The novel uses “enduring” in its ordinary meaning: it writes about an ill person’s feelings, how it could be in a positive meaning persistent, accepted by the society, the love lived in normal setting in its real meaning enduring. And there is a third kind of enduring: a healthy man’s astounding reaction fed upon his passionate and full of sadness feelings.
The author introduces three kinds of enduring love: the love used in everyday meaning in the relationship of Joe and Clarissa; the love lasting after death, jealous, passionate, insane love Jean Logan’s love for her dead husband; and the love of Parry suffering psychological disorders and having deviant behaviour for Joe, which society cannot accept.
The question might arise, which is the most demented, unceasing love out of the three?
The love accepted by everyone and following the norms proves to be the weakest. The tie between Joe and Clarissa cracked very early with Parry’s emergence. There is no doubt about Jean Logan’s enduring love: after years lasting marriage the amorous green-eyed women breaks out investigating the circumstances of her husband’s death. Still Parry is the one who merits the truly enduring adjective. Round of condemnation – even, if he felt only part of it as real rejection – impressing, incomprehensible with human mind – this might be why it is called psychological illness, de Clérambault syndrome.
A fourth potential enduring love is in the background. We cannot preclude thought from the back of our brain: is it true that John Logan did not have a lover? Was it really only friendship? The author does not soothe us about the young ladies company. The story is told, that Logan was not the one escorting the young woman. But if McEwan truly wanted to make us believe the reality content he would have told through the thoughts of Joe. After all Joe keeps himself away from deliverance: neither does he let us know whether the story is based on reality and if it does what he thinks about it, nor does he tell if it does not based on reality and they only made up the story to calm down the widow. Did Logan pay with his life for his enduring love? Because if he did, he would be in great contest with the others.
We have the ground to hope: if we defeat the malicious, ill love, the love in real life can be ever lasting; the real norm following love could be enduring. As for one of the endings suggests…
2.
The plot commences with a hot air balloon accident which disturbs pick nick. This is about an extraordinary, rarely happening tragedy, and an interviewer asked the author about this choice:
„(...) There’s a helium ballon falling to earth in a field, and people are rushing toward it. Was this image the genesis of the book?
No, it wasn’t the beginning. (…)”
The sparkle of the complication in the novel jumped out. As a result of the tragic event the lives of the characters change: Logan’s death brings out a self charge, self dispensation, soul-searching from Joe, Parry becomes a sufferer of de Clérambault syndrome. These shifts let the conflicts start in the novel and wrap the action further on. Joe fleas to Parry’s harassment from searching for his identity and putting his sense of guilt in his pocket, which Clarissa cannot tolerate on the long run, their relationship taints. The plan not to take notice of things will bring even bigger intrigue to Joe as he ever guessed. Their life is shaded by Parry’s harassment and the fear leads Joe to buying a weapon for self-defence. Even the reader thinks this is an exaggerated step (the confession inconsistent to reality about the attempted murder would make Parry’s existence indefinite), but our main character’s suspicion about the illness of his worrier proves to be true: Parry driven by remorse leads Clarissa captive, forcing Joe: to look on while he commits suicide. The attempted suicide falls flat. After the lashings of incredulity the reader can only acknowledge happy ending for a minute, as the author had added another alternative ending, leaving the novel’s ending open and twisting the reader into uncertainty – loyally to himself.
The most important sub-plot: Jean Logan
First, the main line of the plot is given by Joe and Parry, but there is an important sub-plot, the story of Jean Logan the widow of Logan. We cannot be appalled, and after it not to draw a parallel between Parry and Mrs. Logan. The line of the sub-plot opens, when Joe visits Logan’s widow, more or less to make himself feel less guilty and tell the widow how brave her husband was. An unexpected reaction comes from the woman: without bereavement she feels tormenting jealousy, the idea that her dead husband had a lover is much more vigorous and the feeling that her husband betrayed her had left a much deeper wound on the widow than the tragedy. Foolish feelings that are brought on the human again by the concept of love.
Secondly, why it is very important that Joe visited Jean Logan is that his memory clears here. This is where he becomes aware of de Clérambault syndrome, while the kids are playing with the curtains.
How many short stories are there in this piece of literature?
If we think through the plot of the novel, we can state that there are three stories, three longer stories, which make up this piece of art. The most important one is Joe’s and Parry’s absurd relationship, which is given by Parry’s harassment and Joe’s identity change. Their tie is not unilateral: both of them affect each other, mainly negatively. Parry is in pain because of Joe’s refusals. Joe is also suffering because of Parry’s harassments.
The second short story’s main character is Jean Logan with letting the reader see her also absurd psychological courses. We get insight to a left alone family’s life, where the head of the family is mainly interested by the fact whether she had been cheated by her husband during his death.
The third short story is given by Clarissa’s inner struggle. Her seven years relationship with Joe, turns out not to be as intense as it should be.
