“Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours […]
On Chesil Beach
“They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible.” Chapter […]
Enduring Love
“The beginning is simple to mark.” — Ian McEwan, Enduring Love Chapter 1 The novel opens with a dramatic and tragic hot-air balloon accident. Joe Rose, a science […]
Saturday
“The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.” — Ian McEwan, Saturday […]
Atonement
“The cost of oblivious daydreaming was always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before and now seemed a little worse.” Part One: 1935 The […]
Never Let Me Go
“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on […]
The Remains of the Day
“After all, what can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished?” Prologue: […]
Brideshead Revisited
“I am not I: thou art not he or she: they are not they.” — Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited Prologue: Et in Arcadia Ego Captain Charles Ryder, a […]
A Passage to India
“Except for the Marabar Caves—and they are twenty miles off—the city of Chandrapore presents nothing extraordinary.” Part I: Mosque The novel opens in Chandrapore, a fictional Indian city […]
Howards End
“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at […]