Ian McEwan - The Cement Garden

I have mentioned before that I'm a huge McEwan fan. At the start of this year I had three of his novels left to read, of which The Cement Garden was one. It's a funny thing, reading through a favourite author's entire works. On the one hand, the goal is obviously to finish - to read them all. On the other hand, there is a reluctance to finish because then there will be no more of something one loves. Luckily, McEwan has a new book out later this year, so reading one of his earlier novels and ticking it off my TBR (to be read) list seemed appropriate.

The Cement Garden was McEwan's first novel. The publication of this and his second novel, The Comfort of Strangers, caused him to be nicknamed 'Ian Macabre', and rightly so. Like many of his works, this is a seriously disturbing book. It is narrated by Jack, one of four children whose parents both die early in the novel. Various critics have suggested there is a strong Oedipal subtext running through the story, which is referenced in the first line ("I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way") and realised in the final scene, which I will not describe for fear of revealing spoilers. It is indeed plausible that McEwan drew on Freud to create the dark undercurrent that runs throughout, because the book is deeply unsettling in a way that is difficult to precisely define.

Jack is the second eldest of four siblings who decide after their mother has died that they don't want to publicise what has happened and risk being put in care, which would almost certainly result in their separation from one another. The pact they make to ensure things stay as they are, and the way this pact is physically manifested, haunts the rest of the book and taints it with a clammy sense of unease.

McEwan is at his best here; no word is out of place. His writing is visceral, nuanced, the heat of the summer palpable, the sloth of the children in their humid, festering surrounds somehow gripping.

As a mother, I found many of the passages worrying. Is this how all children feel or are these very unusual children? Tom, the youngest of the four, reacts to his mother's death with obvious grief, but this is soon overwhelmed by his concerns about being bullied at school. He goes through a phase of wanting to be a girl, and another of wanting to be a baby, which Julie, the eldest child, gladly entertains. The other children do not appear to react to the death of their parents with any grief or sorrow - instead, for example, Jack describes feelings of elation and hysterical joy at his newfound freedom. But we glimpse through Jack's narrative lense various activities that might hint at deeper feelings underneath: Sue, the younger girl, keeps a diary in which she records imaginary conversations with her mum. Julie occasionally lets Tom into their dead mother's room, which she has preserved behind a locked door, where he lies in her bed and tries on her clothes.

Jack himself allows his personal hygiene to fall entirely by the wayside, and we are treated to lengthy passages about his multiplying spots, sweaty clothes, dirty bedlinen and his greasy hair. This is in direct contrast to his sister Julie, whose beauty grows throughout the book, alongside Jack's illicit but pronounced attraction to her. From early on the children are shown playing 'doctor', a game which as adults we tend to regard as learning stripped of sexuality. McEwan, of course, does not let us off so easily. Sexuality is rife in the childhood he describes, and this too is discomfiting.

Although this is not a scary book, I found it difficult to read after lights out. McEwan's genius lies in unnerving us at some profound, subconsious level so that we are left on edge without quite knowing why: there are no monsters here. Instead it is the monsters within all of us that he depicts so well. His use of language is perfection, the characters vibrantly alive and the plot winds inexorably towards the inevitable finale.

Overall assessment: 4 out of 5. I know I should probably give it 5, as this really is McEwan at the top of his game. But I find it difficult to award 5 stars to a book that leaves me feeling so disturbed, and where I find the characters so nasty. I also tend to prefer the work McEwan does when he is exploring philosophical questions of art versus science, belief versus rationality (see Saturday, Amsterdam, Enduring Love). But if you are looking for a short read that will have you biting your nails and squirming in your seat, there's no doubt this is it.