The Child in Time is one of Ian McEwan’s earlier books, written in the mid-1980’s. It is an odd book, the themes and subplots of which all have to do with childhood and the relationships between children and their parents, but I did not come away from the novel with a coherent idea of its message.
Stephen Lewis is a writer of children’s books who has come to that vocation by accident, because an adult book he wrote was accepted as one for children. He is mourning the loss of both his small daughter and his wife. His daughter was stolen away from him in a supermarket two years before, and the marriage broke up as a result of grief.
Lewis spends his time drinking and watching television in his filthy apartment. Once a week he sits in on and daydreams through a series of government committee meetings on education, occupying a seat abandoned by his friend Charles Darke, who has retired from public life.
Although the novel focuses primarily upon Stephen’s slow recovery from depression and return to a more normal life, one of the subplots concerns his friend Darke, who with his wife offered refuge to Stephen in his worst days. Darke is a successful young entrepreneur married to a much older physicist, and the Darkes have always been Stephen’s ideal of a mature, adult couple. After running several successful businesses, Darke became a politician and then abruptly retired to the country amid rumors of a breakdown. Stephen eventually finds that his friend has been suffering from obsessions related to a childhood that was cut short by a controlling father.
Another odd plot development is a strange vision Stephen has on his way to visit his wife. He sees his parents meeting in a pub as young adults and confirms with his mother that this was an actual event from before they were married.
Although the description on the book jacket says the novel is about the importance of childhood, that specific concept seems to fit only the story of Charles Darke. As well as having themes about childhood and parenthood, the novel is about mourning and its preoccupations. Particularly perplexing is a side plot about a book on parenting secretly written by the paternalistic government and potentially planned to be fraudulently released as being a result of the committee work.
Set against a bleak England of the 1980’s, occasionally featuring beggars and soup kitchens, the novel seems oddly dreamlike at times while at other times dark and disturbing.
What? Me Read? 