Black Dogs, by Ian McEwan

I brought four books with me to Europe, but managed to finish only two: Melissa Bank's The Wonder Spot and Ian McEwan's Black Dogs -- we had a busy trip that left little time for reading.

Black Dogs is not one of the more acclaimed works from this literary master of our time. Nor does it contain one of his extremely disturbing tales. Nevertheless, this being a McEwan novel, it left me unsettled in the end. One would be hard-pressed to find a central plot. Instead, we are presented with a series of loosely connected stories and a whole lot of philosophical musings on Communism, Fascism, the roles that parents and children play, ... It may sound boring, but it is not at all. In fact, it is terribly thought-provoking, perhaps too much so. McEwan's well-wrought prose is also a joy to behold. It has been a long time since a novel has left such an impression on me.