Deft, taut fiction... Many English writers have been compared to Evelyn Waugh, often wrongly, but this book can stand with the master's best The Times In interviews about his novel The Innocent, Ian McEwan has discussed the inspiration behind the story and the challenges he faced in writing it. He has revealed that the idea for the novel came from a real-life incident in which a British spy tunnelled into East Berlin during the Cold War. McEwan was fascinated by the idea of a man being trapped in a foreign country, unable to communicate with anyone, and the psychological toll that would take. He also spoke about the difficulty of writing a novel set in a time and place that he had never experienced firsthand. Despite these challenges, The Innocent has been praised for its vivid portrayal of post-war Berlin and its exploration of themes such as guilt, betrayal, and the nature of innocence. McEwan’s Literary Influences The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year. This novel, set in 1955 Berlin when the Cold War had not yet intensified to the stage where the USA and USSR were continuously at each other's throat, could be called a suspense thriller. In fact, that is the mould it has been set in. But McEwan has cleverly stretched the boundaries of the genre to make it literary fiction of no little merit: a tale of star-crossed lovers that would do Shakespeare proud. (One quote in the blurb compares it to a Jacobean play, and I would say that it is not far off the mark.) Leonard helps kill a man, but it is in his near rape of Maria that his state of mind is truly malevolent. Is state of mind, more than actions, a barometer of guilt?

McEwan, however, does avoid going to typical Mata Hari areas, as he does also steer clear of obvious spy-versus-spy twists. However, in missing these potholes, his somewhat-satirical novel goes to gore and silliness – not the most interesting place to go, unexpected, but also a bit off-kilter. Ian McEwan studied at the University of Sussex, where he received a BA degree in English Literature in 1970 and later received his MA degree in English Literature at the University of East Anglia. Other parts of the book, as I’ve said, are supremely macabre and gross. My biggest problem was that certain elements of the plot and of this gore seemed introduced to give the story somewhere to go. In the end, the plot is unexpected, but in a ridiculous, unbelievable way – as if Clive Barker or Stephen King took over a dull espionage story that wasn’t going anywhere on its own.There are other innocents in the novel – notably the Americans, who remain naive even when they are up to complicated things, and are both dangerous and decent for that reason. Their minds, as Maria says of one of them, are ‘too simple and too busy’. Is the ‘special relationship’ between America and Britain a relationship between innocence and knowingness, or between brands of innocence? Between brands of innocence which are also brands of knowingness, perhaps. Little knowledge either way. And in a disturbing sense the Germans, too, are innocent – this is the subtlest, most glancing implication in the book. Leonard, who was 14 when the war ended, enters a bar on his first night in Berlin and hears a group of men talking. His poor German and his historical superstitions are enough to make him believe the men are unrepentantly discussing genocide, and he is quite wrong: the conversation is innocent. Later, though, when an ‘innocent’ character has been caught up in unimaginable butchery, he thinks, ‘I am no different from you, I am not evil,’ and we half-believe him. Or, rather, we believe he is different from us only because the Gothic has got him, but hasn’t (yet) got us. He is not a German, but the terms of his defence apply more closely to the Germans than to anyone else in the novel. The Innocent is a 1993 drama film directed by John Schlesinger. The screenplay was written by Ian McEwan and based on his 1990 novel of the same name. The film stars Anthony Hopkins, Isabella Rossellini, and Campbell Scott. It was released in the USA in 1995. The main characters in “The Innocent” are Leonard Marnham and Maria Turner. Leonard is a young, inexperienced British post office technician who is sent to Berlin in 1955 to work on a secret project for the British government. Maria is a beautiful German woman who Leonard meets and falls in love with. As their relationship develops, Leonard becomes increasingly entangled in a web of deceit and betrayal, as he discovers that Maria is not who she seems to be. The tension between the two characters builds throughout the novel, as Leonard struggles to reconcile his love for Maria with his growing suspicion that she may be involved in espionage. Ultimately, the fate of both characters is left uncertain, as the novel ends on a haunting and ambiguous note. Themes While that might seem gratuitous, it ties into the theme of innocence and its loss. For some characters innocence is well and truly lost after that event. But McEwan plays, not unlike William Boyd in a Good Man in Africa, on just who the Innocent in the title is. It would appear that every character is far from it, but that turns out not to be true.

Film adaptations of his own novels include First Love, Last Rites (1997), The Cement Garden (1993) and The Comfort of Strangers (1991), for which Harold Pinter wrote the screenplay, and Atonement (2007). Leonard becomes fatally embroiled in the life of his German girlfriend, Maria. He finds his life changed forever in the space of one evening. A virgin, he is introduced to the delights of sex by Maria, who is herself entranced by his innocent charm. She is not threatened by him and this is very important to her. However her past catches up with her one fateful night. The tunnel, loyalties, all become part of Leonard's desperate attempt to escape his deed. The novel unravels Leonard's "innocence" in a deceptively comic fashion: the young Englishman, bumbling along, out of his depth, enduring jokes and insults from the Americans, suddenly finds himself at the abyss of fear and terror, where betrayal becomes easy. Leo is an English engineer. He’s sent to Berlin to work on and American/English project of digging under the Berlin Wall to tap into Russian phone lines. As a technician, Leo wires the recording devices. The Americans have a system for decoding secret Communist messages, and Leo is also sent to find out what he can about their methods. While in Berlin on this project, he meets Maria, a beautiful German divorcee with a violent, drunk ex-husband. Leo gets embroiled in romance and love, yadda yadda yadda, etc. Has the spooky, crooked-angled, danger-around-every-corner feeling of a Carol Reid film. It reminded me often of The Third Man and that is no mean feat Jonathan Carroll, Washington Post Book World And, as George Steiner says, at the rows of students sniggering automatically at every mention of the Sunday supplements.

An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale.

Wood, Michael (10 May 1990). "Well done, Ian McEwan · LRB 10 May 1990". London Review of Books . Retrieved 14 January 2020. Ma nonostante lo splatter, il macabro, le mani che grondano sangue (e anche la sega elettrica diventa ben rossa), a me è sembrata prima di tutto una storia d’amore. D’amore pieno di passione. Di quegli amori che sarebbero potuti (e dovuti) durare per sempre: ma il destino si è messo di traverso. Ed entrambi, sia lui che lei, sono pieni di rimpianto. Ma ormai è tardi, non si possono più incollare i lembi dilaniati del tempo.When comparing “The Innocent” to other works by Ian McEwan, it becomes clear that the novel is unique in its focus on espionage and the Cold War. While McEwan’s other works, such as “Atonement” and “Enduring Love,” deal with themes of love, guilt, and trauma, “The Innocent” delves into the world of espionage and the psychological toll it takes on its characters. He has achieved unbroken popular and critical success since, on graduating from Malcolm Bradbury’s Creative Writing Programme, he won the Somerset Maugham Award for his collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites (1975). Shortlisted four times for Britain’s most prestigious literary award, the Booker Prize for Fiction, he secured the honour with Amsterdam (1998), confirming his position with Graham Swift, Julian Barnes and Martin Amis, at the forefront of contemporary British writing. Although primarily a novelist and short story writer, McEwan has also written three television plays published as The Imitation Game (1981), a children’s book, a libretto Or Shall We Die? (1983), a film script The Ploughman’s Lunch (1985), and a successful film adaptation of Timothy Mo’s novel Sour Sweet (1988). Across these many forms, his writing nonetheless retains a distinctive character, perhaps best summed up in Kiernan Ryan’s phrase, ‘the art of unease’.

I will spare you what happens to avoid spoilers; most of that is available elsewhere anyway. McEwan's genius his his ability to dig into the subconscious of his characters and root around. What's found is not always pleasant. Battersby, Eileen (28 September 2014). "Reasons to read Ian McEwan, and the ones to avoid". The Irish Times . Retrieved 14 January 2020. A. S. Byatt lives and writes in her handsome west London house and, in the summer months, in her house in the south of France. Both are filled with art, predominantly by her contemporaries, libraries of extravagant, Borgesian range and curiosa of many kinds, hinting at her unusual fecundity of mind: exotic preserved insects, the intricate examples of Venetian millefiori glassware and objects rare and fascinating of all imaginable varieties. The impression given by her houses is confirmed by her conversation, which moves confidently between literature, biology, the fine arts, and theoretical preoccupations and displays a mind turned always outwards. She is not a writer one can imagine being tempted to write a memoir: solipsism is not in her nature. I didn't see it coming. Although I absolutely much earlier foresaw the future of Maria's and Leonard's outcome as a couple. Correctly. Has the spooky crooked-angled danger-around-every-corner feeling of a Carol Reed film. It reminded me often of The Third Man and that is no mean feat.Enduring Love (1997) begins with the death of a man in a ballooning accident, an event that triggers a tale of stalking, fixation and erotomania. Amsterdam (1998) is described by McEwan as a contemporary fable: three men, a composer, a newspaper editor and a politician, meet at the funeral of their former lover, sparking off a bitter feud. It was awarded the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1998. In 1976 his first collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites (1975), won the Somerset Maugham Award. A second volume of stories, In Between the Sheets, appeared in 1978. These stories - claustrophobic tales of childhood, deviant sexuality and disjointed family life - were remarkable for their formal experimentation and controlled narrative voice. The reception of Ian McEwan’s novel, The Innocent, was generally positive upon its release in 1990. Critics praised McEwan’s ability to create a tense and suspenseful atmosphere, as well as his skill in crafting complex and nuanced characters. The novel was also noted for its exploration of themes such as guilt, innocence, and the nature of morality. The Innocent was a commercial success, and has since become a beloved classic of contemporary literature. Its impact can still be felt today, as it continues to inspire and influence writers and readers alike. Significance