Rating: 
Summary: A long short story
Review: "The Comfort of Strangers" reads like an extended version of something you might find in one of McEwan's two collections of short stories, "First Love, Last Rites" or "In Between The Sheets". It's a tale of psycho-sexual obsession (of course!), played out between two couples. It's very Bataille, and in places a little dull - though perhaps the languor is a deliberate recreation of Colin and Mary's holiday experience. It's excellent on the tiredness of a worn-out relationship and the perils into which politeness can lead you - especially overseas. It's less good at what McEwan's later works do best: integrating the philosophical material with an engaging narrative. The result is that the philosophical point - an argument about the cusp of violence and desire - needs to be explained in some passages which sound artificial, non-fictional, almost ripped from the pages of French philosophy and pasted in. It doesn't have the same 'connectedness' of his later novels. Which is hardly a criticism, I suppose: you can't fault a writer for improving. Still, McEwan fans (and I'm a big one) will find plenty to enjoy here: in particular, a plot suffused with the terrible menace for which the author is deservedly is renowned.
Rating: 
Summary: ~The Comfort of Strangers....or was it???~
Review: .............Wow, what a wild ride this was. It's about Mary and Colin, a dating couple in a stale 7 year relationship. While on vacation in an un-named location, which you are never told where they are but you know they are amongst lots of other tourists, open air cafe's by the ocean, narrow cobble stone streets, ruins and assorted attractions. One night the couple set out to have a late dinner and become lost. A strange but friendly man named Robert comes to their rescue or so it seems......Robert takes them to a bar which has no food and gets them drunk as he tells them stories about his childhood and his wife Caroline. Later they run into Robert again and he invites them to his home so he can make up for the other night promising to feed them and introduce them to his wife. That's when ........it all begins........! I will not give any more away, but Mary and Colin end up recapturing their love only to find themselves involved in something like the "Twilight Zone". I could not put this book down. The ending will amaze you!
Rating: 
Summary: brilliant, but not for the faint of heart
Review: Although this work was published in 1981, I have read McEwan's more recent novels and was vastly impressed with his insight into the pecadillos of human nature and particularly, their logical, (although sometimes despicable) conclusions. Sometimes it feels like he took lessons from the Twilight Zone, but interpreted the lessons to their most metaphysical outcome. This novel depicts a consuming, devoted,, (though sometimes taken-for-granted)love between a young couple that ends sorrowfully in catastrophe, not of their own making; albeit the friendship Colin and Mary unwittingly develop with Caroline and John is a lethal one. The characters are developed with such precision that the reader cannot bear the outcome. This author is a genius and a breaker of hearts.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing
Review: From the back cover, I thought that this would be a book that I could read on a lazy Sunday afternoon in Central Park. In my naivete, I didn't realize that it would be the kind of book that would continue to disturb my thoughts even after I shelved it unfinished. This book produces nightmares. It's well-written. It captures the mood of traveling. But, unfortunately, it will be a book that I am simply unable to pick up again with a plot I'd prefer to forget. Having said all this, I know a person whose literary taste (and stronger stomach) I hightly respect who has admitted that it was this book that caused him to run out and buy all of Ian McEwan's books.
Rating:
Summary: A Haunting Minor-Masterpiece
Review: I don't understand the criticism I've read about the plausibility, or the lack thereof, of the plot of TCOS. How plausible are our dreams, or our nightmares? In TCOS, and in his equally disquieting novel, The Cement Garden, McEwan creates characters with no moral grounding, who wander unconsciously through life. This seems to me the essential quality of his characters. Is this so implausible? Haven't we all encountered people who drift dreamily through their lives. For me, McEwan's fiction is too painfully real and, I believe, Ian McEwan is very deserving of whatever praise he receives.
Rating: 
Summary: Wretched waste of a tree
Review: I enjoy the Gothic genre of literature but unfortionatly for McEwan I had a very hard time swallowing the premice of this particular book. The fact that a couple would continue to go back to a person that had stripped them of their dignity strikes me as inconceivable. To put it simply, this book was a waste of a good tree!
Rating:
Summary: Dissapointing!
Review: I found The Comfort of Strangers to be dissapointing. At points the use of symbolism by the writer was so blatent it became mundane. For example when Colin and Mary first meet Robert they notice he is wearing a tiny razor blade around his neck. Many events in the plot were left frustratingly unexplained, instead of creating mystery, they cause the story to become unbelievable. One of these such instances is when Colin and Mary see Caroline waving to them on the balcony, although reluctant, they go to visit her. The author offers little more than a vague explanation for this fatal mistake. However although the plot is lacking and tends to lag in areas, the writing does have flashes of brillance. My favourite part in the novel is when Robert describes the ritualitic way his father groomed himself. Ultimately, I think the issues that The Comfort of Strangers raises, are far more interesting to ponder than the book is to read.
Rating:
Summary: Haunting story of Obsession and Inertia
Review: I had a hard time relating to the characters, so I think this is a bit more about the British reluctance to assert themselves or push back when faced with a challenge. The main character is assaulted by the antagonist, and basically does not respond. The imagery and writting is superb, and if you accept it as an allegory it can be a powerful story. I thought it was a bit contrived and not realistic as a straight story, but as a comment on manners and obsession it got under my skin.
Rating:
Summary: The Dark Side of Traveling
Review: I have to admit that I have not been struck by any of Ian McEwan's novels. I remember reading ATONEMENT and AMSTERDAM with anticipation and was somewhat disappointed.
McEwan, as in his other works, surely looks at the dark side of life and romance. THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS is even darker than the other works that I've read. During a time when travelers are already leary of traveling and other travelers, "Comfort" adds even a darker deminsion.
This is a book that I surely would not have finished had I been reading it in hard copy. However, narrator Simon Prebble, does a wonderful job or acting out the parts and captivating the listener.
There are many lurid and dark underlying themes to this work. It makes one reflect on relationships and love but not always in a comforting manner.
My warning is, read it at your own risk and surely not close in time to a vacation at a seaside resort.
Rating:
Summary: Amazingly Delicious!!
Review: I just finished this book over the weekend. This was the first time I was reading Ian McEwan and loved it, only because of the simple reason: He writes real well. The story centers around two so-called-lovers , Colin and Mary are vacationing in Venice ( We assume that the place is Venice as it is never once mentioned in the book, but the descriptions are good enough to reach that conclusion: Wonder why McEwan did not add the name of the place?)and suddenly bump into a couple - a rather strange couple - Robert and Caroline who seem to be quite odd and it is maybe this weirdness that attracts them to the couple. After this, I won't give away more..All I can say is that this 134 page book was an amazing read for me!! Truly enigmatic!!
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