STEVE ANDREW enjoys an account of the many communities that flourished independently of and in resistance to the empires of old
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A great deal of didactic writing
JAN WOOLF reviews the latest title from the 'chronicler of muddle England'
Ian McEwan at Fronteiras do Pensamento (Frontiers of Thought), Porto Alegre October 2016
[Fronteiras do Pensamento/CC]
TOM STONE urges you to catch the last dates of a New York singer/songwriter, never afraid to challenge her audiences musically or politically
JAN WOOLF examines work that aims to give viewers a material experience of the environments in the polar north and Britain equally affected by the climate crisis
The bard recalls advice received 50 years ago from his TRB muse, and sorts out appropriate legislation for football club ownership
MICHAL BONCZA and MARIA DUARTE review Facing War, Kontinental ’25, Bugonia, and Relay
MAYER WAKEFIELD is frustrated by a production of Ibsen’s classic study of an anti-heroine that fails to elucidate her motivations
PETER MASON tunes his ear into the domestic affairs of a Carribbean couple with a troublesome son
Lessons
by Ian McEwan
Jonathan Cape £20
LESSONS is a long novel for Ian McEwan (now 74) and it’s interesting for fellow British boomers to join central character Roland Baines on his journey through postwar childhood, 1960s boarding school, relationships, parenthood, through to old age and Covid-19 — yet struggling to find a meaningful life (Roland, not the reader).
It is also a tale of sexual abuse and emotional abandonment. A sadistic, emotionally unstable piano teacher at Roland’s boarding school seduces him – later inviting him to her cottage nearby.
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