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Lessons

Audiobook
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
0 of 1 copy available
Wait time: About 2 weeks
When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. He is two thousand miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual
boarding school, when his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.
Twenty-five years later, Roland's wife mysteriously vanishes, and he finds himself alone with their baby son. He is forced to confront the reality of his rootless existence. As the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster spreads across Europe, he
begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.
From the Suez and Cuban Missile crises and the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Covid pandemic and climate change, Roland sometimes rides with the tide of history but more often struggles against it. Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace
through every possible means—literature, travel, friendship, drugs, sex, and politics. A profound love is cut tragically short. Then, in his final years, he finds love again in another form. His journey raises important questions. Can we take
full charge of the course of our lives without damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we learn from the traumas of the past?
Epic, mesmerizing, and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times—apowerful meditation on history and contingency through the prism of one man's lifetime.
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from July 25, 2022
      McEwan returns with his best work since the Booker- and NBCC-winning Atonement, a sprawling narrative that stretches from the commencement of the Cold War to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Protagonist Roland Baines, “another inky boy in a boarding school,” is 11 when his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, begins to groom him for abuse. A sexual relationship ensues, and Roland never recovers from the experience. He grows into a distant underachiever, eventually finding work as a lounge pianist in London and, occasionally, as a journalist. He marries Alissa and has a son, Lawrence, but Alissa disappears when Lawrence is an infant. With help from the police, he tracks her movement to Paris, prompting bittersweet memories of their courtship. In 1986, three-year-old Lawrence obsesses over such events as the Chernobyl disaster while Roland confronts the lingering impact of Miriam’s abuse and Alissa’s sudden reappearance. Alissa then publishes a bestselling (and specious) memoir, which isn’t so nice on Roland. Throughout, McEwan poignantly shows how the characters contend with major historical moments while dealing with the ravages of daily life, which is what makes this so affecting. He also employs lyrical but pared-down prose to great effect, such as the scene of Roland’s father’s funeral: “A thin teenage girl in a tight black trouser suit opened the door of the undertakers and made a formal nod as he entered.” Once more, the masterly McEwan delights.

    • Library Journal

      March 1, 2023

      McEwan (Atonement) offers a rambling and sentimental portrait of an ordinary life story with a few extraordinary events strewn throughout. Except for the monumental event of his youth, where he is groomed and seduced by his piano teacher at age 14, Roland Baines lives a life like most of his contemporaries. But those lessons of piano and love from his teacher at such a tender age leave a mark. Much later, Roland's wife leaves him and their infant son so that she can be whatever it is she is meant to be, and Roland is left to raise their child as a single father. But the lessons he has learned throughout life reveal the vulnerability of all humans, and that opportunities--whether seized or missed out on--abound. Narrator Simon McBurney's light, simple delivery suits the story. His pacing and characterizations are outstanding, although listeners may be waylaid by the many reminiscences of people in Roland's peripheral life. VERDICT A recommended purchase, as McEwan's many fans will be clamoring for his latest work.--Laura Brosie

      Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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