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Summary: What Comfort with Strangers?
Review: I loved the book. Couldn't put it down. Although I didn't feel for any of the characters, I also didn't feel anything against them either. It is amazing how it is the story not the characters that McEwan creates. It is the story you will remember most even if you don't want to remember the story.
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Summary: Truly frightening
Review: I read the book after seeing the movie. Both were excelent. The dialogue was taken almost word for word from the novel. The book was truly frightening, and I don't read sci-fi for thrills. The evil characters are evil personified, the victims are so very human in their needs, wants and desires. See the movie, but read the book first.
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Summary: Wonderful
Review: I saw the movie first with Helen Mirren & Christopher Walken. It was STUNNING!! I highly recommend the book & the film.
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Summary: Atmospheric and haunting
Review: I should start out by saying that I was not among those who felt that the novelist's later work, "Amsterdam", lived up to the hype and acclaim that it received. I enjoyed that story, but I am sure there were other works that were more deserving of the Booker Prize. That said, I was more absorbed by this story, finding it both suffocating and intense.
McEwan gives a very graphic and descriptive sense of a city, presumably Venice, where a bored couple, Colin and Mary, find themselves for a languorous vacation, filling in the days with aimless wandering, pot-smoking and sex, on occasion. The street sounds, the high-walled, narrow lanes and alleyways, add to the sense of entrapment that gradually makes its way into the emotional state of the main characters. Their encounter, which they later come to realize was by design, with the jovial but intense Robert, leaves them non-plussed but curious. Their time with Robert, and then his wife Caroline, brings them almost unconsciously under an unspoken kind of spell that results in a rediscovery of passion bordering on obsession for eachother. Perhaps more rational people would have fled much earlier from Robert - of course, if they had, there would be no story, or perhaps a different story to tell here. Colin and Mary, both blinded by their idealism, allowed themselves to be manipulated by a person with a deeply obsessive personality, who embraces fantasy with a dangerous exuberance. The story leaves questions where we look for answers, raises doubts when we think we have it figured out, and through it all, McEwan writes with a kind of macabre relish that is at times discomfiting, but left me impressed by the storytelling.
Rating: 
Summary: Frightening and Bleak
Review: I think this book is atmospheric and frightening. It is also very ugly. With all the talk about how haunting," and "stylish" the book is, I think it's only fair to warn the reader that, without going into specifics, it's about homosexual rape and torture.
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Summary: Second Novel by Ian McEwan
Review: I would guess like many readers I came upon this writer's work when he began receiving international acclaim for his work, "Amsterdam", in 1998 when the novel won The Booker Prize. I have read his work that has been published after that tale, and now have been going back to his earlier work, a decision that can be very rewarding, or quite the opposite. I suppose expecting earlier work to be less mature or skillful is reasonable, but there are also writers that appear with an initial work that is very good or even excellent, and they manage, with some exceptions, to keep the quality of work very high. Other writers peak with their first book, there are no rules."The Comfort Of Strangers" is the second novel that Mr. McEwan published, and it would be fair to call it more of a short story. I don't know what divides a short story from a novella from a novel; it appears publishers use the terms interchangeably at times. From the two earlier works I have read, this book along with, "The Innocent", Mr. McEwan to date, sits in the category of writers who get better as they hone their craft. This may appear to be the normal course of a writer's development, but we all have read otherwise. My primary complaint with this book is that the author worked around the fringes of what many would consider taboo conduct, darts in for a moment or two of detail, but does not fully explore the issues he touches upon, nor does he complete his tale. Another author that I am a great admirer of is Penelope Fitzgerald who said she never let her characters decide where they would go in a story, she decided their every move. Now again this may sound obvious, who controls their characters if not the author, but she was speaking of having a plan for her players from opening page to closing paragraph. Mr. McEwan does not manage the detail of his characters here, he asks the reader to fill in the detail or in some cases the blanks. In this book I do not like the decision he made, but for admirers of his work that wish to go back to his earlier published material, this is a quick and interesting read of an author that has gone on to be internationally recognized.
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Summary: A great psychological thriller
Review: Ian McEwan creates a real page-turner, with intriguing characters and a climactic scene so tense that I had to put the book down and take a few deep breaths in order to continue reading. The Venice setting is amazingly described and this is a book I strongly recommend for both Thriller and Venice-lovers. Tantalizing, horrifying and compelling book about two naives who've fallen into very perverse company.
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Summary: Concise novel, excellent writing for Comfort of Strangers
Review: Ian McEwan is a master of painting a vivid picture and telling a gripping tale, while not wasting pulp.. Comfort of strangers is an excellent example. As I read I could visualize the scenes. McEwan is hard to put down. I did not feel much emotional connection to any of the characters but I doubt I was supposed to. Recommended read...
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Summary: enjoy the elegance
Review: If you're only interested in an involved plot and want to skim the surface of novel and still get enjoyment, this book is not for you. The novel delves into the beauty of Venice, the almost sinister beauty. From the opening paragraph, it is evident that the couple involved are trying to ignore evil lurking right outside their door. This novel also searches the intricasies of reltionships between men and women. Intersting commentaries on modern feminism and its effects on both men and women. You might not agree, but its simply to intriguing to ignore.
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Summary: Good Early McEwan
Review: Many of the trademarks we have come to expect in McEwan novels are already here in this early novel published in the U. S. in 1981, the ironic title, the complexity, the psychological tension, the ambiguities, the questions left unanswered. I was handicapped in reading this novel in that I had already seen the movie so it was impossible not to see Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson getting lost in those maze-like alleys in Venice. (Nowhere in this slim novel, however, does McEwan name the city where the sinister action takes place.} On the other hand, since I knew the outcome, I could look for and admire the clues the author gives as to what will happen. McEwan does an excellent job of setting the tone for what ultimately occurs early in the novel. As early as page 17: "Colin and Mary had never left the hotel so late, and Mary was to attribute much of what followed to this fact." There are lots of references to the sexual tension between men and women in addition to many homoerotic allusions throughout the book that prepare you, at least in part, for the shattering climax of this horrific little novel. McEwan always gives the reader a story that appeals both to the intellect and the emotions. As usual, he doesn't disappoint us. One of the joys of living in these times is awaiting a new McEwan novel.
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