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The Innocent - Ian McEwan

Last read:

30th January 2024

Genre:

Historical Fiction

Ownership:

- Borrowed from Dad - Donated

When my dad asked if there were any of a stack of books he was donating that I would be interested in, I picked this one up. I shouldn't have. It started off fine, but the further I got the less I was enjoying myself. The British protagonist in immediately-post-war Berlin feeling a sense of pride at the ruined buildings he walked past didn't exactly endear him to me, but he did grow out of that at least. Then back into it when he spoilers tried to act out a rape fantasy with his girlfriend, but without telling her that so he really just tried to rape her. Then they get engaged and he kills her ex-husband in self-defense, but they conspire to dismember and dispose of the corpse because they don't think the police will believe them. Just super jolly. It took me actual months to get through this ~280 page book. I say that, as I type this I still have ~55 pages to go. Ok, having actually finished it now, and.. meh. I did finally feel "the plot [crackling] like thin ice with dread and suspense" when more spoilers he was trying to dispose of the corpse, but it all fell kind of flat. The ending wasn't happy or sad or bittersweet. The '50s plot ended still mired in the protagonist's numbness, and the post-script 30 years later just leaves it further open as to whether they reunite as pensioners, having married and raised children with other people who have conveniently since died. I don't know, it just didn't exactly speak to me.

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