Lessons is a historical fiction that follows Roland Baines life over 70 years, beginning from the 1950s and spanning into present day in the 2020s. Having experienced trauma throughout his life, the novel explores how these events have shaped Baines’s character, choices, and relationships against the backdrop of historical events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Chernobyl disaster, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Lessons is a profound and rich story that explores the novel’s title in depth about what lessons we learn from.

Thank you to RB Media and NetGalley for the ALC in exchange for my honest review.

First, the narrator is fantastic. It felt like the perfect choice. As for the story itself, it's beautifully done, as all of Ian McEwan's work is. It was a little bit difficult to get through at times, but, ultimately, I really enjoyed this book.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy of Lessons by Ian McEwan. I really tired to like this but I just could not get on with the writing style. The chapters were hours long; only twelve in 500 pages! The timeline kept jumping around and I found myself confused on multiple occasions. I’m sure there are many people who would enjoy this book, but unfortunately I did not.

Lessons is an epic tale. And I truly mean long. Spanning Roland’s life, loves, his children, and theirs, but also the experiences of the generations gone before, and how that comes to play in shaping his own life.

It is not a black and white story, nor characters or choices being painted as good or bad, right or wrong. It is grey areas between, the behaviours of some, affecting those of others. Wrong doings, snap decisions, squandering talent, grabbing opportunities, or letting chances pass by, being present or walking away and closing doors.

We often are drawn back into his past, to return to lost loves – looking for the answers to it all.
Exploring global events, from the second world war, the Berlin Wall, Covid, to Brexit, how they effect Roland’s journey and shape the lives of the people caught up in them.

Ultimately it explores whether the lessons of youth, love or life, are ever truly learned.

“How easy it was to drift through an unchosen life, in a succession of reactions to events.”

“Only the backward look, the well-researched history could tell peaks and troughs from portals.”

“things will never be as good as we hoped or as bad as we feared.”

“Life is messy, everybody makes mistakes because we’re all fucking stupid”

I was lucky enough to be given the chance to listen to an advance audio version. Simon McBurney as narrator is incredible.
A big thank you to Netgalley, thank you Penguin Radom House, Penguin Audio, and of course Ian McEwan, for an advance audio edition of this book in exchange for an honest review!

WOW! This is by far one of the longest books I've read/listened to yet (17.5 hours).

So, it was a commitment. And then some.

It also took me several attempts to get into the audio. Partially due to the author's writing cadence and formality. Partially due to the British accent of the narrator, Simon McBurney. I just had a hard time following along.

Then I checked out the hardcover and used the printed words as a guide to keep me focused on the audio, and then things took off from there.

Reading and listening. Isn't that sort of cheating? Maybe. But I loved my experience once I got going.

The reason for the lengthy read is that the author, Ian McEwan, explores the lifetime of one man, Roland Baines. In doing so, the story covers a 70-year stretch of life, from when Roland was age 11 (and sent to boarding school) to the postwar decade to the present day.

Themes:

--Realism: Seduction by a teacher and resulting Big T trauma

--Longing for more due to being abandoned by his mother, lover, and wife

--Single fatherhood

--Infidelity and deceit

--Music and language arts

--Private life set against the backdrop of global events


Special thanks to Recorded Books for the advanced listener copy of this book via the NetGalley app. I highly recommend this book! 4.5 🌟

They say, Not every book is for you. I believe this to be true. However, I wanted to LOVE this book. I received the Audiobook version through Netgalley and RB Media (thank you so much!). I started it right away, I was so excited because I have heard GREAT things about Ian McEwan's work. However, this book was quickly sidelined as I just couldn't wrap my head around it. To much going on, Confusion and just over all not attached to any of the characters. I decided I did not want to give up on this book though. I waited until the book was published and rented the printed version from my library. I tried to reread it then, and also tried to follow the book along with the audio version. I just simply wasn't invested in the story or the characters and it never got "Less" confusing to me. I am sure this is just me speaking, and not anything to do with the Author Ian McEwan on the this issue. Overall, I felt it was written well. I DNF this book 2x at around the 30% mark.

I really have no idea how to feel about this book. I listened to it via @netgalley and I am really grateful to have had the chance to experience the book before it came out. Ian McEwan one of the pillar authors of literature and his works have been on my TBR list for a very long time. Lessons was my very first read/listen.

The book follows Roland who, after experiencing the seduction from his piano teacher, to later in life his wife leaving him and their child, goes on to seek solace throughout the years in various ways – music, literature, friends, sex…you name it. This journey is also one of self-discovery and as a reader you follow Roland through historical events that shaped the world that we know today.

It was interesting to listen to this viewpoint of the world from a man navigating his own life and place in it. The normalcy of Roland’s life against the backdrop of historical events was incredibly fascinating, and interesting to navigate through. I did enjoy the ending of the book which brought the story to full-circle and even reached the most current experience most of us lived through – the pandemic.

However, as an audiobook, the book was incredibly difficult to follow. The timeline jumped quite often and it was difficult to concentrate on Roland and the other characters (whose names I now forget) and on the backdrop of historical change. I think it was quite difficult to engage with all the characters, and I often felt quite detached from them all. I often found myself lost in the narrative and with an audiobook it was hard to go back and try to understand or mark certain parts that I wanted to return to. Perhaps this is one for reading as a physical book/ebook (I may revisit it in the future).

It does not change my mind about reading other works by Ian McEwan, because his works are brilliant and one cannot miss this due to one experience that wasn’t quite there. Thank you NetGalley and RB Media for the chance to listen to this audiobook. And thank you to Penguin books for publishing another book by an esteemed author and giving us the readers a chance to get a sneak peak!

I'm not disappointed, I just couldn't get to it! This is Ian McEwan and I was so excited, then when was listening to this audiobook (great performed by Simon McBurney) it was a little difficult to follow.

A man's lifetime, from his youth til old age with his grandchild. Roland Baines's relationships were the biggest reason that I gave this book 3-star.

This is a long book through history, more than half a century, I have always been fond of lifetime stories, so this is a good point, it is like we are on a journey to someone's family, parenting and relationship, well yes that was a fall for me, first this was a sexual relationship with piano teacher, uncomfortable as Roland was 14 years old, then his wife to abandoned Roland and their 7-month child with. I understand this is life and nothing is perfect, so this is a great book, just wasn't for me.

Many thanks to RB Media via NetGalley for ARC, I have given my honest review.

I really expected to love this book, it was my first time reading McEwan and it sounded like something I'd love. But I just never fell in love. I did listen to the audiobook and didn't love the narrator so maybe I would have enjoyed it better if I had read it instead. Lessons is a character-driven story which I normally enjoy, but I just didn't really care about Roland at all. I liked the second half of the book more than the first, but overall it was just okay.

Thank you NetGalley and Knopf for the advanced copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest review.

I had a very difficult time getting into this book. It is a long one that is very drawn out. I have said many times that I try not to DNF an ARC and if I just had the e-book I would have had to DNF. Luckily I had the audio and was able to finish the novel, but it was extremely difficult.

I've read many books from Ian McEwan, and they all are unique in their own way. This novel is very long compared to his other works, and I was lucky to receive an advance review copy of the audiobook version. Over 17 hours, and it was worth every minute. Simon McBurney makes sure that you will remember the story of Roland Baines. His narration is superb.

By the end of the book you feel like you know Roland, his family, wives, thoughts and emotions more than your own. The narrative is not linear, we are jumping back and forth in Roland's childhood memories, teenage years, and can learn a lot about his mother's and mother-in-law's background as well. The whole novel is like a spider's web: a lot of characters are introduced, and they all are linked to Roland's life.

Several pieces of this story stays with me. It gives you plenty to think about parenthood, talent, human relations, friendship and family. Another masterpiece from the author.

Many thanks to NetGalley and RB Media, Recorded Books, for this ARC.

Lessons… it was okay, but I didn’t love it. I had an audio version from @netgalley as well as a physical copy, and since it’s a pretty long book, I went about doing a reading/listening combo, but so often while listening, I’d realize I’d zoned out and would have to flip through the book to see what I had missed. I did make it though the whole book, the whole way through all of Roland’s sad life. And I wanted to love it, but I just never felt invested. Such lengthy, rambling passages. So many political and historical events that could have been interesting, again, I kept zoning out. I don’t know if it was the book, or the narration, but it felt pretentious. When I don’t know how I feel about book, sometimes Goodreads can help me figure it out. And the first few low star reviews that came up are so well-articulated snd entertaining! I had to find @lisa_of_troy on here because her @goodreads review was amazing!

Now I will say that to go along with the low reviews are hundreds of five star reviews. So I’m thinking that Lessons and me just weren’t the best fit.

I had a hard time getting into this audiobook, including several false starts. I have enjoyed several other title by McEwan previously, and the narration is absolutely well executed. For some reason, audiobooks much more so than print text, can be a bit harder for me to predict if I'll enjoy them or not. Despite my intrigue over the plot, I wasn't able to create mental space for this story. I am confident I'll seek this novel out in print soon, and I don't have any specific feedback or rationale behind why this didn't do it for me. I typically finish 1-2 audiobooks/week, but I never made it further than 90 mins into this one.

When I read the print book, or if I have a change of spirit or find the right frame of mind to "click" with this audiobook, I'll be sure to revise my review.

Format: ebook & audiobook ~ Narrator: Simon McBurney
Content: 3.5 stars ~ Narration: 5 stars

In Lessons, Ian McEwan tells the life story of Roland Baines. Eleven-year-old Roland was sent to boarding school. He has piano lessons with a strict teacher, Miriam Cornell, whom he will remember for the rest of his life. Later, when he marries Alisa, she soon leaves him alone with their infant son.

Alisa is later a successful novelist. It seems she got there because she abandoned her family. Roland is a talented pianist, poet, and even a tennis teacher. But he was never really successful at any of those things because he struggled as a single parent. One question lingers in the air. Can you achieve success if you have a family?

This novel is quite an ambitious work. It starts pretty slowly. Further on, there is really a lot of material, events, people, and details. And this could get confusing, especially at the beginning. But everything connects towards the end.

The title refers to piano lessons, but this novel can also be a brief history lesson. We can read about quite some global events from the past, for example, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Chernobyl radiation in the 80s, the Cuban missile crisis, recent pandemics, and others. Some of those global events affected and changed the lives of the characters.

Overall, this novel is an impressive achievement by Ian McEwan, but unfortunately, it’s not a book that is very readable. It’s pretty slow, and sometimes you would really need it to move faster. I would say that for many readers, it will be overwhelming. I felt it too. That it is too broad, and there are too many events captured in this novel.

I had a copy of an ebook and audiobook. Both formats are very good. For those who will find this novel too long and overwhelming, an audiobook format is definetly better choice. It is easier to get through.

Thanks to Recorded Books for the ALC! This is a voluntary review, and all opinions are my own.

Pub date: 9/13/22
Genre: literary fiction
One sentence summary: Lessons follows the life of Roland Baines from post-WWII London to the COVID pandemic.
Trigger warnings: sexual abuse, child abandonment, physical violence

I really respect what McEwan was trying to do with this book - family sagas are some of my favorite books to read, and it's wonderful when writers can capture how people and the world change over time. Unfortunately, there was too much going on in this book for me to really enjoy it. Not only did it cover a huge period of time, it also went into way too much detail about mundane things and jumped around in time a lot, so it was hard to get my bearings as a reader. The long sentences/paragraphs/chapters also didn't help - it was hard to keep everything straight in my mind. I enjoyed the audio narration by Simon McBurney, but the time hops made it difficult to listen and comprehend everything going on.

If you are a literary fiction superfan, you may enjoy this one more than I did.

Thank you to Knopf for my ARC and Libro.fm/Recorded Books for my ALC.

Lessons by Ian McEwan, one novel with way too many ideas. Individually the different prose could have been exceptional. But I was left wanting, left confused and left wondering if I just listened to all of that, for ‘all of that’. (Side note, I may have enjoyed this a lot less due to having the ARC from NetGalley on Audio, for me, with literary novels audios don’t always connect (personally)).


Rewinding now, Roland Baines… Let me start by saying the premise of starting the book when his life is all but falling part and then going back to his childhood and onwards to adulthood, had the foundations to be really interesting. Especially given that early on you are thrown into a highly immoral situation with his female piano teacher… I’m just going to say sexually assaulting him. As a young teen he believes himself to be in love and believes that she too loves him. This is off the back of been abandoned to a boarding school and receiving carless, loveless letters from his mother. In other words, this novel is about childhood trauma, that should have moved me to my core.

There is so much to unpack with what Roland went though and as a result how he lives out the rest of his life. Roland’s childhood “Distorted his relations with women”. And although you follow him on many of those relationships you don’t really get a deep and meaningful insight into any of them. On top of that, coinciding with the stream-of-consciousness of his tumultuous but utterly stagnate daily life you come across larger matters such as everything from World War II to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and finish with the Pandemic…. As well as, following what his run a way wife Alissa was up to, how she found herself, became a successful novelist and so on… So much happens, but none of it moved me.



In summary, I love books that are purely an interesting stream-of-consciousness, especially if the charter is going through major emotional growth. I also love books on World War II, and major political moments in history…. Something about Roland as a character and the backdrop of this book was just too stale for me. The writing style was long winded and tedious at the best of times. Ian McEwan’s, Atonement is one of my favorite books of all time, so I never expected to be wishing for this book to end. On that note, the ending does pick up but I’m rating this book on my overall experience from start to finish, not how I felt when I finished it.

I received an ARC of this audiobook by the publisher via Netgalley in an exchange for an honest review.

Lessons is a large book with an even larger scope. It's a character study of Roland Baines, who was born quickly after the end of World War 2 and whose story we follow up through to the COVID pandemic in 2020. Although Roland is the main character, I leave the novel feeling like the true protagonist of the story is history. The events of the past 75 years, the ups and downs. The highs of the Berlin Wall falling in 89 and the lows of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Due to the amount of time Lessons covers and the fact that it focuses on one man's life, the book could've easily turned into a plodding boring mess. But Ian McEwan shows us why he's one of the great authors of our time. The story flows and I was along for the ride, even as my attention span for bigger books has begun to wane in the last few years. Maybe it's because I have a degree in history, but there was something compelling about watching McEwan process the events that have unfolded during his lifetime through his writing.

As a warning this novel tackles child sex abuse and its reverberations in a person's lifetime (although I would say that the scope of the novel goes beyond that one aspect). So if that's a topic you're avoiding, you might want to give this book a pass. I give Lessons 4 out of 5 stars.

I really want to love Lessons but unfortunately it hasn't held my attention. I set it aside when I was 15% in as a "not right now" book. I plan to pick it back up at a later time.

THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE AUDIOBOOK ONLY

As I was approved for the audiobook on NetGalley, but not for the ebook, I had no access to the text.

This happens often on NetGalley.

It’s frustrating, as I prefer “immersion reading” (listening to the audio and reading along in the ebook).

It was particularly frustrating in this case, as I know Ian McEwan, as befits a Booker Prize winner, has a fine command of the written word.

MIXED FEELINGS

I had mixed feelings about "Lessons". I didn’t like it as much as "Atonement", one of two other novels by Ian McEwan that I’ve read

However, I did like "Lessons" enough to finish it.

But it’s far from a favorite book.

I didn’t come away from it feeling inspired.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the book.

The books about which I’m ambivalent are often the most difficult to review.

DREARY LITERARY NOVELS

Many of the books I’ve read lately by famous “literary” novelists seem to suffer from a certain joyless, dull, detached, humorless dreariness. It’s as if at least a hint of depresson is a qualification for an author to be considered a serious writer.

(The exception was John Irving's latest book "The Last Chairlift". While it was far too long, it was leavened by the author’s irreverent humor and his eccentric characters).

If these types of books were cakes and they were thrown into a lake, they’d sink to the bottom like stones.

This book suffered from the same problem, IMHO.

But maybe this dismal tone also reflects the dreariness of our times. For anyone who pays attention, it's tough not to be depressed by the constant flow of world catastrophes.

FLAT CHARACTERS

Ian McEwan's characters often seem flat, cold, and detached from life.

They aren't compelling, alive, or eccentric.

MAIN CHARACTER

Our main character, Roland Baines, was no exception.

Life seems to happen to him. He’s not a guy that make things happen. (Well, that’s true of most people, really, isn’t it? But the people that make things happen are certainly more interesting to read about).

Roland seems passive, depressed, and detached through most of the first three quarters of the book.

He’s also tormented by his past. (Perhaps that’s why he’s depressed and detached. He can’t handle the pain). He's also unhappy with his unfulfilled potential.

However, he does lose his temper occasionally. This makes him seem more human.

Towards the end of the book (the last quarter) he does come alive a bit more.

My favorite scenes in the story were an older Roland's confrontations with several key people from his past.

As an older man, he finally makes his peace with his life.

He's not a vivid or compelling character. And yet, in some ways, I could identify with him.

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

None of the secondary characters are terribly compelling either.

They include Roland’s son, his ex-wife, various policemen, his former piano teacher, etc. etc.

The only really vivid minor character is the villain, Roland’s opponent, a despicable man.

STORY

McEwan’s storytelling seems to suffer from a certain flatness as well.

BRIEF PLOT SUMMARY

The book follows the life of main character Roland Baines from his childhood through to old age.

They are his reflections on his life.

Music and tennis both play a role in his life.

He marries twice.

Roland makes his life sound so dull. But it’s peppered with interesting happenings.

For example, Roland befriends some people in East Germany, when Germany is still divided.

Roland is present at the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. This was the pinnacle of a hopeful time in history when all good things (including the spread of democracy) seemed possible. We've sunk to a more despairing place since then. Autocracy and fascism are on the rise around the world. Climate change is causing devastation already.

LOW LEVEL CPTSD

Ian McEwan is skilled at depicting a character (Roland) with low-level complex PTSD (a type of post traumatic stress disorder that comes from childhood abuse and neglect).

Roland indulges in self pity and rumination. He eventually gets past these behaviors, but they color a large part of the narrative.

Roland does finally come to terms with his past.

AUDIO NARRATION

British actor Simon McBurney is a suitable narrator.

At first, I thought his narration was part of the problem I was having engaging with this book.

Much of the time McBurney sounds flat or depressed, but he is just reflecting the feeling of the material he’s reading.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media Recorded books for providing an ARC (Advanced Review Copy) of this audiobook, which has already been released, in exchange for an honest review.

#Lessons #NetGalley

When Roland Baines was 11, he was sent off to boarding school, thousands of miles away from his parents. There, he attracted the attention of his piano teacher. As an adult, Roland’s wife leaves him and their newborn son behind to become an author, and Roland has to figure out life as a single parent.

This story was a rambling mess. Usually, I enjoy stories that jump back and forth in time, but to me, there didn’t seem to be a point for the time jumps in this book. For me, this book just doesn’t hold up to McEwan’s other works.

Many thanks to NetGalley for providing me an audio ARC of this book.