In 1946, a young couple set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they plan an idyllic holiday, only to encounter an experience of darkness so terrifying it alters their lives for ever. (19980710)
Black Dogs
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Review
"Superbly evocative prose... The novel's vision of Europe is acute and alive, vivid in its moral complexities" (New York Times Book Review )
"Brilliant...a meditation on the intoxications of violence and the redemptive power of love" (New Yorker )
"Compassionate without resorting to sentimentality, clever without ever losing its honesty, an undisguised novel of ideas which is also Ian McEwan's most human work" (Times Literary Supplement )
"Powerful... Unforgettable" (Sunday Telegraph )
"Brilliant...a meditation on the intoxications of violence and the redemptive power of love" (New Yorker )
"Compassionate without resorting to sentimentality, clever without ever losing its honesty, an undisguised novel of ideas which is also Ian McEwan's most human work" (Times Literary Supplement )
"Powerful... Unforgettable" (Sunday Telegraph )
Book Description
'I judge it his best yet, which I should make clear is saying a great deal' - Observer (20020218)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This is less of a gripping page turner than some of McEwan's later books, and may suffer in comparison as a result. However, it rewards on other levels. As always in McEwan the characterisation is totally convincing, but it is the book's engagement with history that really compels. McEwan takes in war, revolution and the nature of evil, and the image of the black dogs haunted my imagination as it did the characters in the book. The scenes in Berlin as the wall comes down were also memorable, but more than anything I enjoyed this book because it made me think, and because it showed that the author himself had really grappled with the themes of the book without ever losing sight of the every day reality of being human.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Engrossing Reflection on the Thrills of Violence and the Redemptive Power of Love
10 Oct 2008
By John Kwok
Format:Paperback
One of his great literary triumphs, Ian McEwan's "Black Dogs" is an engrossing reflection on the thrills of violence and the redemptive power of love, set largely amidst the collapse of the Berlin Wall and a mesmerizing look back at a memorable French summer one year after the end of World War II. McEwan's novel is a most vivid fictional exploration of a marriage torn apart by the diverging political beliefs of husband and wife, Bernard and June Tremaine, as seen by their young son-in-law Jeremy. By mere happenstance Jeremy stumbles upon the rise and fall of the Tremaine's marriage, when he is asked by June to write her memoirs, shortly before her death. A few years later he hears a compelling, quite different, account of that marriage from Bernard himself, as both take a last-minute journey to a jubilant Berlin, its citizenry transfixed by the Berlin Wall's collapse. Always a keen observer of the human condition, McEwan's sparse, descriptive, and quite lyrical, prose presents a compelling portrait of Jeremy, Bernard and June, closing, most memorably, during the bright dawn of the Tremaine's marriage. An idyllic French summer marred by an unexpectedly dark reminder of the recently concluded war's demonic fury.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Juancho
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
The genius strikes again! yes, it is different to other McEwans, but will entrance in a slightly different way. More lyrical and slower paced than many of his novels
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
"In the Nightmare of the dark/All the dogs of Europe bark".(W.H.Auden). The underlying philosophical idea of this book is the conflict between the rational and religious views of life, as personified in the characters of the parents-in-law of the narrator, irrevocably in love but totally unable to live in harmony with each other's world view or even agree on the details of their shared memories. The post-war incident in France with the black dogs is the trigger for June's epiphany; her confrontation with evil paradoxically causing her to experience in the moment a spiritual enlightenment, separating her for ever from the naive Communist view she had shared with her husband Bernard. He is unable to comprehend or share her insights and this leads to their lifelong separation.
I seemed to detect the shadow of Freud's "Wolf Man" case history in the author's concept of the black dogs, but anyway I think they are appropriate symbols for the assault on rational thinking engendered by the evils unleashed in World War 2.
As one would expect from McEwan, the book is fluently written and a compulsive read. It engages a serious subject without a trace of pretentiousness. It has the effect of really good writing: it lingers in the mind long after putting it down.
I seemed to detect the shadow of Freud's "Wolf Man" case history in the author's concept of the black dogs, but anyway I think they are appropriate symbols for the assault on rational thinking engendered by the evils unleashed in World War 2.
As one would expect from McEwan, the book is fluently written and a compulsive read. It engages a serious subject without a trace of pretentiousness. It has the effect of really good writing: it lingers in the mind long after putting it down.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Dicksonshire
Format:Paperback
I love the way Ian McEwan splits people. He is one of my favourite writers but at times I could strangle him. I was bored to tears by the drawn-out and completely unbelievable 'Saturday' and disgusted by 'The Comfort of Strangers' (as well as some of his early short stories), but novels like 'Enduring Love', 'Atonement' and 'Black Dogs' make up for things in a big way.
Black Dogs is intense, fascinating and exciting. The characters are believable, intriguing and, as in a lot of McEwan novels, fairly loathsome! I've lent this book to some of my friends and it has split them too - some said they couldn't get into it at all whereas others were gripped from the first page, as I was. I'm sure Ian McEwan likes the split he generates - buying one of his books is like gambling, but I'm very glad I gambled on this one. I remember a shiver running down my spine the day after i finished it - when I walked past a bookies that had a big photo of two black dogs in the window. Gamble and read this - and if you don't like it, you'll probably love some of his other stuff...
Black Dogs is intense, fascinating and exciting. The characters are believable, intriguing and, as in a lot of McEwan novels, fairly loathsome! I've lent this book to some of my friends and it has split them too - some said they couldn't get into it at all whereas others were gripped from the first page, as I was. I'm sure Ian McEwan likes the split he generates - buying one of his books is like gambling, but I'm very glad I gambled on this one. I remember a shiver running down my spine the day after i finished it - when I walked past a bookies that had a big photo of two black dogs in the window. Gamble and read this - and if you don't like it, you'll probably love some of his other stuff...
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Typically, as with much of McEwan's work we don't find out the true base of the story till right at the end.
Black Dogs revolves around the story of a honeymooning couple in France and their confrontation with two Black Dogs.
The book starts with the perspective in the first person, describing the narrators childhood and lack of family, then moves to switching between third and first person to describe the story of this couple and their subsequent lives after the encounter.
No Doubt a good plot and and an engrossing read the book will nevertheless dissapoint many McEwan fans because it does not reach the flow of 'Amsterdam' or 'Enduring Love'.
Worth reading but not wholly enjoyable
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4.2 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mid-period McEwan: competent but unexciting
'Black Dogs' is one of the group of books that McEwan published between 1987 and 1997. Appearing in 1992, it represents the period in which the author had ceased to be a novelty -... Read more
Published 20 months ago by Paul Bowes
3.0 out of 5 stars
So-so Book
Perhaps I didn't get the hidden meanings in this Ian McEwan story . I found that I had to be patient with it, which surprised me. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Bamba
5.0 out of 5 stars
McEwan the existentialist
McEwan gets into the Reasoning brains of 21st C. Britons better than most - his desire might be to construct weak spiritual figures whose feebleness is worthy of our contempt, when... Read more
Published on 20 Feb 2010 by S. Gibbs
2.0 out of 5 stars
Facile and unpleasant
As ever, in "Black Dogs" McEwan turns out readable prose, a balance of description and plot points which draw the reader in. Read more
Published on 22 Oct 2009 by Catherine Murphy
3.0 out of 5 stars
six of one, half a dozen of the other...
This is the first novel by Ian McEwan I am undecided about. Most of his novels I like a lot, especially Atonement, and there is one I find too construed (Saturday), but this one... Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2009 by Markus Isch
4.0 out of 5 stars
not yet fully developed, but good.
an early taste of the mcewan style, albeit not as full blown as some of the later works, but definitely one worth reading. Read more
Published on 10 July 2008 by R. Altman
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing
Having read Enduring Love, Atonement and Saturday I was expecting to be blown away once again by Ian McEwan.
I was glad when I had finished the book. Read more
I was glad when I had finished the book. Read more
Published on 9 May 2008 by Bookaholic
2.0 out of 5 stars
Unsatisfying and overly wordy
I usually like McEwan, even though he often enjoys using 250 words where 10 would have done. The fact that Black Dogs took forever and a day to get going didn't surprise me either... Read more
Published on 13 Dec 2007 by daisyrock
1.0 out of 5 stars
Were the critics reading the same book?
I was intrigued by the premise of exploring binary opposite views of the world and hoped this book would cleverly dissect them and the reasons behind these views, depolarising... Read more
Published on 5 July 2006 by Babe In Toyland
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