Well, this is strange, writing a post on a
Friday night. It's supposed to be a gorgeous weekend, my husband is away,
and I finished the Ian McEwan book a couple of days ago so I wanted to write
about it before I got too far into a new book and forgot why I loved it so
much.
I didn't get much
reading done last Sunday, as it turned out to be a fabulous "outside"
day. But I did manage to get a start on McEwan's novel, The
Children Act. I always enjoy his novels, although sometimes I have to
ruminate on them for a bit after reaching the last page before coming to that
conclusion - this happened with On Chesil Beach, which I at first
thought was a waste of my time, but then decided was brilliant. The trick
with McEwan is to realize that he is a master at the short novel, and what
ground he does not cover in terms of time or events he more than makes up for
in personal meaning, emotional significance, and reflections on the human
condition. He is a master at writing about the minutae of daily life and
suffusing it with significance, until we as readers are brought inside the main
characters' heads and experience his or her thoughts and feelings. Case in point, Fiona Mayle, High Court judge
and main character in The Children Act.
As the novel opens, Fiona is facing the potential breakdown of her
thirty-year marriage with husband Jack.
Both are in the “twilight years” of their careers and Jack feels
that he must take a bold step before it’s too late. Fiona is distracted from their “not-quite-argument” by a call from the court advising her that a time-sensitive case involving the
son of a Jehovah’s Witness couple who is in hospital with leukemia and refusing
the blood transfusion necessary to complete his treatment has been assigned to
her and will be scheduled for early the next morning. Complicating the case is the age of the
patient, 17 years and 9 months, that legal “gray area” where he is not quite old enough to decide his fate, but possibly old enough to make decisions regarding his future in an
informed and intelligent way. Fiona
hears the arguments of the parents, the social worker/guardian, and the hospital
regarding Adam’s condition and the potential outcome of the treatment if he
does not receive a blood transfusion.
Despite the arguments by the parents and the social worker, Fiona is not
satisfied with their view that Adam’s refusal is truly his own idea,
uninfluenced by parents or other prominent religious figures in his life, and
decides to go to the hospital to meet Adam herself. During her visit with this beautiful,
intelligent, talented young man, Fiona experiences unexpected emotions that
radiate from deep within herself. Adam,
too, responds to Fiona intensely as they share an experience together that will
prove to affect them both in their own ways.
When she returns to court after the visit that same evening to present
her ruling, she could not have foreseen how profoundly this decision would
affect the lives of all involved. I can’t
say any more without giving the story away, but suffice it so say that this
novel lives up to the expectations one may have for McEwan’s work. Now, it does not exceed expectation, at least
for me, but considering the bar is already set so high, that would be a
difficult feat. I got this book last
weekend, and there were coincidentally two reviews in the local paper for this
novel, well, one by a local reviewer and one in the New York Times insert. The local reviewer seemed to enjoy and
appreciate it, but the New York Times reviewer was more than a little critical
of this novel, even though he was clearly a fan of McEwan’s writing. After reading the NYT review, I was slightly
worried as I opened the book, but I’ve decided that the reviewer didn’t know
what he was talking about. I found
similar themes running through this novel as earlier works by the author, such
as potential marital breakdown (A Child in Time), obsession (Enduring
Love), and the possibility that profound moments with total strangers can
sometimes change lives (Saturday).
McEwan manages to convey to the reader not just the events of a
character’s daily life as they pertain to the plot, but the emotion accompanying these events, until we
know we will never experience certain things the same way again. And don’t be fooled by the length of the
novel – it may only be just over 200 pages, but each page is filled with such a
mastery of language that you may need to reread sections just to make sure you’ve
taken it all in. And while you will want
to read it slowly and savour each and every word, it will be the kind of book
you won’t be able to put down. So enjoy!
I’ve barely started the
selection for next week’s book club meeting, Louise Penny’s The Beautiful
Mystery, very different from The Children Act, but hope to make good
headway this weekend, despite the forecast of great “Indian Summer” weather.
Bye for now…
Julie
Julie