Exercises

«Exercises» — an emotional psychological drama for leisurely reading with elements of the author's biography, structurally reminiscent of scattered pieces of a mosaic.

In the middle of the 20th century, when the world was still counting the cost of World War II, the life of eleven-year-old Roland Baines turns upside down.

His military father takes him from Libya and places him in an English boarding school, where his vulnerability attracts a young piano teacher, Miriam Cornell. The irrational and tragic first love will run like a red thread through the boy's life.

Much later, when Roland's wife disappears, leaving him alone with their small son, he will seek answers both in his youth and in the history of his family.

Ian McEwan describes the chronicle of turning points in European history from the 20th to the 21st century through the prism of Roland's life, a typical representative of his generation.

«When reading this multifaceted and eventful novel by Ian McEwan, you cannot help but recall the ironic pun of the title of another novel — "The Art of Cutting and Living" by Bulat Okudzhava. There is also a subtle line of wordplay here: Lessons — is what the book is simply called in English. But this simple title, at first glance, includes many meanings, balancing between the lessons of playing the piano that the hero takes in childhood and the lessons of 'living', when musical exercises almost imperceptibly turn for him into exercises in playing the piano, relationships with people, political activity, in short, into exercises of life. In these endeavors, the hero suffers one failure after another: he became neither an outstanding pianist, nor a prominent political figure, nor a prosperous family man. The reason for his life failure — selfishness multiplied by indecision and fear of life's challenges, which often required him to be decisive and unequivocal in his decisions and actions. And such exercises were never offered to him...» — Oleg Alyakrin, translator.