This was a good, quick read. An interesting story that explores several moral issues such as euthanasia and privacy rights. Another theme is the yearning for greatness and the sacrifices involved, often in vain. For example, Clive is a famous composer trying to create a “Millennial Symphony” and struggling with the pressure. He feels on the verge of creating a work of genius but keeps being interrupted just as he is about to create a crucial part. Vernon is a newspaper editor who thinks he has created a truly great front page, one that will restore the paper’s declining circulation and will become so iconic that it is used in journalism school one day. Julian Garmony is a right-wing Tory foreign secretary on the verge of a leadership bid but threatened with oblivion by the exposure of his cross-dressing habit (the subject of Vernon’s great front page).
One thing the novel captured really well was the fickleness of public opinion: at several crucial points, there is a sudden swing and people who supported one view before suddenly say the complete opposite and maintain that they always believed that. Reminds me of the death of Princess Diana, when the same newspapers that were exoriating her before her death suddenly started idolising her. This novel was written in 1998, a year after Princess Diana’s death, when this issue, and also issues of press invasion of privacy, would have been very current.
There was a real let-down for me, though: in several instances, the characters just didn’t feel real. The ending, particularly, was a disappointment. (Major spoiler alert!!) The ending just seemed inconsistent with the characters, much too dramatic compared with what had gone before. Clive and Vernon had argued, had a disagreement, each thought the other was morally at fault. Fine. But it’s the kind of thing you can get over, or just not bother to call the person again. The thing is, they end up killing each other! It’s just bizarre. There’s a bit of a setup in that the woman they both loved, Molly, the woman whose funeral opens the book, died very slowly and painfully, and they’d both agreed that if they were terminally ill, the other one would assist in their suicide. References to Amsterdam’s relaxed assisted-suicide laws are sprinkled through the book as foreshadowing. But still, when they end up killing each other, I just didn’t buy it.
Some beautiful writing, good scenes – the Lake District one was particularly memorable - and it kept me reading all the way through. There was some great description of the act of creation in the parts where Clive is trying to write his symphony, and a good exploration of the moral dilemmas of the newspaper industry. But it was a big problem for me that at several points I just didn’t believe the characters would really do what the writer said they were doing. McEwan has written much better books – Atonement was fantastic. This was just OK.
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