Sweet Tooth and empty calories
Sweet Tooth is available at National Bookstores. Hardcover, Php995.
With his latest novel Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan revisits scenes of his former triumphs. Sweet Tooth is set in the world of espionage, like The Innocent, and is ultimately about writing, like Atonement. It is clever, diverting, it just zips along—the ideal book for a longish commute. However, it is glib and flimsy.
This novel does not offer the cold sweat excitement of The Innocent (the part in The Innocent where Leonard is lugging that suitcase across Berlin is so nerve-wracking, we began to chew on the pages) or let us into the protagonist’s dread, guilt and paranoia. It does not have the scale, invention, ambition or emotional wallop of Atonement. (Even if you feel that you were tricked by that book, you can’t deny the sense of having lived through something.)
We don’t feel much for Sweet Tooth or its heroine Serena, an entry-level employee of British Intelligence assigned to recruit a writer for their secret propaganda efforts. She’s just not that interesting. Fine, she’s 23 and callow, but Briony in Atonement is 13 and the novel is propelled by the things the child doesn’t know. (Sweet Tooth has a gimmicky explanation for this which we do not find amusing.) The love affairs which set Serena’s story in motion are disposable, and there’s really not a lot at stake. The last-minute mention of Operation Mincemeat reminds us that there are many terrific spy stories out there, but not in here.
What we find really worrisome is the prose. This is a novel by Ian McEwan, who can give us whiplash with a sentence. Bits of Sweet Tooth sound like Facebook updates by a high school classmate you wish you could un-friend. (Yeah there’s an explanation for this, no we’re not buying it.)
If someone else had written this at the start of their career, we’d call it promising. Recommended: The Innocent and Atonement by Ian McEwan. If you want a great spy novel in the same dreary early 70s London setting, there’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John LeCarré.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
January 17th, 2013 at 09:56
Ian McEwan is one of those writers I’ve always wanted to read, but had never gotten around to actually doing it.
I had started reading Atonement several times in the past year, but I got distracted by Christopher Moore, Mccall Smith, and just several days ago by suzanne collins.
Since I always check this blog for book recommendations, I swear I will read Atonement (and others) before this month’s over.
Right after the hunger games series.
January 17th, 2013 at 12:11
You can finish Hunger Games in half a day. Let us know if you like Atonement and we’ll give you some more McEwan. Thanks for recommending Sacre Bleu.
January 17th, 2013 at 16:14
Hi, Jessica.
I’ve read Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and watched the movie version. Haven’t read nor watched Atonement. Which book-movie combo do you think is better? (I do not mean this to sound like a value meal.)
Thanks!
January 17th, 2013 at 23:09
Interesting question. Joe Wright’s adaptation of Atonement was very faithful until the big reveal. Tomas Alfredson’s movie of Tinker Tailor was excellent, but compressed a lot of stuff. Hey, both movies featured Benedict Cumberbatch.
We’ll wriggle out and say: Tinker Tailor the book and the 6-hour British TV series starring Alec Guiness as Smiley.