Ian McEwan’s latest novel is a sprawling contemplation on humanity told through the story of one man’s life amid the major events of post war 20th Century right up to the present day.
Roland Baines, whose father is serving in Libya, is sent to boarding school in England where he meets piano teacher Miriam Cornell. Their relationship and later his wife’s abandonment of him and their baby son shapes the rest of his life.
Unable to commit, he drifts through life without purpose, prone to self deception, failing to take advantage of opportunities, emotionally supported by, sometimes exasperated, friends and lovers before eventually finding bittersweet happiness.
Music plays an important part all through Roland’s life, but at the heart of it, and his proudest achievement, is the close relationship he has with his son Lawrence.
It was interesting to see an autobiographical connection between the author and Roland regarding their siblings, (the book is dedicated to McEwan’s three), including the discovery much later in life of an older brother given away as a baby.
Ultimately the novel asks important questions, how much of our lives can we really control and how do major events shape our thoughts and actions and do we really ever learn from the lessons of the past?
At times I thought the book overlong but the characters hold the attention and there is so much of interest in it culturally, historically and and not just the better known events. For instance I hadn’t heard of the White Rose movement and was intrigued to find out more.
Some of the prose is exquisite (from a description of a bathroom to an encounter with a barn owl one evening in the Lake District).
All in all I think this novel is a major accomplishment and one that I’ll keep going back to read again.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage for an ARC

A fascinating look at one man’s life with the backdrop of historical events during the last century. The material included could have made a fascinating series better allowing the reader to concentrate on the life changing events depicted along the way. There is a great deal going on and we barely touch on many events before moving forward. The protagonist is almost detached from his own life and accepts the ups and downs in equal measure. Certainly an interesting read.

I can really relate to this book, possibly because I am a similar age to Ian McEwan. Its epic, its expansive and it covers, historically, everything that I remember from the late 40's onwards up until today, Suez, Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis, the Berlin Wall, ,Blair, the Twin Towers, the banking crisis, covid and much, much more. I loved it.
Roland is sent to boarding school where as a 14 year old at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, he has embarks on a short but passionate affair with Miriam, his music teacher, a relationship that affects and influences the rest of his life. His life then changes and his wife leaves him, without explanation and vanishes, leaving him with their young son, Lawrence.
The book examines Rolands life, his inevitable drift towards old age and decline in health and his ponderings on the past, the present and the future, the influences on his life, his parents, his music teacher, his wife who walked out on him and Lawrence his son,
Its a wonderful, wonderful book, an epic novel for our time.

A sweeping saga covering several decades. More a thought provoking look at the way we lead our lives and reflections on that. Sort of a tapestry of a life. Would be a great book club book.

This story about a man's life and the external events and experiences that impacted him was interesting.

Ian McEwan is one of my favourite writers because not only does he know how to produce an engaging story but he tackles the big themes which face humanity. This book is a story about a man and his relationships with his parents, lovers, son and others but to my mind the plot isn’t the most important aspect of it. Yes, there’s much to keep you reading on to find out what will happen with his missing wife and what happened with his piano teacher but fundamentally the author is exploring what it is to be human in the second half of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty-first.
The protagonist, Roland Baines, is a frustrated writer, musician and tennis player who reflects on his past and tries to come to terms with his present. McEwan brilliantly describes how Roland feels at various crucial points in his life. It feels very realistic and often moving.
Major events like the fall of the Berlin Wall are well described from Roland’s viewpoint as a witness.
Another great book by the author. It’s quite long and perhaps could have had a few less diversions which break up the narrative particularly early on when there’s a mystery but it’s a very satisfying read. Thanks to Vintage Books and Netgalley for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

I’ve read several other novels by this author and always forget quite how much he manages to affect me emotionally with every novel .Thos book is no exception I was deeply moved and tearful finding some sections on the book made me feel quite depressed.The author has a way of making you reflect on your own mortality and failings as you are engrossed in the story of similarly flawed people
He deals with the background story of what ultimately is child sexual abuse in a sensitive nuanced way that leaves the reader able to identify with both abuser and abused
I loved the way that the novel was able to show time by using actual news events I’d not seen this done quite so effectively before
The author switches focus from the dull mundane episodes of normal life to the giant world shattering events such as the Cold War and Chernobyl
I particularly loved the line “he wasted too much time envying his youth “ we all do this I had the immediate sense of deeply understanding this
I would recommend this book to lovers of the literary novel,this is a novel I might expect to see on the Mann Booker long list
I read an early copy of this book on NetGalley Uk the book is published by Random House Uk Vintage on 13th September 2022

Displacement, people living the wrong lives, families fractured and political turmoil ever in the background, a young father wakes to find his life is changed forever. His wife has left to find fulfilment elsewhere, a meaningful life without him and their seven month old son. Roland has his own ghosts to lay, his own fractured family, sent to boarding school and never again to feel at home with his parents. There are secrets, so too with his absent German wife, with her own history of a frustrated mother’s ambitions. She won’t make the same mistakes. Roland’s privileged white upbringing abroad has left him with political leanings to the left, he writes, he plays piano, teaches tennis, but all without too much dedication and commitment, a wasted life maybe. Nevertheless he is a good father, but he sees his past as untethered, no morals, ideals shaping his life. His relationship with his father is complicated by childhood memories and the reality of his bullying treatment of the mother.
We as readers are not privy to the inner life of many characters apart from Roland, and he is obsessively inward looking, self improving with quantum mechanics ( incomprehensible) reviewing his life and its failures. We are swept through his version of post war politics, and one can’t help feeling this is the author’s platform to spout off his beliefs, from collective guilt to reds under the bed. There are some characters like the pantomime villain, his old friend and rival where we question plausibility, but I was still gripped by how things would pan out in this slightly egotistical life.

One of the most important ‘lessons’ that protagonist, Roland Baines, learns over the course of his life is that ‘…in the old-fashioned glow of close family, made more radiant by recent deprivation, he experiences happiness that could not be dispelled, even by rehearsing every looming disaster in the world.’ Despite having been separated from his parents through boarding school at which he is abused by his piano teacher, through suddenly becoming a single parent when his wife leaves him, and through finding it impossible to commit fully to another person, other than his son, until he is in his sixties, Roland values his extended family hugely.
By taking us through this gifted yet unfulfilled man’s decades from the 50s until the present day, with brief references to the Second World War, McEwan presents his readers with a synopsis of the past seventy years. Sometimes the historical references are fascinating – Germany’s White Rose movement, for example, and McEwan is, as ever, brilliant at summarising aspects of contemporary society memorably: ‘…the world was wobbling badly on its axis, ruled in too many places by shameless ignorant men, while freedom of expression was in retreat and digital public spaces resounded with the shouts of delirious masses.’ However, there are moments in the novel when historical events feel as if they have been shoe-horned in for no specific reason other than to remind the reader that we are now in a particular decade.
McEwan also returns to the subject of the role of the writer in society. Roland’s first wife, Alissa, sacrifices everything to become Germany’s foremost novelist, globally respected for her craft. But at what cost? Roland recognises her brilliance and acknowledges her unpalatable argument that she had to leave him and their seven-month-old son in order to write. Eventually, whilst he bemoans the fact that he has achieved very little, he finally appreciates that he would rather have ‘…his family [than] her yard of books.’
Much of McEwan’s latest novel is engrossing. He is adept at focusing on the everyday details that bring his characters alive at the same time as exploring difficult and sometimes distressing subjects: the trapped teenager – effectively a sex slave did he but know it; the family torn apart by the Stasi machine; the brutal rejection by a mother of her child. ‘Lessons’ is a memorable read. Roland’s musings on how life has shaped him and on old-age and death, both trivial and profound, ring true as does his appreciation of the beauty of the relationship he builds with his grandchild. It is fitting that the novel ends with an image of clasped hands as one leads the other across a room.
My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage, Jonathan Cape for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

How does anyone review a book of this scale and scope? The second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st told through the eyes of our protagonist Roland and his family. There are at least seven different novels within this one, one about a small boy and his piano teacher, one about a brave young female journalist researching the White Rose resistance movement in WWII, one about a man left holding the baby when his wife inexplicably leaves him…… I could go on and McEwan did creating story inside a story, wrapped up in another story and with other writers it would feel excessive and unnecessary but this doesn’t. Among the extraordinary, visiting East Germany during the Cold War years there is plenty of ordinary, school runs, bedtime stories, dinner parties and working as a lounge pianist in a hotel and beautiful relationships. Roland and Daphne, Roland and Stefanie beautiful vignettes of familial love amid rich descriptions of everyday things, housework, books read, the Lake District, the joy of cycling as a teenager on a sunny spring day. I fell more and more deeply in love with this book the further I read and I know Roland will be in my thoughts for many days to come.
This ranks as one of McEwan’s finest in my opinion.

A beautifully written and mesmerising novel and there were parts of this book I thought were excellent but for me, it was a little heavy going at times and very long so perhaps it was just not my cup of tea.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this advance copy.

I found this to be an epic entertaining saga of Roland's life, with the added mystery of why has his wife suddenly left him, leaving him to bring up their child alone?
Beautifully written in an emotive and evocative style whcih made me feel real compassion and empathy for Roland, hero of the story. It is wonderfully interspersed with real life news events happening at the time.
An excellent read, well researched.

There are always parts of a McEwan book to delight a reader, and this book doesn't fail on that aspect. We dive deep into the characters; unfortunately, Roland isn't the most proactive chap around.
With such a broad historical backdrop it sometimes feels the events are more tagged on than part of the core narrative. Enjoyable nonetheless.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to review this book.

What a rollercoaster this novel was. I nearly gave up reading it on several occasions because I was starting to get a bit bored. Ultimately though I’m glad I persevered. As a whole I enjoyed the book. It was cleverly written and despite not really liking any of the characters it was a very interesting tale of the life of one man and the events, both personal and general, that he lived through and the impact they had on his life.

I have been a fan of Ian McEwan since his book of macabre short stories, First Love, Last Rites, was unleashed on the world in 1975. I have read most of his books, some I have loved, some I have been indifferent to and others - well I didn't hate them but I didn't exactly adore them either. Even as I write this, I haven't made up my mind where Lessons fits in. It's been a week since I read it and I keep thinking about it so I guess I'm not indifferent to it. Do I love it? No. And I certainly don't hate it. OK, that's cleared that up.

The tale concerns the life of Roland Baines whose life you could say has been shaped by three women. First there is his piano teacher who abused him, then his first wife who left him with a young baby and finally his second wife, Daphne with whom he is happy. The main events of the second half of the 20th century are a background to this (as is the case with others of his novels such as Black Dogs). So, we have him in Berlin a couple of days after the fall of the wall for example. While I was reading this, I couldn't help comparing it to William Boyd's Any Human Heart which takes a similar approach but with the whole of the 20th century. The difference lies in the protagonist, Boyd's is human and easy to relate to, McEwan's is not all that likeable and rather passive.

I didn't like the first third of the book and found it slow moving. The latter part of the book especially the parts relating to what happens to his second wife (no spoilers!) and the rumination on growing older were much more effective and it for this reason that I give it 4 stars and not 3. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC>

I love McEwan's writing but, much as I wanted to, I found it difficult to love this book. The narrative jumps around in time and place, and feels like more a series of vignettes than a cohesive whole.

Roland is impossible to warm to. Yes, he had a strange start in life, especially at the hands of the manipulative and somewhat mad Miriam, but as an adult he drifts along aimlessly, making nothing of his talent as a pianist.

I understand that the novel is describing a life against the background of world events, but I feel that McEwan has taken chunks out of history books, and done nothing to elevate them beyond dry facts. I was hoping they would provide the setting against which Roland lived his life, rather than be presented as a basic history lesson.

There is only one character in the novel who I cared about and that is Daphne, but her attraction to Roland wasn't convincing, nor was the scene by the river between Roland and her ex-husband Peter.

All in all, too long, too disjointed, and in the end too rushed with suddenly a cast of family members who seemed to appear out of nowhere, and a weak conclusion.

It has been years since I had read a McEwan, and sadly in that time he has not become any less intolerable with his clear belief on every page, that his work is the greatest.

Lessons is a title, lessons are not in the book The book is part autobiographical for McEwan and Roland is a largely put upon main character.

I can’t think of any part of this book that would not have been better if written by any other person with a computer.

Lessons is the story of an everyman, Roland, and how his life unfolds set against the backdrop of the last seventy years of British and Global events. It explores the myriad minor choices, most personal, but some contingent on events around Roland, that cascade outwards pushing his life inexorably in certain directions to the exclusion of others. In many ways it seems a life of "never quite....". Yet beneath it all there is hope and a gentle, persistent marvelling at the improbable nature of an individual's life set against the challenges and complexities of navigating the modern world. So much so that Roland laments towards the end of Lessons that he will not get to read the book of the 21st Century. He regrets that he will not live long enough to find out what happens to humanity given all the challenges currently facing mankind. McEwan is an incredible writer. I found almost all the characters individually fairly 'unsympathetic', yet loved this book. Special thank you to Random House UK, Vintage for a no obligation advance review copy.

This is an epic tale of one man's life spanning over 70 years . We initially meet Roland Baines during World War II as a young boy and then we're taken on a detailed journey through his life events right through to Covid times when he has reached his seventies.
McEwan chronicles Roland’s personal life challenges and their profound impact on his path through life alongside the context of real life historical events, including the Cuban missile crisis, the collapse of the Berlin wall, Thatcher policies, Brexit, climate change and the pandemic.
Whilst I found this a little heavy going at times it is an incredibly well crafted character study offering great insight into how the past is present when we carry it with us.
I am grateful to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Lessons is Roland's life story. A child of the late 1940's, his tale will resonate with his peers. History is depicted from his point of view as it impacts on his life and his aspirations. The Cuban missile crisis and the fall of the Berlin Wall are cases in point. How does he cope with child abuse when he does not realise the fact that he is an abusee? How does he correlate his wife leaving him and their young baby with the resulting devastation? These are just two of the lessons learned in this evocative novel.