It also contains more autobiographical elements. Lessons, published by Penguin, is McEwan's 17th novel, and with a lengthy 500 pages, much longer than his other works. That piano teacher completely 'rewired' his brain, Roland's girlfriend tells him some 25 years later. The two years that follow change his relationship with women forever. It's the year 1959 and with the Cuba Crisis is on his mind, the 14-year-old boarding school pupil is afraid of dying in nuclear war without ever having had sex. Three years go by, but Roland eventually goes to see his teacher. 'Her fingers found his inside leg, just at the hem of his grey shorts, and pinched him hard.'Īfter the end of the disturbing lesson, she kisses the boy and tells him to come visit her. 'Her displeasure came as a quick exhalation through her nostrils, a reverse sniff he had heard before,' McEwan writes. Piano teacher Miriam Cornell gropes her 11-year-old student Roland Baines and violently pinches the inside of his thigh. His latest novel is no exception: Lessons welcomes the reader back in the sometimes unsettlingly bleak, but always meaningful, McEwan universe with an oppressive opening scene.

Sex, passion and death have always played a major role in the works of British novelist Ian McEwan.įrom incest between two siblings in his 1978 debut novel The Cement Garden to the twisted accusations of rape made by 13-year-old Briony Tallis in his metafictional work Atonement (2001), the British author has always been interested in the darker side of the human psyche.

The latest from British author Ian McEwan casts a wide net. The topics are weighty: Sexual abuse, the contradiction between art and life and the impact of global catastrophes on everyday lives.

Lesson ian mcewan