A feel good Cold War story. It mainly takes place in the mid 1950s. Out outs a love story, a spy story and to a degree a murder story. It mixed German, American, and British cultures. The young couple, particularly the young man are well portrayed. Perhaps there is some betrayal here. Mainly the story OSS one of trying to recover from one war while enduring a Cold War. ( )

Satisfying. ( )

I had to read "The Innocent" for school, which made it quite annoying to struggle my way through this novel. I never really related to the protagonist or the love story, and the mystery part was badly-executed, in my opinion. In addition, there was a lot of political and military talk about the post-WWII situation in Berlin which might have been shortened. Nevertheless, "The Innocent" was an engaging read with some interesting parts; sometimes implausible, but on the whole satisfying. I'm definitely prepared to read other novels by Ian McEwan later on. ( )

I love a book that surprises me and this one definitely did that. Half way through, it becomes about something other than it had seemed up until that point. McEwan untimately cares about the individual more than the society. I did not think it as good as Atonement, but at the end I found they had more in common than it had appeared. ( )

Even after reflecting on this book for a few days after finishing it, I'm still not sure if I actually enjoyed it. Like all of McEwan's novels that I've read it is very well written and highly engaging, but I am becoming less and less fond of his narrative style. In each of his books he presents us with relatively normal protagonists, living relatively normal lives. But then he makes them do horrible things because they "lose control" over their own actions (usually through an initial inaction or incapability of stepping back from making poor reactionary choices). I figured that maybe this novel would be different because it is set in Cold War-era Berlin, and the protagonist is a low-level government spy (more of a technician, but he gets drawn into more active espionage), but instead of writing outside his own narrative structure and focusing on the man's role in spying on the East Germans or his life in Berlin McEwan throws in an accidental murder and finishes with a mad-cap race to cover up the evidence. It made for some hair-raising moments while reading, but when compared to his other books (particularly the Cement Garden) this plot structure becomes quite passé. ( )