Enduring Love is another book that I have recently entered blind, completely ignorant of its story or theme, spurred on only by reviews and recommendations. This does leave me somewhat apprehensive of enjoying a book, but in this case, the opening chapter sealed my fate. A gripping encounter at the scene of a terrible hot air balloon accident got this novel off to a scintillating start, unbearable to read, but impossible to put aside.

The story then follows the narrator, Joe, and his partner Clarissa, in their struggle to come to terms with the tragedy and the events that follow. In the aftermath of the accident, Joe has an encounter with another helper, Jed, who develops an unhealthy obsession with Joe, stalking him and waiting outside his apartment for him to be alone. Joe's reaction is not particularly rational, and causes the situation to escalate out of control, as all the characters' lives begin to unravel around them.

This book struggles constantly with the themes of religion, science and rationality, none of which is mutally exclusive. Joe's career as a science writer puts him at further odds with Jed's religious fervor and emotional instability and spurs him to take matters into his own hands. The entire book felt like the moments before a car crash, the tension painfully real and growing towards the inevitable conclusion, though it is perhaps not what the reader expects. Although McEwan's ability to write tense and painful situations is undeniable, I found it hard to really care about his narrator. One can only empathise with the impossible situtation Joe has found himself in, but his attitude and reactions to events made him a somewhat unsympathetic character.

Not an easy read, but impossible to put down and I would still recommend it.

An interesting study of the psyche of stalker, Jed Parry, and stalked, Joe Rose. Certainly the stalker exhibits significant pathology, but along the way McEwan creates doubt - and one begins to wonder if Jed's obsession is real or imagined by Joe. The opening scene, which describes how Jed and Joe met, is extremely well written - filled with tension and vivid images of an unfolding tragedy. A quick and satisfying read that conveys incredible empathy for the characters enmeshed in this love triangle. ( )

Enduring Love is such an unassuming, unsuspecting work of fiction that it feels easy to dismiss. It is that quality, ironically, that makes it so strong; that makes it a work that ultimately is both riveting and terrifying, a psychological study of intense detail and impact.

The novel opens with a scene made for the big screen: a group of strangers discover an out-of-control hot air balloon and struggle to bring its passengers to safety. When one of the rescuers dies in the attempt, Joe Rose, our hero and narrator, shares a glance with young Jed Parry, another of the rescuers, seeking understanding and compassion. But when Jed mistakes that for a look of love, both Joe and Jed enter into a discomfiting obsession that threatens to spiral out of control.

Where the novel succeeds is in its balance of suspense and uncertainty. Joe quickly ascertains that Jed suffers from erotomania and tries to use the psychological disorder to insulate him from Jed's unusual advances. But McEwan is exceptionally careful throughout, casting only faint glimmers on Jed's behavior and allowing Joe's mind to create the obsession. It forces the reader to question the narrator's veracity, to determine if it's all in Jed's head or if it's really all in Joe's. The balance makes for a page-turning and very exciting read.

Despite McEwan's penchant for set pieces, they work exceptionally well in this novel. Especially as the novel spirals towards its climax, the sets--notably, the scene in which Joe attempts to purchase a gun, and the final climactic confrontation--are used to great effect. Sure, they approach predictable, but that gives the novel a sense of inevitability, not tiredness. Even the appendices that close the work manage to leave the reader with a haunting sense of incompleteness, despite their decidedly clinical tone.

I have always been somewhat uncertain about my feelings about Ian McEwan as a novelist, but Enduring Love is very much a successful work. Rather than try to bog the reader down with details, he takes two fascinating characters and explores the intricacies of their psyches in ways that are familiar but unpredictable. You may see the ending coming from a mile away, but the trip there is about as tense as it gets, and well worth the read.

The book had a great start and was very well written, but I didn't like how the story played out. At times I thought the actions of the characters were not believable, and at other times I thought it was too predictable. Maybe I was just hoping for something different, or something in the later chapters that matched the first few, which were intriguing.

McEwan is a great writer; my favorite passages:

"The initial conditions, the force and the direction of the force, define all the consequent pathways, all the angles of collision and return, and the glow of the overhead light bathes the field, the baize and all its moving bodies, in reassuring clarity. I think that while we were still converging, before we made contact, we were in a state of mathematical grace".

"...she had written me some beauties, passionately abstract in their exploration of the ways our love was different from and superior to any that had ever existed. Perhaps the essence of a lover letter, to celebrate the unique".

"The closing down of countless interrelated neural and biochemical exchanges combined to suggest to a naked eye the illusion of the extinguished spark, or the simple departure of a single necessary element. However scientifically informed we count ourselves to be, fear and awe still surprise us in the presence of the dead. Perhaps it's life we're really wondering at".

"Too much was made in pop psychology, and too much expected, of talking things through. Conflicts, like living organisms, had a natural lifespan. The trick was to know when to let them die. At the wrong moment, words could act like so many fibrillating jolts. The creature could revive in pathogenic form, feverishly regenerated by an interesting new formulation or by this or that morbidly 'fresh look' at things".

And lastly (not for the prudish):
"The she put her lips to my ear and it was like the old days. 'You're a bad boy to spend so much money. I'm going to make you f*** me all afternoon". ( )

I've read a few of his books now, the most recent ones. This is another tense story, how one random event can affect every aspect of your life, of obsession.

Some questions occured to me as I was reading, could the story have gone in a different direction if Joe had handled the situation differently? Did he actually accelerate the events? If his stalker had been a woman and not a man, would Clarissa have taken it more seriously from the start?

It really stuck with me after I finished it, making me wonder how life can suddenly move direction so quickly when you make an on-the-spot decision. ( )