Rating: 
Summary: Doesn't follow up on strong opening
Review: The amazing opening sequence is probably the most masterful passage that I've enjoyed from any of McEwan's novels. A group of strangers suddenly in inexplicably swept up in a tragedy over which they have no control. Gripping, and not a word out of place. Disturbing. McEwan at his dark best.Somehow, however, the novel never quite manages to follow up. McEwan touches on a number of things: relationships, psychology, career, ambition, science - but for me the sum product was never quite satisfying. The novel centers around the protagonist Joe Rose, a journalist, who is pursued (stalked) by a man with a psychopathic infatuation that they share a special link and are bound by love. Although it is obvious that McEwan had researched the mental condition that he's reporting, I was never quite caught up by the characters. Enduring Love never quite puts the diverse elements together. In the end it reads like an interesting medical piece, not like a compelling novel. More strongly recommended by McEwan: "The Innocent" and "The Comfort of Strangers."
Rating: 
Summary: What Happened to our Marriage?
Review: This novel is home to some of the strongest contemporary prose I have read. Unfortunately, it is not built on a very sturdy foundation. McEwan demonstrates a passion for the psychology of detail, the passage of the mind through moments of an uncomfortable experience. The narration is wisely removed, yet piercingly aware throughout. Arguments travel great distances, to finally graze the heart of the matter just lightly enough to take the reader's breath. All of this particularity, coupled with the inventiveness of the novel's opening, inspires a great deal of involvement with the characters and curiosity about the events of upcoming chapters. It is disappointing then when the story strays from its main question: "What happened Joe and Clarissa Rose's marriage on the day of the cursed picnic?" The agency for their destruction is assigned to a lunatic, and we are sad to see that the marriage we have come to care so much about can be destroyed by such a man. But again, such disappointment would not be possible if it weren't so wonderfully written. It is worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Ian McEwan's an acquired taste
Review: I have acquired that taste, but it's not easy. McEwan can drive even his admirers crazy. In this book his main character isolates himself from everyone by being so incredibly obtuse that you want to scream: PLAY THE DAMN TAPE! LOOK OUT THE WINDOW! SHOW HER! Still, McEwan is such a masterly writer that he drags us through this harrowing experience jerking our chain over and over again, and we put up with it because of the skill and invention of the writer. The story is weird on its own, dealing as it does with a psychological disorder that threatens to destroy people who do not suffer from it first hand. This is true of many psychological disorders, like Alzheimer's and schizophrenia which affect all those around the primary sufferer. In this case, the disorder could have deadly consequences for several other characters, and so McEwan keeps us locked up, victims of the same obsession. It's no use to fling the book against the wall because the main character could so simply have proved his case. When you pick the book up again, it won't be any different. You just have to plow through to the end. All in all, a good book, interesting, annoying, captivating and frustating all at once. As I said, an acquired taste. EKW
Rating:
Summary: good for men who want to understand women
Review: A great book for any man who has been with a woman who reads volumes into off-hand comments, gestures, or silences. The meaning is a reality to the woman, a bizarre nightmare to the man. In this book, the "woman" is actually another man and the consequences of being misunderstood are extreme, but it all seems ordinary and plausible.
Rating:
Summary: McEwan makes me want to drink Lager. (Pun!)
Review: This is the first McEwan I've read and, Good God, was it worth it. Fantastic plotlines, right from the first chapter and it did not stop there. With marvellous description and development of character, McEwan takes you on a spiralling roller coaster ride that leaves you exhausted in your armchair. I am definitely going to buy more of this fine fellow's efforts.
Rating:
Summary: Hitchcock would love this book
Review: A very well crafted tale of horror, suspense, and an understanding of the psychological minutia of relationships which I read in one sitting. If you, dear reader, are interested in psychiatry, the place of scientists and science in the modern world, scientific fashion, obsessive behaviour, religious faith, love, jealousy, murder, moral choices, guilt, and fear then this is the book for you. It's also funny eg, '" I'll tell you in four words and nothing more. Someone wants to kill me." In the silence everyone, including me, totted up the words.'(p216) But if there is a common theme binding all these elements together, it's that no matter how well educated or intelligent you are there is no escaping the strait-jacket of your feelings, and its these feelings, of cowardice, of guilt, of fear, of the protaganist, Joe Rose, which propel the story forward in true Hitchcockian manner. The effects of love going sour, the hilarity of buying a gun from ex-hippies, the strangeness of an ordinary day turning weird are some of the many highlights of this book.
Rating: 
Summary: mcewan's best probably
Review: What is so interesting about this book is that it is about a real psychological condition that McEwan has researched. Jed Parry's enduring love for Joe Rose isn't just a homoerotic fantasy, it's a psychological malady that McEwan relates to similar cases, including one where a woman fantasized about loving a king! But McEwan relates his psychological study in the context of a gripping story that starts w/ a fantastic balloon accident, an ideal launching point for a story that is incredibly bizarre.
Rating:
Summary: Psychological teasing
Review: Just finished 'Enduring Love' and found it far more convincing, much better written, yet equally as haunting and memorable as 'Cement Garden'. Oustanding! I especially found his way of teasing the reader with bits and pieces of what you know is going to be a gripping scene nothing short of masterful. In reading other reviews on this site, I find it interesting that some question McEwan's consistency and insight into Clarissa's state of mind. Obviously these readers didn't get it. You were supposed to be sharing the doubts of Joe's sanity and viewing his 'decline' from her perspective. If there were those of you who didn't start thinking that Parry was simply a figment of Joe's obsession and a result of the shock of watching the horrific events surrounding the ballooning accident, you need to reflect a bit more the next time you pick up as well a written novel as 'Enduring Love'. This isn't the stuff of best-selling paperbacks, it's not going to hit you over the head with character motivations. You've got to think for yourself once in awhile.
Rating:
Summary: Almost nothing happens but still this book is so exciting
Review: This book is about the small things that makes life beautiful and how one event can change your life entirely. Very little action..but it`s so exciting, thrilling and fascinating, and I can not tell you why...It just is!What makes the book genious is Ian McEwans language. The book is also about how we judge gay people and what this can lead to. Great book. A must read!
Rating:
Summary: Enduring Power
Review: To my shame, I must confess that I've never read any Ian McEwan before I came across this novel. McEwan, of course, has now won Britain's Booker Prize for AMSTERDAM, but many thought he should won this leading book prize with ENDURING LOVE. From the balloon on the cover my mind had conjured up a story of magical realism, set in the Italian renaissance along with the many weird works of Leonardi Da Vinci. I was wrong. The novel is far more down to earth than that - literally. The novel's narrator is Joe Rose, who's enjoying a day out in the British countryside when something unreal happens. A balloon flight has got into trouble, due to some fierce winds, and Joe is one of the men who runs to the rescue of the boy trapped in the balloon basket. Unfortunately, one of the rescuers is killed, driving Joe into a state of shock and guilt. This is bad enough, but then Joe becomes convinced that one of the other rescuers from that day is stalking him... This is a highly intriguing read which I cannot recommend highly enough.
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