There are stories. Great
stories you wouldn’t recommend even to a best friend who likes this writer more
than any other person you know.
Ian McEwan’s recent
article about his early writings got me thinking about those two short-story
collections he wrote back in the 70s. First
Love, Last Rites and In Between The
Sheets. Perversity, pornography, incest, bestiality. This was the man,
remember, who came to write Atonement
and, most recently, The Children Act.
Brilliant books. But decent books.
Two stories in
particular seemed to me the most disturbing, harrowing literary creations I had
or have ever read. I tried retelling “Butterflies” to a friend the other day
and realised this is hardly possible to put into words. This is stronger than
the mental rape that David Lynch does in Wild
At Heart. This is so unspeakable you immediately wish to unread it (too
late, this will stay with you forever, so please stay warned) and equally you
wish to give this book to certain misguided, corrupted souls who would probably
learn something.
And then he follows
it up with “Conversation With A Cupboard Man” and suddenly you need Dostoevsky’s
Notes From The Underground as a
breath of fresh air. But it’s the last bus, it’s a little past midnight, and that story is all you have.
To mature is to keep
those monsters at bay. That is, to dissolve them in experience.
