By Megan Thomas
I do not deny the shame associated with the fact I’m about to tell you: this was my first Ian McEwan book. But woah, what a literary landmark to start with! I had no idea what to expect but I did have unwavering trust in the friend who recommended it, @dududo_art (who also took this aptly artful picture for me because I returned it before taking one). While she gave me a couple of warnings (“there’s incest”), I still went into this novella somewhat blind.
What I then saw was a projection of the effects of unchecked/unrefined humanity. When four children are left to their own devices after the passing of their mother, they decide to tell nobody. There is, of course, the issue of her body, though, which leads to the next of many extremely stress-inducing decisions: to use the leftover cement in their basement to hide it. Of course, this has varying degrees of impact on the children. While the youngest begins to regress to his infant self, the older children are forced into roles beyond their years.
The Cement Garden has been likened to Lord of the Flies (which, again shamefully, is another classic I’ve somehow never read), but from what I know of the latter, this makes for a good comparison generally speaking. However, what I find particularly remarkable is how the unraveling of this family into a strange, volatile and feral state scoops us up into the chaos, making us a sympathetic ally rather than a horrified bystander. I felt part of their secret, desperate for their toxic bubble to remain intact, terrified that they’d be found out (despite this unquestionably being the right course of action).
The intricacy of the characters and their motivations furrowed into my brain, making me feel exposed and reflective throughout. What a skill McEwan has! To be able to not only build an entire world in only about 160 pages, but to somehow build me into it, making it such a personal reading experience. How strange it must be for you, to read it without me.
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