McEwan's longest and maybe final novel, this is an ambitious project, much praised by the critics. I, however, did not get on with it perhaps as much as I might have hoped for. Sure, the ‘point’ of the novel is very clear: throughout the arc of life we never stop learning. McEwan has his protagonist, the feckless Roland Barnes, consider many counterfactuals throughout the work, his life as one of love, loss and regret, similar to the device deployed in Atonement. It is one singular event — an affair with an older piano teacher — that shifts the entire axis of Roland's life. However, I struggled fully to sympathise with Roland since I felt he failed to accept sufficient agency or responsibility for his life choices, choosing almost an easy life, one as a passive victim. Everything that occurs in Lessons is set across the backdrop of the second half of the 20th century and through to Brexit and the pandemic, mirroring McEwan's life. The work is indeed partially autobiographical. This creates complexity in analysis since the optimism of the Boomer generation and its zenith post the fall of the Berlin Wall was replaced by subsequent disillusionment and cynicism. How much Roland's worldview and decisions, like any of ours, is shaped by external events remains open to debate. Throughout there is no doubting McEwan's talent, his deftness of prose, portraiture, criticism of extreme regimes and moments of genuine humour. Nonetheless, I found myself beginning not to care towards the novel's end. Maybe Lessons fails in its length. I have been happier with other McEwan works and feel, cf. Bournville, is a better state-of-the-nation novel, while Boyd (in many works) tells the story of a life lived more compellingly. A pity here, as I'd hoped for more: 8 out of 10.
By Ian McEwan