The Cement Garden

by Ian McEwan

2001 cover edition here

In the relentless summer heat, four abruptly orphaned children retreat into a shadowy, isolated world, and find their own strange and unsettling ways of fending for themselves...

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Novels, Literature, Classics

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Ian McEwan studied at the University of Sussex, where he received a BA degree in English Literature in 1970 and later received his MA degree in English Literature at the University of East Anglia.

McEwan's works have earned him worldwide critical acclaim. He won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976 for his first collection of short stories First Love, Last Rites; the Whitbread Novel Award (1987) and the Prix Fémina Etranger (1993) for The Child in Time; and Germany's Shakespeare Prize in 1999. He has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction numerous times, winning the award for Amsterdam in 1998. His novel Atonement received the WH Smith Literary Award (2002), National Book Critics' Circle Fiction Award (2003), Los Angeles Times Prize for Fiction (2003), and the Santiago Prize for the European Novel (2004). He was awarded a CBE in 2000. In 2006, he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel Saturday and his novel On Chesil Beach was named Galaxy Book of the Year at the 2008 British Book Awards where McEwan was also named Reader's Digest Author of the Year.

McEwan lives in London.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Cement Garden is a town Gothic tale… A very dark coming-of-age story.
What do adolescents have to do when they’re left on their own?
The narrator is about fourteen… He is full of angst…

I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way. And but for the fact that it coincided with a landmark in my own physical growth, his death seemed insignificant compared to what followed.

The world isn’t a friendly place… Maybe it is better to stay away from it…

Most houses were crammed with immovable objects in their proper places, and each object told you what to do – here you ate, here you slept, here you sat. I tried to imagine carpets, wardrobes, pictures, chairs, a sewing machine, in these gaping, smashed-up rooms. I was pleased by how irrelevant, how puny such objects now appeared.

Isolation ruins the ordinary human values and it sets its own moral laws.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Recipe for a lightweight Cement Cake à la McEwan

Take Lord of the Flies, and mix it carefully with Flowers in the Attic. Once you see that the ingredients have formed a foamy, light and creamy texture, with the young characters wiped out in generic sweet-sour blandness, you put the cake in the oven, and wait for sixty minutes, just enough time to read through the novel.

Once the plot has been baked, you make sure to add incredibility and incest as additional spices, end it in an predictably wannabe-hot, but actually rather lukewarm decorative sexual shock icing on the cake.

Put the cement cake on the Bake-Off table and be assured it will win prizes for the categories:

Indulging in sinful calory counting
Word Baking Fast Food Style
Effectful Surface and Texture
Easy on the Digestive System
Meaningless Pleasure
Sweet with a Bitter Aftertaste

It may not win the first prize, as it causes slight nausea afterwards, and it contains too many nuts and unnecessary ingredients. But on the whole, it is a light meal for lazy summer days, and is particularly tasty with an alcoholic beverage of your preference!

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

FIABA NERA


Charlotte Gainsbourg è Julie, che in questa foto prende il sole nel giardino di cemento, Jack è interpretato da Andrew n. Robertson, che abbandonerà presto la professione, e Alice Coulthard è Sue.

Non ho ucciso mio padre, ma certe volte mi sembra quasi d’avergli dato una mano a morire.

Partenza forte per questo primo romanzo di Ian McEwan.
E come dice Jack nell’incipit, è vero che non ha ucciso il padre, ma lo ha lasciato morire senza chiamare aiuto, senza prestargli soccorso: e, quindi, sì, si può dire che gli ha davvero dato una mano a morire.


In un altro ‘angolo’ del giardino di cemento, Julie, Jack, Sue e il piccolo Tom.

Il padre muore presto. Tipo non particolarmente raccomandabile, certo non affettuoso, facile all’ira, non amato dalla moglie, che se non ne festeggia la dipartita eterna è solo perché anche lei è messa male, confinata a letto da una malattia, vera o presunta, che se la porta via poco dopo la morte del marito.
Il padre s’era incapricciato di un progetto ben strano: realizzare un giardino di cemento, dove a predominare era il colore e la sostanza della calce invece del verde di fiori e piante. Un progetto ancora più strano se si pensa che la casa dove abitano è come una specie di fortino circondato da palazzoni e grattacieli, l’ultima roccaforte di un mondo che rifiuta di adattarsi, trasformarsi (crescere?).
Col cuore non proprio saldo, maneggiare grossi sacchi di cemento non è lo sforzo che un medico raccomanderebbe: e infatti è proprio per questo che l’uomo viene stroncato da un infarto.


Jack e Julie giocano a mamma e papà: dopo la morte dei genitori, i due fratelli maggiori assumono il ruolo di capifamiglia, spingendosi fino a condividere lo stesso letto, e i piaceri carnali ad esso associati.

Jack è in bagno intento a pratica masturbatoria: si attarda per completare l’opera onanistica e quando raggiunge il genitore è troppo tardi.

Credo che definire disfunzionale la famiglia di Jack sia quasi eufemistico: padre e madre, che muoiono a poca distanza uno dall’altra; quattro figli, due adolescenti, Jack e sua sorella maggiore Julie, 15 anni lui e 17 lei, e due più piccoli, la tredicenne Sue e Tom, che di anni ne ha solo sei.
I maggiori, Julie e Jack, capiscono che se non vogliono finire in mano ai servizi sociali, parcheggiati o affidati uno di qua e gli altri di là, rinchiusi in qualche istituto per minorenni, devono tenere nascosta la morte della mamma.
Così ‘nascosta’ che la madre finisce dentro un baule in cantina che, per evitare odore sgradevole, viene ricoperto dal cemento del titolo.
Cemento che comunque segue il suo scorso: si crepa, proprio come quello del cosiddetto giardino, la puzza viene fuori, ed è inutile dire che è quella del cane morto e sepolto in cantina: Derek il fidanzatino di Julie, quello che scatena più di una gelosia in Jack, Derek sgama che qualcosa di losco è stato combinato dai quattro ragazzini, inclusa la sua fidanzatina Julie, e decide di intervenire.
Intervento a suo modo liberatorio: forse anche per il lettore che è messo intelligentemente alla prova dalla nota perfidia di McEwan.


Morto il marito, la madre, interpretata da Sinéad Cusack, non si alza più dal letto, accoglie i figli intorno a sé, finché anche lei muore.


La cantina non è solo il luogo ‘geografico’ dove si nascondono segreti e intorno a cui ruota buona parte della storia: la cantina è anche metaforicamente quella che ciascuno ha dentro, nel cuore o nella mente, probabilmente nell’animo, e che McEwan si adopra, credo con un certo qual piacere, a esplorare, entrando negli angoli più remoti, negli anfratti più riposti, a cercare segreti, parti scure e oscure.

La cantina è l’intera casa che si isola e protegge dal mondo esterno, con questi quattro minorenni che vogliono restare insieme, uniti (Jack e Julie in unione compenetrante, quella che di solito si definisce incesto), fermare il tempo, congelarlo: e chissà che il cemento non serva anche a quello, a bloccare il processo di crescita. Eterni adolescenti, eterno bambino Tom, il più tenero, che si diverte a travestirsi, soprattutto in abiti femminili.


Charlotte Gainsbourg aveva 21 anni quando girò il film, ma alle spalle già un’intensa carriera d’attrice.

Sì, con questo suo esordio nella narrazione lunga - ancora relativamente lunga: il romanzo ha solo centocinquanta paginette, si legge in un soffio (trattenuto) – MeEwan ci regala una fiaba nera.

Il film fu scritto e diretto da Andrew Birkin, il fratello di Jane, e quindi lo zio della protagonista Charlotte Gainsbourg, scelta di cast felicissima (ma anche gli altri ruoli sono ben centrati): la figlia di Serge e Jane incarnava alla perfezione il fascino tentatore, e perverso, della bella adolescente. Andrew birkin, più noto come sceneggiatore che regista, con questo film vinse un meritato Orso d’Argento al festival di Berlino.

[Fabian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will ever these tales of incest cease? Well, my true guess is no, for they sure do captivate (lookin' atchu V.C. Andrews [...R.I.P., girl]!). Another case in point: this early novel from major Nobel contender (I'm certain of this, right?) Ian McEwan. "The Cement Garden" is considered by critics to be "Lord of the Flies"-like in its plot structure and because it contains young protagonists. But I must venture to say that it mostly resembles an early version of Bertolucci's "Dreamers" (of course by that I mean its novel predecessor)-- this is similarly an enchanted but truly megagrueling experience. After "Atonement", "Cement Garden" takes second place in the Maestro of English Prose's impressive (though... inconsistent) repertoire.

[Guille · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tras leer la novela me ha venido a la mente aquello que alguien dijo en una ocasión:

“Dejad que los niños se acerquen a mí...de los que son como ellos es el reino del Señor.”

y no he podido reprimir un "Perdónalo, Señor, porque no sabía lo que decía."

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

With Ian McEwan you will never read two novels with a similar theme. What you will read are novels that are unusual, bizarre, and often macabre. You will meet interesting , well-developed characters, often not ones you would choose for friends. You will also read some of the best prose in current literature. All this is why I am such a McEwan fan and why this was my 12th novel by this great British writer.

Children grieving for their recently deceased parents, while not a common theme, is not unusual. Not even children interpreting the promises they made to a dying parent is unique. However, the way the four children in this novel fulfill that promise - that is pure McEwan.

It is not uncommon for children of a certain age to want to be free from the demands and restrictions of their parents. What would happen if there were no parents to give those children a sense of right and wrong, socially accepted behaviors? This is the theme of The Cement Garden. McEwan always like to explore moral issues and/or dilemmas, explore but not preach or persuade.

The four children are, in my opinion, very accurately portrayed. Jack, the narrator, is 14 turned 15 in the course of the story. He is unsure about the sexual urges he feels. He is jealous of the attention his 17 year old sister Julie gives to her boyfriend. Sexual? Maybe, but also attention not given to him. There are sexual overtones; Sue, a pre-teen, is the nude patient examined by her older brother and sister, Tom, age 6, enjoys dressing like a girl, Julie appreciates the attention her body creates, Jack frequently masturbates but doesn't fully understand why. His mother's former warning of the physical damage it may cause is never far from his mind. All these overtones lead to the denouement, the final example of things gone awry.

Throughout this short novel the grief each child feels is evident. Without the love and comfort provided by their mother, each tries to cope in his/her own way. Even as their lives are falling apart, like their house and their neighborhood, their grief and guilt grow.

Just like McEwan's subsequent books (this was his first novel), I didn't finish it feeling upbeat, hopeful, optimistic. I love his books because they make me think deeper, question things I might not have otherwise questioned, and open my eyes to new situations. It is the literary "cherry on the cake" that his command of the language never fails. This is not a novel everyone will love. Some readers may find the evocative details objectionable and distasteful. But I highly recommend it to those other readers not bothered by these details and who value the uncommon and the mind-boggling.

[Wen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was McEwan’s very first novel, which earned him the fame and the nickname Ian Macabre. It was narrated by a 15-year-old boy on his life with his three young siblings in a secluded big house shortly after the death of both parents. They grew up in an isolated and dysfunctional family. The lack of adult supervision and sexual experiences, and the yearning for kinship while desiring individual space, led them to explorations and experiments that beyond inexplicable.
It was haunting and disturbing to say the least. Comparing to his later works I’ve read, it was simpler, more straightforward storytelling, but similarly atmospheric, with equally skilled character craftsmanship. I felt his prose was smooth, but not quite as dazzling as in his more recent books.

[Tatiana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Will it reflect badly on me if I say this book isn't sordid enough to be entertaining or truly affecting? Considering how unsettling and uncomfortable it already is?

Four siblings, ranging from 6 to 17, who have too close for comfort of a relationship (if the word "incest" flashed in you mind, you are correct - it is not a spoiler, the "action" starts on page 2), witness both their parents die within the weeks of each other. When their mother dies, they make a decision to bury her in the cellar and to not tell anyone, to keep their family intact. Left to their own devices, these children go through the motions of playing house and, you guessed it, they don't do it very well.

The Cement Garden gives a predictably disturbing and occasionally icky picture of what can happen to kids isolated from the community and unsupervised by adults. As much as I hate reading about incest, especially when it is written as some romantic device or for melodramatic effect, here it is strangely understandable, albeit not less gross.

However, the novel didn't quite work for me. I thought there was more to say about the family, the kids' parents, their path to such a taboo closeness. The point the author was trying to make with this story evaded me. I just didn't quite get it or even if I did, the novel failed to affect me as much as Atonement and On Chesil Beach did in the past. It happens rather often when I read McEwan though.

[Jared Duran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ian McEwan's The Cement Garden is, quite clearly not for everyone. There are several severely disturbing incidents throughout the book that might make some readers wonder why they bought it, and where is the nearest bookstore to return it? There are other groups both of a religious/fascist nature (the two are not always mutually exclusive) that might have it pencilled in on their "things to burn" list.

In the hands of a lesser writer, much of this book would seem vulgar. However, in McEwan's capable hands the book is instead disturbingly beautiful. The book is very short, and to say almost anything about it is to give almost everything away, so you will find no excerpts or plot points in this review. Suffice to say that The Cement Garden is a brilliant, gripping read that feels like it's over before it began.

[Sawsan]

رواية مزعجة.. بدايتها تبدو عادية عن فترة الطفولة والمراهقة في حياة 4 أبناء
وبالتدريج يتحول التواطؤ بينهم إلى علاقات مشوهة تخرج عن السيطرة في النهاية

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is fucked-up, sick, and creepy...I loved it. I love McEwan's style. He doesn't clutter his writing with unnecessary words, yet he says so much. His writing is sharp and clean. He is so good at invoking a specific mood at the very beginning of a novel, and then continuing to give the reader that same feeling throughout. Then, just when you're sufficiently creeped out or unnerved or whatever it is you've been feeling, it gets even more intense.

The book is a first-person narrative told by the eldest son of a family of four children. Two boys and two girls. It describes what the children do with themselves when both of their parents die relatively close to one another. The kids are already insular and strange, and we see how they deal with caring for themselves and their surroundings. We also see how their roles and interactions with each other change after the second parent dies.

I don't want to give anything more away, but I want to say that I like it when a book unnerves me, and this did the job.

[Stela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concrete Civilisations

Ian McEwan’s Cement Garden left me with the same disquieting feelings I had after reading William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. In fact, I became aware of their resemblance right from the beginning, not in the sense of an imitation, of course, far from it, but in the choice of the theme and the way to develop it.

Both books argue about the famous nature versus nurture, revealing how thin the shell of civilization is, how easy social conventions are forgotten when the link with society is broken. And the childhood is the most ill-equipped period of life to prevent this involution, since childhood is no secret garden, the authors warn us, but a dangerous hunting ground, be it an island or a shabby house, haunted by invisible monsters born of nightmares, transforming a sow’s head eaten by flies in a powerful Lord and a cement-filled trunk full of indiscrete cracks in a eerie garden. In the absence of the adults to sanction their moves and beliefs, children easily regress to primitive beings, barely human despite their efforts to imitate adulthood.

However, if Golding analysed mainly the gregarious psychology and the penchant for cruelty versus assertion of individuality and compassion, McEwan is interested in the crumble of the family values in all Freudian ways possible – parricide, incest, sex confusion, regression to infancy, as results of parental abuse and isolation, as it is suggested right from the beginning by the fifteen-year-old narrator:

I did not kill my father, but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way.

The story of the four siblings taking care of themselves after their parents’ death is, symbolically, the story of the world after the apocalypse, when none of the old constraints and values is applicable. The cement garden gains thus a triple significance: it refers either to the monstrous garden built by an obsessive, abusive and tasteless father, and to the ad-hoc grave of a submissive, without authority and ignorant mother and to the barren, catastrophic childhood of the protagonists left alone to discover that beings are interchangeable and rules are confusing and altogether futile in a world that gained the attributes of a perpetual, out of time nightmare:

'It's funny,' Julie said, 'I've lost all sense of time. It feels like it's always been like this. I can't really remember how it used to be when Mum was alive and I can't really imagine anything changing. Everything seems still and fixed and it makes me feel that I'm not frightened of anything.'
I said, 'Except for the times I go down into the cellar I feel like I'm asleep. Whole weeks go by without me noticing, and if you asked me what happened three days ago I wouldn't be able to tell you.'

In the end, however, again like in Lord of the Flies, the adults come back and the order is restored. Or is it? For the return to a society that will surely discipline them into the image of their awful parents is no happy ending in the dismally fascinating worlds, so different and so alike, these two great writers have created.

[Cecily · Rating 4 out of 5]

McEwan's first novel, published when he was only 30. (It was preceded by an even more shocking collection of short stories, "First Love, Last Rights", https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....)

A profoundly disturbing, but very well written book. Had I realised the true nature of it, I doubt I would have read it, and somehow the fact it is told in such an unjudgemental way almost makes it worse.

"I did not kill my father, but I sometimes think I helped him on his way", is the opening sentence. It is set in a hot summer in late '70s England. Four children live a rather isolated life in a very insular and not entirely happy family. Their father dies, and not long after, so does their mother (this much is mentioned in the blurb), leaving them to fend for themselves and each other. Tom is 5 or 6, Sue 12, Jack (the narrator) turns 15 and Julie about 16 or 17.

Bereaved, fearful, lonely, unprepared, bored (school holidays), directionless, coupled with puberty and sibling squabbles. Each tries different coping strategies, none of which really work: shy Julie (previously with a reputation for "disruptive, intimidating quietness") takes charge, Sue reads and also writes a diary, Tom regresses (a cot delivers "an enveloping pleasure in being tenderly imprisoned"), and Jack... retreats and masturbates. But those behaviours are trivial in comparison to other actions.

They lose sense of time, self and not just right and wrong, but what the rest of the world would judge as right and wrong: "Nor could I think whether what we had done was an ordinary thing to do, understandable even if it had been a mistake, or something so strange that if it was ever found out it would be the headline of every newspaper in the country... every thought I had dissolved into nothing."

I found the story gripping and oddly credible, and yet I was appalled by it too - a little like Lolita.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5*, rounded up. This is quite dark and odd, which I like, but it felt a little incomplete. It's a very short book, yet even so the narrative lacked some necessary urgency. Still, it's a compelling read, and McEwan is a wonderful stylist, though in this book he's more restrained and straightforward than in Atonement.

[KamRun · Rating 3 out of 5]

راوی داستان باغ سیمانی فرزند دوم (جک) یک خانواده 6 نفری است. تمام داستان در خانه، حیاط و کوچه ی منتهی به خانه می گذرد. اندکی بعد از مرگ پدر، مادر خانواده نیز می میرد و فرزندان از ترس از هم پاشیدن خانواده و جدا شدن از یکدیگر، مادر را در صندوقی در زیرزمین خانه، میان سیمان دفن می کنند... زاویه دید اول شخص ، سادگی نثر، نقل خاطره وار وقایع در فضایی دلهره آور از عوامل جذابیت داستان است. در ارتباط با سانسور ترجمه فارسی که باعث تغییر فاحش در ساختار داستان شده، پیش از این مطالبی شنیده بودم و در حین خواندن متن فارسی نیز متوجه بریده شدن قسمت هایی از متن شدم. با مقایسه ای گذرا میان متن اصلی و ترجمه فارسی مشخص شد که کیفیت ارتباط جک و جولی (خواهر و برادر) در طول داستان سانسور و تم اروتیک از داستان کاملا حذف شده است (از آقای مترجم بابت امانت‌داری و تعهد نسبت به خواننده ممنونم!)

She lifted herself slightly and sank down. A cool thrill un- furled from my belly and I sighed too. Finally we looked at each other. Julie smiled and said, 'It's easy.' I sat up a little way and pressed my face into her breasts. She took a nipple between her fingers again and found my mouth.As I sucked and that same shudder ran through my sister's body, I heard and felt a deep, regular pulse, a great, dull slow thudding which seemed to rise through the house and shake it. I fell back and Julie crouched forwards. We moved slowly in time to the sound till it seemed to be moving us, pushing us along.

مخاطب فارسی زبان تنها در پایان کتاب،آن هم به صورت کاملا مبهم به وجود ارتباطی خاص میان جک و جولی پی می برد و این موضوع در ترجمه فارسی از کیفیت داستان و تاثیرگذاری آن تا حد زیادی کاسته و باعث تغییر پیرینگ داستان شده است

[Ilenia Zodiaco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Morboso il tema, come sempre elegante, senza per questo smettere di turbare, la ricostruzione di McEwan. Una famiglia su cui la presenza della morte grava così tanto da trasformare i legami tra i suoi componenti in qualcosa di ambiguo, surreale e feroce. Finale un po' troppo sensazionalistico ma il valore di questa narrazione sta nella descrizione lucidissima dei corpi, delle loro trasformazioni, di come la cultura si intrecci con gli istinti e provochi desideri e repulsioni, anche proibiti. L'adolescenza è proprio l'età benedetta da McEwan che la racconta con un lucore spesso abbagliante.

[Betsy Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Told in straight-forward sentences, this first novel reads like a very good writer’s memoir. I love the deep truth of some pretty extreme behavior by a family of orphaned siblings, which portends the even more sophisticated truths of oblique human behavior in later books. There is none of the lyricism or solid chapters of inner dialogue that characterize McEwan’s style today. I’m glad I didn’t start with this book, because now that I am an ardent fan, it was even more interesting to see where he began.

[Rachels_booknook_ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I prefer my books to have more plot and way less incest.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not surprised that Goodreads recommends J.M. Coetzee to readers who enjoyed this, because my experience of J.M. Coetzee was similar to my experience with this book, which was "Yes, a very good writer but ewwwwwwww!"

I have not read Ian McEwan before, and if all his books are like this, I'm unlikely to try him again. I don't mind a disturbing book with unlikable characters who do disgusting things, but you have to give some reason to want to keep reading besides just admiring how skillfully the writer describes these sick, damaged people, and all I thought about as I read The Cement Garden was that I was glad it was short because I wanted to get through it and be done with it.

The plot is very simple: four children live alone in an old house after both their parents died. They've managed to keep secret the fact that they're orphans, so rather than be put "in care" as the Brits say, they now have the house all to themselves, thanks to regular payments from some account their mother set up before she died which the oldest girl, Julie, collects from the post office.

Being a family that was already dysfunctional before their parents died (the older three were already playing incestuous "doctor" games), they pretty much turn feral once they no longer have adult supervision. The two girls, Julie and Sue, are relatively "normal" in the sense that they can present themselves as ordinary functional human beings; Julie is very pretty, is the only one who goes out, and soon she has a "bloke," an older man who is bound to bring complications into this tidy arrangement. Sue, the second-youngest, spends all her time scribing grim thoughts in her journal.

Meanwhile, Jack, the first person narrator, stops bathing or changing his clothes, and much of the book is spent dwelling on the details of the filth beneath his fingernails, his acne, and his masturbatory habits, this being pretty much his sole pastime aside from slouching around the house inflicting his stench and his bad attitude on his siblings. Tom, the youngest boy, bullied at school, first decides he wants to be a girl, because girls don't get hit (his sisters try to disabuse him of this notion, to no avail, but then encourage him in his cross-dressing), and then decides he wants to be a baby again, which Julie cheerfully facilitates.

Meanwhile, Jack is clearly obsessed with older sister Julie in a non-fraternal way, and while Julie seems normal, even motherly, on the surface, being what passes for the voice of reason and authority in this broken household with dishes moldering in the kitchen, she clearly enjoys the power she has over her brother and is learning how to subtly push those buttons.

It is hard to imagine any of these creatures growing up psychologically healthy.

Their dystopian Never Never Land might go on indefinitely, except that there is a little secret in their cellar, hinted at by the title, and since none of the kids are big on smarts or planning, it is bound to end badly.

By the end of the book I was about as grossed out as I have ever been by a book not written by Robert Heinlein or Piers Anthony.

My problem, and the reason I am giving The Cement Garden 2 stars despite being written by a Man Booker Prize winner, is that I failed to see the point and utterly failed to enjoy anything about it. It's a macabre, almost gothic tale set in that grim, stark English urban landscape that Pink Floyd was singing about back about the same time McEwan wrote this. It's skillful and unsettling and maybe that's all McEwan intended, and surely there are people who like books that exist only to twist all their revulsion dials. But I wanted to drink bleach after reading this, and I'm only giving it 2 stars rather than 1 because I cannot deny it's very well-written and very effective at impacting the reader.

[Hugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another one from the Mookse Madness list, and I don't think I would have read it otherwise.

Unfortunately I was familiar with the plot from the film version, and this removed the key elements of shock and suspense that the plot relies on, which is not McEwan's fault. What remains seemed rather slight and rather obviously an early work.

An easy read (apart from the subject matter) so I can't really begrudge the small amount of time I spent on it, but nor do I want to write a longer review.

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Q: Before his first heart attack he had intended to build a high wall round his special world. (c)

Both grass grows and paint dries more entertainingly than this plot goes about its squiggly and 'very special' business. A real chore to read and a strike against Ian McEwan's books. Had I not had a stellar experience with his Sweet Tooth (my fav!) I would've been tempted to classify him in with the hordes of authors who can't really write and so go on to be as shocking as possible.

Mind it, I wasn't really shocked by the plot, I was more bored into disgust. The MCs I can stand can be demented to their hears' pleasure, they can go vile and conniving and do atrocious stuff or be great dolts or go whining and dripping angst and I could stand them, if (and that's a big IF!) they have at least some braincells to throw around. Here, it looked like everyone was very mentally challenged by the simple act of living, they had no communication, exhibited no critical thinking… Their mental prowess did not exceed some slugs' one. I'm pretty sure we could find some brighter tapeworms around.

Going through their attempts at whatever passed for plot in here (shock value, only not too shocking) was about as entertaining as looking at earthworms going exploring after some rain.

Yes, I think that Ian McEwan was aiming at precisely this effect. But did he really? Just how interesting can cross-dressing cement-wielding kids get? Is it all that interesting how a boy can get 'successful' in masturbation for the first time? Incest action?

The very last line:
Q: “There!” she said. “Wasn’t that a lovely sleep?”(c)
is probably about the sleep of the mind, of the sanity and maybe even of a large part of humanity which's what the kids seem to have been busy with for the most part of the novel. Really, they do nothing, study nothing, are bored senseless and are generally just going even more mad than they started with. I think it was foreshadowed nicely when Julie was saying that she lost all concept of time and feels like they've always been this way.
While my lit professor probably would've loved thinking along these lines, in reality this could be just my brain thinking up stuff that the writer never actually thought. Maybe Ian was just as tired of this whole mess as I was by the end of it and just thought: 'Darn, I'll hand it in as it is and write something snazzier and making more sense the next time!'.

Fun time:
Q:
I frequently stared at myself in mirrors, sometimes for as long as an hour. …
I felt noble and unique. I stared at my own image till it began to dissociate itself and paralyze me with its look. It receded and returned to me with each beat of my pulse, and a dark halo throbbed above its head and shoulders. “Tough,” it said to me. “Tough.” And then louder, “shit … piss … arse.” (c)

Ewww!
Q:
I did not know what the cement was for, and I did not wish to be placed outside this intense community of work by showing ignorance. …
We argued all afternoon. She knew far more than I, but I was determined not to let her win. (c) Best way to find out ignorant people: they rarely ask questions.
Q:
He replaced the pipe between his teeth like a missing section of his own anatomy (c) Can't help thinking about dear old Freud and his 'pipe' ideas. Let's just hope that in this case he would've said that this time 'pipe's just a pipe'. LOL.
Q:
We looked into her mouth and between her legs with a torch and found the little flower made of flesh. (c)
Q:
That night Julie and I locked ourselves in her bedroom and set to work filling pages with crude overworked jokes. Everything we thought of seemed funny. We fell from the bed to the floor, clutching at our chests, screeching with delight. Outside Tom and Sue were banging on the door demanding to be let in. Our best jokes were, we thought, the question and answer ones. Several of them made references to Father’s constipation. (c) Thank goodness, we've no list of those.
Q:
The possibility that Julie and I were responsible for the disintegration filled me with horror and delight. (c)
Q:
It became apparent, probably through my mother, that the plan was to surround the house, front and back, with an even plane of concrete. …
In fact, a great expanse of concrete round the house appealed to me. It would be a place to play football. I saw helicopters landing there. Above all, mixing concrete and spreading it over a leveled garden was a fascinating violation. My excitement increased when my father talked of hiring a cement mixer. (c) That's the spirit!
Q:
Father never took her seriously, he said it was daft in a girl, running fast… (c)
Q:
She wore stockings and black knickers, strictly forbidden. (c) How were they gonna enforce knickers' color? No, don't tell me. I'm pretty sure I can't take seriously any country where knickers color ever was an official business. After reading 'The Trials of Nina McCall', I'm not inclined to think the author made this bit up.
Q:
At some point during the same period my spots were so thoroughly established across my face that I abandoned all the rituals of personal hygiene. I no longer washed my face or hair or cut my nails or took baths. I gave up brushing my teeth. In her quiet way my mother reproved me continuously, but I now felt proudly beyond her control. If people really liked me, I argued, they would take me as I was. (c) They probably would. Take him. And dip him in some lake to wash it off.
Q:
she had the quiet strength and detachment and lived in the separate world of those who are, and secretly know they are, exceptionally beautiful. (c)
Q:
There was a chair for each plate. I thought, As if we were real people. (c)

[Haytham ⚜️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

يصور هنا مكيوان في عمله الروائي الأول 1978، صورة سوداوية كئيبة وبتعقيد عميق وأحاسيس مؤلمة تنتابك أثناء القراءة، أربعة أشقاء فقدوا الأب ثم الأم خلال صيف حار في وقت متقارب وهم بأعمار صغيرة، واتخاذهم إجراءات صارمة لإخفاء وفاة والدتهم تجنبًا لدور الرعاية، وتشكيل أسرة غريبة وحشية مكونة من الأخت الكبرى والأخ الأوسط، كل ذلك كان بتشجيع الأخت الكبرى التي أخذت دور الأم، والأخ دور الأب في عالمهم المعزول في حي مهجور، وبدون أقرباء لهذه الأسرة العجيبة، ووضع جانب الطفولة البريئة في طي النسيان، كانت السرية محركهم الأوحد، وأدت تلك الحالة من الطفولة المرضية المجنونة والانحلال بما لا يحمد عقباه، وتتحول حياتهم إلى شئ مشوه مجنون مرضي يطالهم جميعًا بلا رحمة.

كعادة مكيوان الوصف مبهر وعميق؛ ولكن ليس كأعماله اللاحقة ولكن كعمل أول كان سردًا مميزًا وشيق يدعوك لمواصلة القراءة دون شعور بالملل. سوف تشعر بروائح القمامة والأطعمة المتعفنة في منزلهم مختلطة بمشاهد حديقة المنزل المهجورة، وحشائش غير معتنى بها. كل تلك التفاصيل تأخذك من الغرابة إلى البغض بشكل رهيب لما يدور بشكل يثير الاشمئزاز.

{تم إنتاج فيلم مقتبس عن الرواية عام 1993}

[Cristian Sirb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nu sunt un fan al lui Ian McEwan, dar (pre)simt că ăsta-i cel mai bun roman al său! Romanul unei descompuneri.

I-am mai citit vreo 4-5 cărți - dintre cele apărute în română. Impresia mea a fost că le ratează pe final. Inclusiv pe marele “Atonement” l-a scăpat din mână (cert, un roman făcut să devină film de Hollywood), explicându-ni-l mură-n gură în ultimul capitol, nu cumva să nu-l pricepem.

“Grădina de ciment”, însă, e din altă categorie; o lovitură de mare golan, bine plasată, direct în coșul pieptului. Pare scrisă dintr-o bucată, într-o noapte de insomnie (ori de coșmar?). Lucrătură demnă de un giuvaergiu al senzualității bolnave!

Unii scriitori - ai zice că - au purces în căutarea operei lor magna, condamnată parcă să rămână nescrisă, umplându-ne incontinent rafturile cu tentative literare ce se apropie și se îndepărtează de ea, alții - dimpotrivă - încearcă să-și repete, în chinuri zadarnice, acea unică mare mișcare inspirată, de la debutul lor.

Debutul lui McEwan e mai bun decât ce a urmat.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es ist wirklich komisch, dieses Buch. Vier entwurzelte Kinder, deren Eltern beide innerhalb kürzester Zeit versterben, wollen nicht voneinander getrennt werden und versuchen daher den Tod der Mutter zu vertuschen. Durch die permanente Verdrängung und Verleugnung des Erlebten und die Vertuschung kommt es zu unglaublichen Aktionen, wie Einbetonierung der Mutter, Verwahrlosung, Gewalt und letztendlich Inzest zwischen den älteren Kindern.

Ich habe mich lange gefragt, warum ich so einer Geschichte fünf Sterne geben möchte und bin auf folgendes draufgekommen: Ian McEwan konstruiert bei so einem Plot nicht selbstverliebt dramatische Wendungen, wie es viele andere Autoren getan hätten, sondern ganz lapidar ergibt eine erschreckende Situation die andere und zwangsläufig gipfeln die Ereignisse völlig in sich schlüssig fast leise arrangiert im grossen Finale der ultimativen Schandtat. So was muss man bei diesem Themenbereich erst einmal zusammenbringen dieses völlig lautlose logische Grauen ist fast besser als jeder fantastisch angelegte Psychothriller!

Meiner Meinung nach lesenswert, aber nicht für jeden.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

I saw the movie version of The Cement Garden in the theater when I was fifteen, and completely freaked out. For years afterwards it stayed high on my list of all-time favorites. I haven't seen it again since then, though, so I have no idea what I'd think now, but at the time I just thought it was the greatest thing ever. Incest! Allegory. Incest! Foreigners! Incest! Cement. Incest! Adolescence. Tragedy! Incest! What more do you want from a film at age fifteen?

Reading this book was definitely colored by my long-ago experience of the movie, and it was impossible for me to tell to what extent. To me, this book read like a screenplay. All the characters, locations, and action seemed very cinematic, in a good way. I think it's very funny that this was originally marketed as a sensationalistic horror novel, though I guess that makes a certain kind of sense. I mean, it's a little macabre, in its way, I suppose. I really did like it a lot, though some of that must have to do with the thrill I got knowing that even Ian McEwan had to start somewhere. I actually thought this was very well-written, but it was still like looking at the pimply, gangly, compulsively masturbating adolescent who will someday blossom into a distinguished grey-haired, smirking master of the English sentence. To think, the universally acclaimed sex-pervert novelist who wrote Atonement was once a smug-looking first-time novelist in a macrame vest! This should give us all hope.

I really liked this book, and I might give it four stars. It is one of the ones where you really feel like you're in the place he's describing and can see all the people, and that's worth real points where I come from. I think I'm just holding him to a higher standard because he's Ian McEwan, also because lately I'm just giving everything three stars because.... that's just sort of how I'm feeling these days. Oh, and it was flawed. I mean, I'm pretty sure it was. But I'm so confused by having seen the movie at one point that I don't feel I can talk about this book with any authority.

[L A i N E Y (will be back) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well..! That was.. Hmm, weird?
Yes, weird.

And I'm not talking about that 'taboo' subject, that was actually not a focus in the book. Right? We just got glimpses but never full-on until the very last scene and even then it wasn't like graphic

The only thing I will say about this is it destroyed my appetite! I actually felt bile in my mouth. Not the taboo part but the burial and those cellar scenes.




It was a good thing the book was short otherwise I'd never have finished it.

[Luís · Rating 4 out of 5]

That's when the parents are no longer there.
It's a gentle summer, as told by Ian Mac Ewan in Jack's voice, when four brothers and sisters find themselves alone in a large, isolated house, free to do as they please.
It's a strange summer vacation, crushed by heat, sorrow, and boredom: Jack spends his days sleeping and indulging in solitary pleasures, Sue writes a journal, and Julie pampers Tom, who is no longer old.
How will this interlude close while a foul odor creeps in, rising from cracked cement?
Will the secret of the trunk in the cellar be discovered?
This book exudes a deep sadness that made my heart ache—something poignant, like a little boy crying for his missing mother.

[Hristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Da. Ne cam vindecă de mania de a considera lumea copiilor un fel de rai nevinovat.
O demonstrație rece, incredibil de bine controlată de McEwan. Urmărind o alunecare abruptă de pe drumul convenției care definește normalitatea în concepția civilizației noastre, McEwan nu derapează deloc, nu-i tremura nici vocea, nici genunchii. Exista o curățenie de laborator în fraze si in mecanica romanului. Incizie, departator, mușchi, vene, nervi, oase, până la măduvă, o mână eficientă, insensibilă, de medic legist.
Cred ca este o carte bine cunoscută, este un roman de debut din finalul anilor 70, așadar presupun ca subiectul nu este un secret. Elementele de șoc sunt cele care sunt. Ceea ce m-a șocat însă puternic pe lângă cele doua mari evenimente din carte, este platitudinea vieții copiilor. Tot universul lor e un plan bidimensional, nimic din jur nu se ridica la verticală. Nici la nivel arhitectural, nici la nivel familial, nici la nivel social. Și (!!) nici la nivel emoțional. O casă înconjurată de terenurile caselor demolate, o familie extinsă total inexistentă, o școală care nu contează deloc nici ca element de control și nici ca punct de referință, nicio comunitate, nicio prezența umană adultă. Si nicio emoție suficient de puternică pentru a insemna ceva considerabil în jocul vieții lor. Odată ce mama și tatal dispar, copiii capătă staturi exagerate. Ei se trezesc într-o lume eliberata de orice autoritate, orice constrângere. E ca o lume goală. Iar asta nu îi sperie, nu dau fuga după alti adulți, dimpotrivă, ei simt ca din partea lor vine un pericol suplimentar, nicidecum o salvare. Ce dovada mai mare pentru a sublinia ratarea societății ca întreg?
Lucrul care-i domină este euforia libertății, raportarea exclusivă la sinele lor și atât. Corpul si nevoile lui primare iese în linia întâi, exact ca rebelul care se ridica primul si înscrie o gașcă pe o traiectorie. Traumele lor emoționale se retrag undeva intr-o zona de întuneric unde nu exista nicio dorința de a găsi explicatii, alinări, ori soluții. Normele își pierd orice înțeles. Se impun alte convenții. Sau mai degrabă se impune lipsa lor.
Un roman mic, foarte tulburător, insensibil la fragilitatea cititorului față de care nu are prea multe menajamente.

[Jadranka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Morbidno, šokantno, uznemirujuće...McEwan odlično piše, a izvetropirena ljudska priroda nikad nije bila mračnije i mučnije prikazana. "Betonski vrt" definitivno nije za svakoga.

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Faltam-me 20 páginas para terminar este livro, mas vou arrumá-lo e já não lhe toco mais.
Por esta frase:
"Sob vários aspectos um livro chocante, mórbido, cheio de imagens repugnantes mas... irresistivelmente interessante." (New York Review of Books),
e pelas 134 páginas que já li, prevejo(-me) um "triste" fim. E não estou para isso...

O narrador é um adolescente (sempre com a mão dentro das cuecas) que vive com os pais, um irmão e duas irmãs (com as quais brinca aos médicos).
Quando o pai cai morto, em cima do cimento acabado de espalhar no jardim, o puto alisa a marca...
Quando a mãe morre ele e uma das irmãs preparam uns baldes de cimento. Depois... é uma festa...e eu nem fiquei para o "fogo de artifício"...