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Black Dogs by Ian McEwan
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Black Dogs (original 1992; edition 1992)

by Ian McEwan

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2,274486,826 (3.44)159
In 1946, a young couple set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they plan an idyllic holiday, only to encounter an experience of darkness so terrifying it alters their lives for ever.
Member:mcgzoo
Title:Black Dogs
Authors:Ian McEwan
Info:Nan A. Talese (1992), Edition: First Edition, Hardcover, 149 pages
Collections:Your library
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Black Dogs by Ian McEwan (1992)

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English (36)  Spanish (3)  Hebrew (2)  German (1)  Italian (1)  Swedish (1)  Danish (1)  Dutch (1)  Norwegian (1)  All languages (47)
Showing 1-5 of 36 (next | show all)
written in a careful, poetic way that's still very accessible - a real pleasure. ( )
  brakketh | Dec 1, 2022 |
This is very interesting. The narrator is a man who looses his parents early and spends his teens being semi adopted by his friend's parents. He then finds himself with an almost closer relationship to his in-laws than his wife and her siblings. June & Bernard have a complicated relationship, and he spends a significant proportion of the book preparing notes for a memoir of some description. It pops backwards and forwards in time until, in the final portion, we hear about the great event that June believed changed her life and that Bernard dismisses entirely. Maybe because he was otherwise engaged drawing a caterpillar. It strikes me as an essay in how different people can look at the same event, or hear the same story and take vastly different things from it.
I found it poignant that they clearly cared for each other but were unable to live together. The events that we spend a lot of the book building up to was quite shocking, both in the event and their quite disparate reactions to it. The final portion is quite thought provoking, because of the incident with the black dogs, their plans are changed and the house in France is bought. Does the family owe some of their current happiness to an incident that, to some extent, cause a rift between June & Bernard that persisted for the rest of their lives? We are, each of us, a summation of our life experiences and to change any one of them could change the route through life.
I listened to this and, for once, I think this would have been better read, to enable me to pause and reflect on some of the ideas raised. ( )
1 vote Helenliz | Jul 14, 2022 |
What an odd title but it is very apt. The two black dogs changed June's life but you have to wait till the last chapter to find out the complete story. What really happened is up to interpretation but one of the possibilities is quite terrifying and never articulated. June changed her political views and outlook of life because of her experience with the two dogs; her husband Bernard finds this incredulous and thinks that she is just fitting in facts to what she wants to believe. Therein lies one of the major themes of the book - reality vs perception. Compared to McEwan's other books, I like this. His books are always novel, sometimes so much that I don't know what the point is. At least there is a point to this book. ( )
  siok | Sep 27, 2020 |
This books deals with complex issues (ideologies and how they affect our lives and relationships, war and politics, marriage and families), but it's written in such a careful, beautiful way that it's very accessible. I loved it. ( )
  sprainedbrain | Dec 1, 2018 |
This did not succeed for me on many levels. It seemed the same story was told over and over without making much more sense each time. I found the narrator and his in-laws, who are really the only major characters, both uninteresting and annoying. There didn't seem to be much point to any of it except some very over flowery writing and pseudo-mystic babble. Very disappointing.
  amyem58 | Jul 14, 2018 |
Showing 1-5 of 36 (next | show all)
An uneasy mixture of mystery, contemporary history, and novel of ideas.
added by jburlinson | editNew York Review of Books, Kerry Fried (pay site) (Jan 14, 1993)
 
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Epigraph
In these times I don't, in a manner of speaking, know what I want; perhaps I don't want what I know and want what I don't know.
-Marsilio Ficino, letter to Giovanni Cavalcanti, c. 1475
Dedication
TO JON COOK, WHO
SAW THEM TOO
First words
Ever since I lost mine in a road accident when I was eight, I have had my eye on other people's parents.
Quotations
It is photography itself that creates the illusion of innocence. Its ironies of frozen narrative lend to its subjects an apparent unawareness that they will change or die. It is the future they are innocent of. Fifty years on we look at them with the godly knowledge of how they turned out after all--who they married, the date of their death--with no thought for who will one day be holding photographs of us.
"The truth is we love each other, we've never stopped, we're obsessed. And we failed to do a thing with it. We couldn't make a life. We couldn't give up the love, but we wouldn't bend to its power. . . . Whenever I'm complaining about some latest social breakdown in the newspapers, I have to remind myself--why should I expect millions of strangers with conflicting interests to get along when I couldn't make a simple society with the father of my children, the man I've loved. . . ?
[H]e was struck by the recently concluded war not as a historical, geopolitical fact but as a multiplicity, a near infinity of private sorrows. . . .
"The work we have to do is with ourselves if we're ever going to be at peace with each other."
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In 1946, a young couple set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they plan an idyllic holiday, only to encounter an experience of darkness so terrifying it alters their lives for ever.

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