![]() ![]() When writers raise the bar, isn’t it only fair to test their subsequent efforts not just against the books they already outmatched but against their own previous personal best? Once an ice skater has included a quad, doesn’t every program without one seem just a tad safe, no matter how perfect the triple axels?Īnd I’d say “safe” is a good word for Sweet Tooth, along with “flat” and “smart” - and, again, only for McEwan would that last term not be entirely praise - smart is the least I expect of him. And yet I’m not sure that pristine anonymity is quite what we want. ![]() If only books could be read “blind,” as orchestral auditions are sometimes done now - with the author’s identity concealed and so no preconceptions or biases to come between us and the words on the page. If Sweet Tooth were not by Ian McEwan (author, as is stressed on the cover of my edition, of Atonement - one of my very favorite recent novels) would I have been disappointed in it? How unfair, in a way, that the burden of great expectations should interfere with my appreciation of this well-crafted, elegantly told tale with its clever premise so smoothly executed. ![]()
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