openpalm

Ian McEwan’s Enduring Love is on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. It has prompted me to start a new page. See the new tab above, Love

Like McEwan, I want — need really — to think about love. To better understand it. To reclaim it if I can.

Enduring Love uses clean, straightforward language to investigate the layers and layers of married love.

What happens to a good relationship when it is put suddenly under exreme stress?

What happens when the norms that have bounded our lives require us to create new non-habitual responses and we become new and strange to each other?

What are the subtle elements that comprise trust?

How much do we take credit for controlling reality? And believe that our partners control reality? And at what point would we rather blame and abandon ourselves and our partners than entertain the thought that reality may not in fact be under control?

This story demonstrates immediately that it’s written by a true writer. It quickly became so compelling that I could not put it down.