Present Out Of Books The Comfort of Strangers
| Title | : | The Comfort of Strangers |
| Author | : | Ian McEwan |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 128 pages |
| Published | : | November 1st 1994 by Anchor (first published 1981) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Thriller. Contemporary. European Literature. British Literature |
Ian McEwan
Paperback | Pages: 128 pages Rating: 3.41 | 14143 Users | 1194 Reviews
Chronicle Supposing Books The Comfort of Strangers
This was exactly the novel I didn’t want to read, but at least it’s official now – NO MORE IAN MCEWAN BOOKS FOR ME, EVER. I would like to tell you how stupid this novel is, but Maciek beat me to it – see his great review here https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... So let me tell you about the boring sentences you have to accept into your life if you read this book. Here’s one: Now, in the late afternoon, although the sun was still high, the eastern sky had lost its vivid purple and, fading by degrees through nursery blue to diluted milk, effected, across the precise line of the horizon, the most delicate of transactions with the pale grey of the sea. This is, I take it, what people mean when they harp on about the Ian McEwan prose style. It looks, to me, as if, Mr McEwan, has broken in to James Ellroy’s office, and, stolen all James’ commas. Never have, I seen, so many clauses, and commas, in one short, novel. For me the effect is akin to reading through a stocking mask, the kind that robbers used before they all switched to balaclavas. Especially when our prose stylist is continually, dementedly, describing the weather, the streets of Venice, or the furniture in the rooms. Ah how he loves furniture. Cutlery too. You can tell this is pretentious I mean literary because although it’s set in Venice the V word is never mentioned. By now I have realised what Ian McEwan’s USP is. What he does is he describes in tedious detail a couple of ordinary novocained middle class English types in an ordinary situation and just when you’re dozing off he has a page of lurid violence. Sometimes the lurid violence comes at the beginning, sometimes in the middle, and here at the end. Here’s another McEwanbite for you. I think this is the way dead people would write, if they could : In the evening they decided they were suffering from lack of exercise and made plans to catch the boat across the lagoon the next day to the popular strip of land whose beaches faced the open sea. This led them to talk at length and euphorically, for they had just smoked another joint, about swimming, their preferred strokes, the relative merits of rivers, lakes, swimming-pools and seas, and the precise nature of the attraction water had for people : was it the buried memory of ancient sea ancestors? Talk of memory caused Mary to frown again. The conversation became desultory after that, and they went to bed earlier than usual, a little before midnight. Notice “the popular strip of land whose beaches faced the open sea” – he can’t give it its name, which would be the natural thing to do, because for some reason of high literature, he has decided not to say that the city with its canals and no traffic is Venice. So he has to use this forced circumlocution. This novel means nothing. It portentously gestures towards some kind of statement critical of men who think that women really like to be beaten up and by extension how feminism is destroying life as we know it but the denouement capsizes any attempt to make sense of the plot. This novel promotes yet another version of the concept that (some) victims actively participate in their own destruction. Why do they do this? Well, who knows, not Ian McEwan, that’s for sure. They just do. Too much novocaine maybe. I am promoting the idea that readers can do without Ian McEwan.Describe Books As The Comfort of Strangers
| Original Title: | The Comfort of Strangers |
| ISBN: | 0679749845 (ISBN13: 9780679749844) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Setting: | Venice(Italy) |
| Literary Awards: | Booker Prize Nominee (1981) |
Rating Out Of Books The Comfort of Strangers
Ratings: 3.41 From 14143 Users | 1194 ReviewsPiece Out Of Books The Comfort of Strangers
"The Comfort of Strangers" is the unfortunate combination of two of McEwan's worst books (which were published decades later, obviously): "Saturday" & "On Chesil Beach." It has that PVoAA (Powerful Voice of Authentic Authority), or that I've-published-stuff-now-I-will-see-places-with-the-eyes-of-a-wealthy-man tone. Ya know, the rich who think they're above even common violence (made, obviously, more "horrific" by their occurrence to a man of abundant means, gag). It also has thatColin e Mary sono una coppia di turisti in vacanza. Sono indolenti, vivono le loro giornate fra le lenzuola fresche di un hotel, uscendo la sera a cena, bevendo e fumando qualcosa. Non sappiamo dove sono. Una città che dalla descrizione sembrerebbe Venezia. E ci trascinano nelle loro giornate senza senso, in discussioni silenziose in un tempo immobile, in unabitudine ai loro corpi che è normalità , piacere, delicatezza e conforto. Ognuno si prende cura dellaltro come sa. La certezza dellesserci
As always, Ian McEwan tells this tale with remarkable descriptions, ensuring that the readers see everyone and everything in the novel the way he himself has pictured it. "The Comfort of Strangers", like "The Cement Garden", is a very quick read. However, it fails to captivate its audience. Pretty much nothing happens up until more than half of the book, which almost made me stop reading it out of complete boredom. His characters are lackluster and some parts of the story are pretty vague.
WARNING : Alta Tensione Una coppia inglese ,Colin e Mary, sta trascorrendo qualche settimana a Venezia.Non era più una grande passione. Il piacere stava soprattutto nell'amichevole mancanza di fretta, nella familiarità dei rituali e delle procedure, nel sicuro, preciso incastro di membra e corpi, confortevole come un calco di gesso che torna nella forma. Erano generosi e voluttuosi, scarsamente esigenti e per nulla rumorosi. Il loro modo di fare l'amore non aveva un chiaro inizio o una chiara
This was the first novel by Ian McEwan that I've read ages ago. I got a copy from a supermarket sale and read it in a day, wondering all the time how someone could write down so many nasty things and get away with it. Cut me some slack, I was 10.So, as I sat to rediscover this classic, I hoped to feel at least a fraction of the weird pleasure this novel brought me back then. The thing is short - 120 pages long - and you can easily breeze through it in two hours.I have to say that this might be
I seem to be in the minority based on the ratings, but something about this story grabbed me right from the start. There is irony in the title as the story brings anything but comfort, which may actually be why I liked it. The characters are rather strange and unlikable, their relationships are strained, and the story reaffirms everything you were taught as a child about not talking to strangers. An English couples holiday takes on an eerie twist when they find themselves lured in by a
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