Lessons by Ian McEwan, a Review

This is what I’ve yearned for

No great expectation

But without interruption

Or obligatory

Just time to do

As I please

At my pace

Finish the novel

That has sat on my bedside for a while

Longer than I wish to admit

Or perhaps it was intentional

That I kept up with Roland Baines’ life story

His lessons of life

Over time I came to enjoy his strength of character

A man, a father, a lover, a poet, and of course a pianist

But not to the great acclaim that should have been his fate

Seeking no recrimination

He was a mere child when his piano teacher

Crossed the line

Possessiveness was her gain

Her fantasies that they should runaway and elope across the border to Scotland

How did he come to think that she gave him joy?

And seeking no further recrimination

When he came to reconcile with the mother of his child

Who had left him to seek her own identity and masterpiece

And when he settled for love again

With Daphne

Her life cut short with illness

He settled for her memory and legacy of photographs, hers and his and their children and grandchildren

I walked with Roland Baines

Through his history of my time

Well almost, because my hour had not yet began

At the time the suez crisis erupted

But further down the line

I recall every intersection of time

From the fall of the Iron Curtain, the promise of New Labour, the fear of radiation from Chernobyl to the panic of the viral pandemic.

Roland Baines is an ordinary man

And now I come to find

I’m a little lost without him.

In January this year I hosted a meal for my cinema group friends. I suggested that we all brought a book we had recently enjoyed to pass on. This was Jean’s recommendation. I gave it five stars on Goodreads.