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When I pick up a book I expect two things from it: entertainment and knowledge.
Why do we read? It’s always for one of these two reasons, whether it be a ‘trashy’ romance to amuse us on the beach, a thriller to keep us company in the dark hours of insomnia, or a desperate attempt to improve our dinner party talk by trawling through the latest ‘it’ book. Regardless of the reasons I pick up a book, if it doesn’t teach and amuse I tire of it pretty quickly.
Nineteen Eighty Four is one of the most fantastic books ever written because it explores our surveillance obsessed society, exposes the threat of political tyranny whilst also entertaining its readers with images of Winston desperately trying to touch his toes and Julia playfully putting on lipstick like a child experimenting at her mother’s dressing table.
Victoria Hislop is another brilliant author who achieves both aims of a book. Readers of Hislop may choose her novels in a quest for entertainment, but each of her novels deals with a specific issue related to real life, whether that be the Spanish Civil War or the stigma of living with leprosy.
Books that fail to teach me something are interminably boring and often predictable. Equally, I have struggled and failed to finish books that critics hail as containing some of the best sentences ever constructed. No matter how hard I try I cannot finish Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, nor will I ever make it through War and Peace by Tolstoy. These books are just too heavy and although I can admit Rushdie has attempted to create entertainment, it wasn’t amusing me.
Ian McEwan’s The Children Act is not what I would call a fast-moving book and I admit I picked it up expecting it to teach me more than it would touch me. I certainly did teach me a lot about law, and considering my very scanty knowledge of that subject it would have been rather amazing if it didn’t.
The Children Act follows Judge Fiona Maye through several cases as she struggles to cope with the burden of her decisions and her slowly disintegrating marriage. Fiona Maye is struck with one of her cases in particular. A case about a 17 year old boy who is refusing treatment for cancer due to religious belief. As a minor, his care still falls under the duty of the state and Maye must decide whether to respect his decision or save his life.
This book explores the complexities of the Children Act and the stigma that follows a judge who happens to make the ‘wrong’ decision. Children are complicated creatures and Ian McEwan demonstrates the strain that children, and a lack of, can put upon a marriage.
Fiona Maye is one of the most real and likable characters I’ve read in a while. She confides in the reader as one would confide in a close friend, admitting pain, but still not revealing all. McEwan has managed to create a level of respect for his fictional character not often achieved – I find that I can’t even refer to her ‘Fiona’, it feels as uncomfortable as calling an old teacher by their first name.
The Children Act is a slow-burning novel, it leads its readers down some seemingly irrelevant routes but the embers of the novel have stayed with me long since I turned over the last page.
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