Ian McEwan’s ‘Lessons’: Review
History and life are two sides of the same coin in this fragmented and far-reaching coming-of-age epic
“An entire political system could opt for self-imposed distress — he had once spent some time in East Berlin. Marriage, a machine for two, presented king-sized possibilities, all variants of the folie à deux.”
- Ian McEwan, ‘Lessons’
Writing in May, historian and critic Timothy Garton Ash opined that “in history, as in romance, beginnings matter — so what we do now will be crucial in shaping the future.” Investigating the recent trend of attempting to cram our globalised, endangered and increasingly complex, war-torn times under one cohesive “age” (e.g. “The Age of Revolutions”, “The Age of the Strongman” “The Age of AI,” of… “amorality, energy insecurity, impunity, America first, great-power distraction and climate disaster”), he’s perhaps correct in baptising our modern age simply as “the age of confusion”.
Ash’s words make for an unusual subtitle for an article unpicking these uncertain times we live in, but less so when we consider his role in editing Ian McEwan’s latest work of fiction, Lessons (2022). Following the somewhat stymied life of a man juggling his wife’s recent disappearance whilst struggling with life-long memories of an abusive…
