Duly completed The Innocent, holding over the final pages for this morning. Somewhat to my surprise I found them quite moving. I say this since the gothic elements of the fiction, so brilliantly realised and deeply gripping, seemed to compromise the reader's engagement with the characters at the simple level of sympathy for their 'story'.
McEwan is a remarkably gifted writer, but sometimes seems impelled to 'perform' somehow, as if he needs to astonish. In this novel his gifts are in balance with a sense of common humanity - as is the case in Atonement.
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