Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan lo ha vuelto a hacer. Con ‘Operación Dulce’, McEwan se acerca a la novela de espías y al mundo de espejos que supone la creación literaria. Estamos en Inglaterra, en 1972. Serena Frome, la protagonista, es reclutada por el MI5, el Servicio Secreto Británico, mientras estudia matemáticas en la Universidad de Cambridge. Una vez instalada se la relacionará con la llamada Operación Dulce, cuyo objetivo radica en una prestación económica a jóvenes escritores, con miras a show more apoyar la imagen de Inglaterra. Pero Serena empieza a enamorarse de Tom Haley, escritor en ciernes al que ha de convencer para que acepte la "oferta" económica.

‘Operación Dulce’ es todo un esfuerzo por parte de Ian McEwan por explorar los límites entre realidad y ficción, además de una reflexión política y una mirada nostálgica a una época, turbulenta y convulsa, la de aquellos años 70 ingleses. Así, entre el romance, el thriller y la metaliteratura, con giro inesperado de lo más posmoderno (mención aparte a los estupendos relatos intercalados escritos por Tom Haley y que Serena debe leer y analizar), Ian McEwan logra de nuevo una excepcional novela. show less

"I've heard it argued that long ago pain begat consciousness. To avoid serious damage a simple creature needs to evolve the whips and goads of a subjective loop, of a felt experience. Not just a red warning light in the head -- who's there to see it? -- but a sting, an ache, a throb that *hurts.* Adversity forced awareness on us, and it works, it bites us when we go too near the fire, when we love too hard. Those felt sensations are the beginning of the invention of the self. And if that show more works, why not feel disgust for shit, fearing the cliff edge and strangers, remembering insults and favours, liking sex and food? God said, Let there be pain. And there was poetry. Eventually."

Our unnamed narrator is a miraculously articulate and knowledgeable fetus, very near term, who hears his mother and her boyfriend plotting the murder of the fetus' father who is also his mother's husband, her boyfriend's brother. It's a short novel and it ends just in time to avoid going too far. Lyrical, humorous, ironic, delightful. Perfect. show less

I remember that my Creative Writing professor – though imparting a world of wisdom on to me about many different forms of writing – had very different tastes to me when it came to reading preferences. I found that our opinions differed heavily on what we thought was good and wasn’t and we would often get into little spats about some writing.

Nevertheless, I always took her suggestions and ran with them, at least researching the book and deciding if I wanted to read it. One of the books show more she spoke about was this one, although she did say something that I disagree with. But we’ll get to that later.

On Chesil Beach is about a couple, Edward and Florence, who are young newlyweds on their honeymoon in Dorset. Edward and Florence really do love each other, and you can tell that they’re excited to experience the rest of their lives together, if for one small thing. Neither one of them has been spoken to about sex before, only knowing that it is a duty that married couples should embark on and not something that should be enjoyed.

The book’s premise is quite simple – it centers around the fear of intimacy on their honeymoon, and the repressed nature of the time frame of the book (1960-1970s). The novella also gives us an insight into their relationship, how it came about and how they are around each other, each other’s parents, their friends, their family. It gives you a pretty good idea of who they are as people, and it is so beautifully written.

But…

I remember that when I picked this book up, my professor had told us that it was obvious that Florence was a lesbian and hadn’t accepted it, seeing as that was the mentality of the time in the UK. But once I picked it up and read it myself, fully expecting to get this feeling from her as a character, I found that I couldn’t find it myself.

Because Florence isn’t a lesbian. She’s asexual.

Now, you might be telling me that asexuality isn’t a thing, but hear me out. I have met a fair few people in my life who have identified on the asexual spectrum. All it essentially means is that somebody doesn’t experience sexual attraction. It’s a perfectly normal thing, albeit it you don’t meet a lot of people who are asexual, and you certainly don’t see it represented in the media or books. And Florence, with her genuine fear of sex in general despite her actual love for Edward, is the perfect example of an asexual literary icon.

While the ending leaves a little bit to be desired (spoiler alert: people who are asexual don’t have to spend the rest of their life alone and can be in fulfilling marriages and have successful lives too end spoiler) I feel like the novella does a really good job of looking at not only the consequences of not having a proper sex education, but also the consequences of following societal norms when they just aren’t for you. And whether you agree with me or read Florence as a lesbian, the message there is still pretty clear.

Final rating: 5/5. Wonderful read! show less

This is a book that's hard to pin down, despite its shortness (181 pages). Centered around what seems like a rather prosaic tale of a young couple on their wedding night, it throws out tendrils backwards and sideways in history - it takes place in 1962, right before the world turned upside down, the dying days of the British Empire with damp tweed and "No sex, please, we're British." Edward and Florence are products of their past, both in terms of culture and family (and both have family show more secrets), two completely different individuals who, in a slightly Nabokovian way, gaze deeply and lovingly into each others' eyes and only see what they want to see in each other. Right up until the point where it all becomes nakedly apparent that they want very different things.

This is only the second McEwan I've read, but I do believe it whetted my appetite a lot more than Saturday did. It's a brief concerto in five movements for violin and electric guitar, both intro and outro, played right at the point where everything hangs in the balance and could go either way and nobody knows exactly which note will turn out to break the harmony. McEwan's off-key once or twice (how, exactly, would Edward manage to play Florence a Beatles tune in 1961?) and the ending is a bit rushed, but on a whole, it's a beautifully written and, on closer reading, somewhat disturbing book. show less