Rating: 
Summary: McEwan does Espionage?
Review: The Innocent starts out as a meticulously detailed period piece, a marked departure for those readers who are fans of McEwan's previous work. Protagonist Leonard Marnham is a naïve new addition to a British-American military intelligence team in Cold War Berlin. Fans of espionage will find lots to like in McEwan's description of tunneling operations, surveillance, and the strange sequence of increasingly restrictive "top secret" classifications.McEwan shows his versatility here in depicting Cold War intelligence operations, but even though it consumes half of the novel this is merely staging for what will come. The story eventually (and suddenly) plunges back into familiar McEwan territory of love, sex, and violence as Marnham's relationship with his German lover spins brutally out of control. The Innocent in some ways lacks the complexity of Black Dogs and the subtlety of the Booker Prize winning Amsterdam, but it is immensely readable. An enjoyable novel.
Rating:
Summary: McEwan does Espionage?
Review: The Innocent starts out as a meticulously detailed period piece, a marked departure for those readers who are fans of McEwan's previous work. Protagonist Leonard Marnham is a naïve new addition to a British-American military intelligence team in Cold War Berlin. Fans of espionage will find lots to like in McEwan's description of tunneling operations, surveillance, and the strange sequence of increasingly restrictive "top secret" classifications. McEwan shows his versatility here in depicting Cold War intelligence operations, but even though it consumes half of the novel this is merely staging for what will come. The story eventually (and suddenly) plunges back into familiar McEwan territory of love, sex, and violence as Marnham's relationship with his German lover spins brutally out of control. The Innocent in some ways lacks the complexity of Black Dogs and the subtlety of the Booker Prize winning Amsterdam, but it is immensely readable. An enjoyable novel.
Rating:
Summary: Persuasion Enough
Review: The story first (because McEwan - unlike Amis and Rushdie and even Barnes - is first and foremost a storyteller; his great skill with words ably assists that task but it never gets in the way). Berlin. A short time after the second world war. Leonard Marnham (an Englishman away from home - his mother, his father - for the first time in his short life) is our narrator. He is part of a project to dig a tunnel from what is termed American soil through to what is termed Russian soil, the intention being to place various taps on the Russian communications systems. He also has to contend with the rivalry that develops between English and US officers. Alongside all of which, he meets and falls in love with a German girl called Maria. The project - Project Gold - was in fact a reality. It occurred, in much the same way recounted in the book. Leonard and Maria are fictions. The fact and the fictions weave a merry dance, but that is beside the point. What is the point - and the point that should encourage you to read (and not just read this - read pretty much everything by Ian McEwan, bar "Amsterdam" which is weak) - is the skill which he brings to bear in creating images that remain with you long after you finish reading. Time after time (the balloon chase in "Enduring Love", the throat cutting in "The Comfort of Strangers", the soldiers brain seeping from beneath poorly fixed bandages in "Atonement", the dismemberment of a corpse here, in "The Innocent") you are left with a clutch of significant, striking, visceral images (images that often remain after other books rob you of a clear memory of the twists and turns of the plot). What is also interesting (in the light of the success of "Atonement", specifically) are the number of methods McEwan employs more than once, in different books (the aforesaid grotesque dismemberment and its "Atonement" echo with the soldier's brains, the way Leonard returns to the scene of the crime, as Briony returns to the scene of the crime in "Atonement", that kind of thing). All of which is by the by. What is important, at the end, is this: aside from writing great books, with great stories, containing great writing, McEwan somehow manages to both transport you and leave you where you were. You are transported, compelled, forced to read on (even when that does not seem the wisest course - dismemberment, again). At the same time, you sit back there, in your seat, wherever you are, thinking to yourself: this guy is good. You italicise the "good" in your head. This guy is "good". Drawn out over three or four syllables. "The Innocent" is as good as the other novels (and better than the short stories, which always struck me as exercises), and that should be persuasion enough.
Rating: 
Summary: Kafka-esque, suspenseful and deeply intriguing
Review: This book has a dark edge to it. Leonard, the central character finds himself lodged in a tangle of intrigues that lead to one barbaric act. At each moment I wondered what would happen next. This novel contains many interesting elements including cold-war paranoia, American bravado, romance, tragedy and a portrayal of the depths of depravity a trapped human can fall into. Ian McEwan is a masterful storyteller who clearly enjoys the unravelling of a story before the reader's eyes. He gives just enought information to lure us further into his story. It's great reading on the commute to and from work!
Rating:
Summary: Geek Misplays a Tough Hand
Review: This fast-moving novel captures the mindset and experiences of an innocent man in the midst of first love, as well as the pleasure he takes in his geeky work, before his world collapses. Across McEwan's oeuvre, "The Innocent" reminds me the most of "The Comfort of Strangers", since the narrative in both these page-turners veers suddenly into the macabre. Unlike many of McEwan's books, the lovers-this time, Leonard and Maria-connect in both strategy and action. But this clean connection yields a grisly misadventure. "The Innocent" is an involving read. But the squeamish might enjoy "Atonement" more.
Rating:
Summary: NOT your usual Ian McEwan book
Review: This is a really unusual book, esp coming from a writer of Ian McEwan's stature. It's part psychological horror, part espionage, part mystery, part coming-of-age, part character study - and it's splendid.
Set in 1954 in Berlin, before The Wall was built, it's the 'true' story of the construction of a secret spy tunnel so the Brits and the Americans could spy on the Russians, whom they no longer trusted. Much to his surprise, Leonard Marnham, an extraordinarily innocent and naïve British postal technician, is recruited to participate in this top-secret operation. A virgin at age 25, Leonard falls in love with a pretty German divorcee, and his initiation into the pleasures of a sexual relationship follows. The couples becomes engaged, but their world collapses into macabre horror on the night of their engagement party. The 80-plus pages that follow this horrific event are gruesome and spell-binding at the same time in a way that only a superb writer could possibly handle.
The ending, leap ahead 30 years to 1986, feels a bit contrived and distanced, esp after the intense and personal material that's just been revealed.
At its best, it rivals Pulp Fiction and Fargo for explicit shock value. At its worst...well, it doesn't have a 'worst.' It's really, really good.
But: Ian McEwan???? Who knew?
Rating:
Summary: A tale of two 'special relationships'
Review: Though perhaps the most conventionally plotted of McEwan's wonderful novels, "The Innocent" is no less enthralling, sexy or deliciously gruesome than the rest. Here he takes an actual historical incident - a British-American attempt to tunnel into East Germany for the purpose of tapping Russian phone cables in 1955-56 - and expands it into allegory. While this story could be enjoyed simply as a spy thriller, McEwan clearly has more in mind than that. He invites us to read the sexual and political adventures of English surveillance officer Leonard Marnham, his German girlfriend Maria, and his American supervisor Bob Glass, as a metaphor for a naive England's failure to secure an interest in post-war Germany. In particular, he explores the way England's "special relationship" with America undermined it. As Maria chides Leonard thirty years later: "It was wrong of you to retreat with your anger and silence. So English! ... If you felt betrayed, you should have fought for what was yours. You should have accused me, you should have accused Bob. There would have been a fight, and we would have gotten to the bottom of it. But I know really that it was your pride that made you slink away..." She's talking about their romance, but if it isn't also an indictment of British politico-military paralysis then I don't know what is. McEwan is very good on Germany, and "The Innocent" is a great book to read along with his next novel (and, to my mind, best), "Black Dogs", which addresses evil, God and German reunification among other things.
Rating: 
Summary: still innocent
Review: Typically in a Cold War thriller, particularly one written by a Brit, you'd expect the "innocent" to be a dull-witted American anti-Communist, who comes along, wreaks havoc, and leaves, all the while deluding himself that he's made the world safer for democracy (see Graham Greene's The Quiet American). But in Ian McEwan's novel, the "innocent" of the title is Leonard Marnham, a young British telephone technician, who has come to a divided Berlin in 1955, to work on one of the great intelligence coups of the Cold War, Operation Gold, a tap on the Soviet telephone lines in a tunnel beneath the city. Not only is Leonard an innocent when it comes to superpower espionage, he's also a neophyte when it comes to women, so when Maria, an attractive German woman, approaches him in a nightclub and then begins a torrid affair with him, he's too dense to see why it might raise the suspicions.
Inevitably, the story concerns the loss of innocence, and Leonard begins to change in some frightening ways. Chiefly, he begins to associate himself with the conquering West and Maria with the defeated Germany, treating her with mounting brutality in their lovemaking, until one day he goes too far. But the lovers make it through this rough patch only to face a crisis when they accidentally kill Maria's ex-husband. This event triggers a catastrophe of international dimensions, as innocent, now become guilty, brings down everything around him. There are final ironies here that it would be unfair to prospective readers to discuss; suffice it to say that it turns out that everyone else has been just as innocent of the real world as Leonard seemed, or at least as easily duped.
The book is an adequate spy novel, with some interesting true background--Operation Gold was a real project. But in a strange way those final ironies serve to blunt the impact of the book, revealing that however corrupting were the effects of the Cold War, we in the West were never sufficiently corrupt to understand what was really going on. GRADE : C
Rating:
Summary: still innocent
Review: Typically in a Cold War thriller, particularly one written by a Brit, you'd expect the "innocent" to be a dull-witted American anti-Communist, who comes along, wreaks havoc, and leaves, all the while deluding himself that he's made the world safer for democracy (see Graham Greene's The Quiet American). But in Ian McEwan's novel, the "innocent" of the title is Leonard Marnham, a young British telephone technician, who has come to a divided Berlin in 1955, to work on one of the great intelligence coups of the Cold War, Operation Gold, a tap on the Soviet telephone lines in a tunnel beneath the city. Not only is Leonard an innocent when it comes to superpower espionage, he's also a neophyte when it comes to women, so when Maria, an attractive German woman, approaches him in a nightclub and then begins a torrid affair with him, he's too dense to see why it might raise the suspicions.
Inevitably, the story concerns the loss of innocence, and Leonard begins to change in some frightening ways. Chiefly, he begins to associate himself with the conquering West and Maria with the defeated Germany, treating her with mounting brutality in their lovemaking, until one day he goes too far. But the lovers make it through this rough patch only to face a crisis when they accidentally kill Maria's ex-husband. This event triggers a catastrophe of international dimensions, as innocent, now become guilty, brings down everything around him. There are final ironies here that it would be unfair to prospective readers to discuss; suffice it to say that it turns out that everyone else has been just as innocent of the real world as Leonard seemed, or at least as easily duped.
The book is an adequate spy novel, with some interesting true background--Operation Gold was a real project. But in a strange way those final ironies serve to blunt the impact of the book, revealing that however corrupting were the effects of the Cold War, we in the West were never sufficiently corrupt to understand what was really going on. GRADE : C
Rating:
Summary: From Innocent to Darkly Experienced
Review: Until this book, "The Innocent", written in 1989, I had only read more recent works by author Ian McEwan. He has been widely honored both in prizes that he had been nominated for, and in prizes he has won such as The Booker Prize, and the Somerset Maugham Award. If you are only familiar with his more recent work you may find yourself puzzled and disappointed as I was with this novel. The kernel this book is built around is based on true historical events. There was a major intelligence gathering tunnel built to tap Soviet communication lines that was begun around 1953 and was abandoned when discovered by the Soviets in April of 1956. The novel begins as a Cold War spy genre book, adds a love story, and then veers off wildly in a direction worthy of a Quentin Tarantino film. Until the point I mention, I thought the book was a reasonably good read; however when the bizarre turn of events came about I only finished the book as I was close to the end and I was curious how the author would bring the whole novel to a close. The author wrapped up his tale, again using a piece of history, but he did so in a manner that was as outlandish as the acts spawned by the final decisions of the protagonist, and made this portion of the book funny, even silly. I have greatly enjoyed other work by Mr. McEwan and I will continue to read his new books and continue my way back through his earlier published tales. From my experience with what I have previously read, this is an anomaly for him, and I would not suggest it as a first venture in to this author's work.
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