is the entire rest of Roland's life, his various lovers, his political leanings, his single parenthood, and his skewed attitudes towards sex. The level of detail is astonishing. Practically every passage throughout the novel is set against whatever political event was happening at that exact time, complete with references to the music of the period. I felt like I was reliving the entire European history of the second half of the 20th century. East Germany, the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union are all brought to life brilliantly, British politics that I had almost forgotten about, all the way up to the Covid-19 pandemic and the various lockdowns.

This is a long book, and the pace is slow, however I found that I could not put it down. I had to read it thoughtfully. The tone changes quite a bit throughout, from humorous to reflective to morose. I wanted at times to give Roland such a shake, sometimes I actually despised him, but by the end I loved him for who he was, like an old friend. I just know that this is another book that will stay with me for years. I'm so glad I got to read it.

Thanks to #netgalley, #vintagebooks, #randomhouseuk for the egalley

Ian McEwan always amazes me. His novels are an excellent read, using classical English with only the necessary amount of modernisms.
Lessons is bang up to date, and covers Roland's life-time pretty much, and includes everything that might have happened in it that is of interest to the reader.
There is always something a little unusual in his novels and this one is no different.
I felt that I wish that I was or had been part of Roland's life and could have helped when things seemed to be going wrong, or celebrated when they went right.
Thanks to Ian for another magnificent novel and my thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy for honest review.

Not my favourite Ian McEwan novel, overly long and a little bit preachy. I’m not suggesting it isn’t well written - it is - I just found it a bit of a chore in places.
More or less spanning the lifetime of Roland Baines, born in Tripoli to an abusive military father and domineered mother we see how his personal life and worldwide events have a affect on how his life plays out.
Roland is sent to a boarding school and aged 14 has a sexual relationship with his Piano teacher. The impact of this on his subsequent relationships and outlook on life is, not surprisingly, acute.
He marries Alissa but she leaves him with a young child which sees him reeling for years and never seemingly coming to terms with.
We hear a chronicle of worldwide events from WW2 to the fall of the Berlin Wall and up to the recent pandemic all having a profound affect on his outlook.
I’ll always pick up a novel by Ian McEwan, it’s just this is not one I’ll choose to go back to.
Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read early.

Lessons is the eighteenth novel by Booker prize-winning British author, Ian McEwan. At the age of eleven, after living for five years with his parents in Libya, Roland Baines is sent to Berners Hall, a boarding school in rural Suffolk, to get the education his parents missed out on. His father had always wanted to play the piano: Roland is signed up for lessons with Miss Miriam Cornell.

When Roland is thirty-seven, his wife abandons him and their baby son, claiming in a note that, while she loves him, motherhood would sink her, and she’s been living the “wrong life”. Now a published poet, Roland has to seek social service assistance as sole carer for seven-month-old Lawrence.

As he copes with sole parenthood and the threat of a radiation cloud from Chernobyl, he is also under suspicion for murder from DI Douglas Browne, who is sceptical of the note and postcards Alissa has sent.

Plagued by sleeplessness, Roland’s mind goes back to his childhood: army accommodation in Tripoli, boarding school, lessons with Miss Cornell, and the highly inappropriate affair into which she grooms a pre-teen boy. While the prospect of an older, attractive, single and erotically-inclined lover might be a dream come true for a randy sixteen-year-old schoolboy, even bedazzled, Roland understands it could be the destruction of his future.

In eventually rejecting her, he also abandons his formal education, spends a rather dissolute decade travelling, then begins to educate himself. By his mid-forties, he is coaching tennis, writing reviews and playing tearoom piano. “How easy it was to drift through an unchosen life, in a succession of reactions to events.”

Some of McEwan’s descriptive prose is exquisite: “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.”

But, at times, he seems to go off on tangents from his main plot, and although patience with these apparent digressions does offer the reader a fuller backstory, his lofty prose and cerebral subject matter can be enough to make the ordinary reader feel uneducated, even dumb. His protagonist is not all that likeable, making it hard for the reader to care a whole lot about his fate until, in the final pages, he develops into a more appealing character.

With references to national, European and world events, McEwan certainly establishes the era and setting, but his protagonist’s opinions on, and reactions to, politics and current affairs do begin to bore, and readers will be tempted to skim. A too-detailed description of a mediocre life that is much wordier than it needs to be.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and the publisher.

Lessons are definitely at the forefront of Ian McEwan’s new novel; even the Baines family are Robert, Rosalind and Roland - the three R’s.
Roland is looking after his baby child when his wife walks out on him.
He receives postcards from her as she travels around Europe
This narrative digresses as he is haunted by a past that involves a female piano teacher who behaved inappropriately with him and later teaches him about sex as the Cuban missile crisis pushes Roland to lose his virginity before it’s too late.
It also rambles backwards to tell us about his parents, grandparents and in-laws.
McEwan uses this to enlighten us about various nuggets of history such as the White Rose protests by university students and their subsequent trial and beheadings in wartime Germany.
Like Julian Barnes’ Elizabeth Finch, the author’s intention to inform and educate the reader makes the experience a struggle or a delight depending on your personal reading goals. I like to learn about the world while reading fiction but I prefer it to be subtle and casually woven into the book.

Great writing, shame about the editing.

Inside these 496 pages, there is a great 300 page novel trying to get out. Ironically, Ian McEwan (IM) himself said in 2014 ‘very few long novels earn their length’ and went on to say ‘my fingers are always itching for a blue pencil’. There’s no doubt that IM is still writing phenomenally well with great characterisation and very skilful prose. But his editor has let both him and his readership down by not insisting on cutting back on the rambling narrative so as to help us focus more on the crucial themes.

This novel is the story of Roland Baines, born post WW2, and his journey through life right up until post-lockdown. There’s a galaxy of characters, his family of siblings, his teacher, his wife, Alissa. Roland is talented but perceives that he has been thrown off a career path in his teens. He has a joyless, grinding existence with little satisfaction and only minor successes as a pianist, tennis coach and poet.

We first meet him as a lone parent, struggling to raise his son, Lawrence. He is exhausted and frustrated. Many of the people around him are frustrated or are on the periphery of events and never quite there. His mother-in-law, Jane, never submits her article to Cyril Connolly on the White Rose movement during the war. His father-in-law, Heinrich knew a few of the White Rose people but was never part of it. Roland’s wife, Alissa, completes a few unpublished novels but (spoiler-free comment) things do turn out differently for her.

IM is writing in Chekovian mode about people whose lives are disappointing and constantly close to failure. But Chekov was writing short stories. 500 pages of failure makes it heavy going even with IM’s superb writing. However, there is a fascination with Roland’s position and I kept with this novel as I wanted to discover how his life turned out. And there are several excellent twists and turns of the ‘I didn’t see that coming!’ variety.
Throughout the book, there is a constant reference to the current affairs of the day. However, few, apart from the Berlin Wall, have novelistic relevance and often they seem like the jottings of a sixth form student who is making notes for an essay on ‘Key Events: 1950 to 2020’. This is where an editor might say ‘Either make a bigger focus or cut them all together’.

There’s no doubt that it is difficult to write about under-achievement. Perhaps we want to read about strong central characters overcoming setbacks to achieve goals. Perhaps IM set out to write an untypical novel about the familiar stories of talent going unfulfilled. The sweep and scale of the novel is very impressive. I wish that an editor had tactfully used the blue pencil more freely.

NetGalley has made a complimentary copy of this book available to me pre-publication so that I might make an honest and unbiased review.

Ian McEwan’s Masterpiece?
I have long been a fan of McEwan but his books of late have felt a little trite. This blows them out the water - it’s a long and complicated history of one man’s life, and asks questions about history and our place within it. Just superb.

Beautiful. Poignant. Phenomenal.
This was a beautiful read and I learnt so much. I cried and I smiled and there was nothing more that I wanted from this book. Truly a gem.

Beautifully written, evocative and provocative novel.
The story, from the sketchy details known about McEwen’s life feels autobiographical. Like the protagonist, their lives span the same timeframe. the author is the son of an army officer, was sent away to boarding school, brought up children alone and so on. None of these observations matter except that this book reads like McEwen’s tour d’horizon of his own life and the coincidences of history that fed in and influenced events and outcomes.
Sometimes historical exposition slows the narrative, occasionally it feels extraneous. But don’t let small criticisms put you off. It’s worth reading for the sentences alone.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this wonderful novel.

Flawed but fascinating novel spanning the life of. roland Baines from the 50s to the present day, the big political and cultural milestones along the way, the power of art, the primary drivers of sex and family, and the corrosive impact of abuse.

There are certain passages that are a bit on the nose (the brexit funding friend is a step too far), and the occasional lists of Roland’s current political views are a bit tiresome, but overall this for me is McEwan’s finest work since Atonement.

This is a long book, much longer and wider in scope than other Ian McEwan novels. The story follows the life and times of Roland Baines jumping backwards and forwards in time to reveal small bits of his life story from before and after Roland's wife has disappeared leaving him with their young son. Roland comes from an Army family. He spends his early childhood in Libya where his alcoholic, abusive father rules the roost and his mother cowers. He is sent to Boarding School in England where his female piano teacher grooms and sexually abuses him (which is a difficult storyline to read) affecting his whole life which he only comes to realise late in life and about which he has conflicting feelings.. He travels and visits East Germany and is also there when the Berlin Wall falls. He can't seem to stick to one career and does a bit of journalism, gives tennis leassons and has a gig playing piano in a hotel.

I found the flow and pace of the book frustrating at times.. Only little bits of Roland's life are revealed at a time and not in chronological order, so there is lots of jumping about and having to reorientate your perspective. Sometimes an exciting reveal or piece of action is about to occur and the narrative will veer off to explain what is happening politically in the country at the time, giving the reader a mini lesson on for example, the Blair project. This slows everything down and sometimes the narrative feels quite dull and plodding. The wife in the story uses details from. her own mother's life in a novel and later specific details of her life with Roland mixed into the fiction that could lead to the wider world believing he was abusive. In the novel McEwan has taken details from his own history and fictionalised them. For example, he too was comes from a military family and was sent to a specific boarding school but it isactually NOT them being protrayed in the story. I guess this is another of his "lessons" for the reader.

The thing that stood out for me about this long novel is just how beautifully written it is - it flows like fine silk through the fingers and every word has a place and a meaning. This perhaps sounds a bit trite when the book addresses such difficult themes, and the effect that childhood trauma can have on a life right up until its end. Mc Ewan has done his research into both music and into the psychological impact of a student/teacher relationship that has strayed way beyond anything that is acceptable, and the story unfolds with compassion and insight. Not all of the characters are likeable, but that serves to make the story more real, as characters in life are not always likeable either. As a piano teacher for over 40 years I found the book deeply disturbing, but the wonder of the writing kept me engaged and willing the protagonist, Roland Baines, to find peace and happiness in his life before it was too late.

Lessons is a novel of reminiscing and full of regrets, love and loss. The central character Roland Baines cuts a lonely figure but McEwan fills in the shadow with the story unwinding of a single father of a son, Lawrence whose wife has disappeared. The story shifts from North Africa in 1959 to Berlin before the Wall came down to modern day London. It is a cradle to grave masterpiece that is beautifully and sensitively written. Baines will become as familiar as a family member with all their foibles and endearments. Enjoy it.

There is so much covered in this beautifully written book. It covers the period from post war until the the present time. A small boy abandoned to boarding school and at the whim of those around him. The effects of this last almost a lifetime. We see him trying to make sense of the world and his part in it. McEwan really gets into his characters’ heads. There are so many interesting people around him and they are wonderfully drawn. I feel bereft now that I’ve finished it. Such an emotional rollercoaster

IAN MCEWAN – LESSONS *****

I read this novel in advance of publication through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

This is a deceptively powerful story, one which opens slowly with a gifted eleven-year-old pupil receiving his piano lesson from his teacher. That same boy, as a married man, comes home one day to find his wife gone. And him the obvious suspect for her abduction and possible murder.

Some might find the relationship between the teenage boy and his female teacher uncomfortable. But though this is a theme that runs through the novel, it also encompasses virtually the whole of his life, including wife and children and parents, friends and relatives, and historical incidents like the destruction of the Berlin wall right through to Covid and Trump’s supporters trying to bring down the American election.

This is an extraordinary book. Paragraphs that run for a page or more at a time are common (I counted 100 words in a single sentence) and densely written so it takes longer to read than the average novel, but every sentence is a gem. By the end I was in years. His mind and talent are extraordinary.

I can only award five stars: it deserves more.

A beautifully written book following the life of Roland from his childhood up to the current times. We follow the ups and downs of his life alongside the historical flow of life in Britain.
My only problem with this book was for much of it I was irritated by Roland. I was frustrated with his attitude to life and those around him. It felt at times really gloomy.
However as the book progressed, and certainly by the end I was more invested in what happened to him. It is a tribute to the writing that despite this irritation I couldn't put it down. I especially liked the portrayal of his relationship with his son - the passage about letting your children fly out into the world whilst realising how much you are dependent on them was especially poignant.
And the final thought - much of my frustration was his letting life just happen to him. Sometimes it felt like a lot of 'what if's' passed him by. But having got to the end it occurs to me that many of us have periods in our life where circumstances change our choices - or remove them. This does not necessarily mean an unhappy life and I think Roland comes to realise this in the latter parts of the book.

What a mesmerising read. Flew through it in 2 sittings…. This novel for me is a 5-star read. A reminder to all of us that whilst we may not achieve our dreams most of us have a lot to be thankful for. Simply wonderful!

This is the sixth book I've read by McEwan, and his writing is as engaging and thoughtful as ever. I'll never tire of his richly detailed and descriptive style. This is a sweeping saga of the life of Roland Baines and his family members. When his wife Alissa disappears, leaving him with their 7-month old son Lawrence, Roland must figure out how to move forward with his life. To do that, he looks for answers in his own family history, as well as the historical and political upheavals that helped shape the world as we know it: the Chernobyl disaster, the Suez Crisis, WWII and the White Rose movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany, the pandemic, and climate change.

Despite worldly and personal traumas, Roland has a simple but full life. He enjoys playing tennis, playing the piano, reading, writing, editing, and hiking. He loves and is loved deeply by his family, friends, and lovers. This novel encourages you to reflect on your own life and what it means to have a "whole" life. How do our childhoods impact the adults we come to be? Can we learn from the traumas of the past? What are you willing to sacrifice to reach your goals? How do we define a "successful" life? How do global events shape our lives and our memories?

The novel is quite meandering, and the last 1/4 was a bit of a slog for me, but I'm so glad I stuck with it because the ending was very satisfying as the story comes full circle. Roland will have a place in my heart and in my mind for a long while to come.

I wasn't sure I enjoyed this book. It is very well written and detailed about each period in time as well as WW2 and White Rose group, but I didn't really like the main character, Roland, and since it is his story and life I found myself drifting off at times.
I've tried to decide why I disliked him and can only conclude it is because he believes everyone owes him. He is never really nasty or mean but everyone's treatment of him brings out the worst in him beginning with his music teacher at school and ending with Daphne who, through no fault of her own, leaves him alone.
But having said that, the writing was engaging enough for me to want to follow Roland's life from Libya where he spent his very early years, through school to marriage to Alissa and her departure, leaving him with a small baby, into his old age. I kept hoping things would get better for him, but neither his career nor his relationships really took off until it was too late for him to follow them through. His life is set against the background of the cold war, the sixties, up to the Covid pandemic and the final chapters are very 'of the moment'.
Roland's life must have been a disappointment to him - all rather depressing for the reader - as he bumps from one crisis to another, and falls out with yet another person or watches something he had dreamed about snatched away from him. Perhaps this is reality but it felt a bit too real for a novel - I would usually choose something more uplifting and positive to curl up with.
Even having written this, I still found I thought about the book after I'd finished it as it was through provoking. I keep wondering at which point Roland could have changed his life around or maybe he didn't really want to. Perhaps if events in school had never taken place he'd have been a different person.
It is a tribute to the book that it is so well written that despite the rather gloomy subject matter it did end up as engaging if not entirely satisfying.
With thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Vintage for an arc copy in return for an honest review.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It’s clearly clever, well researched, and well written, but I just couldn’t get to like or really understand Roland, and as the whole book evolves around his life, that was a big problem.
It’s a long book (450 pages) and unfortunately, it sometimes felt long, which is never a good sign. It’s also a fairly joyless book – a series of disappointments and betrayals with very little happiness in between.
Lessons follows the life of Roland Baines from his early childhood in Libya, to boarding school where he is abused by his piano teacher, through to marriage, the disappearance of his wife, the life of a single parent, and decades of struggles with career and relationships. All of this is staged within a thoughtful evocation of seven decades of world events, from the Cold War through to the Covid pandemic.
According to the book’s publisher, ‘Lessons is a chronicle for our times—a powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one man's lifetime.’ I would agree with that, it’s just a pity that at times it really does feel like a bleak and gloomy ‘lesson’, and perhaps the warmth and humour and joy of a life of more than seventy decades is missing. Roland’s life feels like it meanders from one sadness to the next and if that’s the ‘lesson’ of the novel, that life is big on tragedy and short on happiness, I find it’s one I would rather remain unaware of.
Lessons asks us, ‘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?’
This is a sensitively written book, and I would recommend people read it because it’s thought-provoking and challenging. I’m not sure I enjoyed it but I’m glad I read it and feel it will stay with me for a long time.
With thanks to the publishers and Netgalley for an ARC in return for an honest review