Sweet Tooth

Somehow-- perhaps with all the moving-- I had missed that Ian McEwan had a new novel. Luckily, Cronin mentioned it when I saw him at Vroman's and I did not delay in picking up the 70's spy 'thriller,' Sweet Tooth. 

Now, I'm about half way through and I love it. Spies obsessed with writers, writers obsessed with spies, a dirty London and the seventies... this book has everything! The NYTimes called it "clever, but annoying,"(I've heard that before) so I'm wondering if maybe the annoying part kicks in somewhere after the first half. For me, it feels like a strange but satisfying window back into a version of living in the UK. 

When Serena rides on a bus through Central London, from North to South,  I recall reading Barbara Trapido's Brother of the More Famous Jack (a feel-better gift from Iona) perhaps because the two books oddly remind me of each other. Or at least their heroines. 

And curling up to read Sweet Tooth in my poetry bedding-- the fluffy luxury I bought for Scotland, I recall being curled up in my castle room at Dean's Court watching The Cambridge Spies and reading le Carre novels. I can't bring myself to do too much else this holiday week besides replicate that level of comfort. (I mean, I have things to do. I'm dog sitting. I'm going to my aunt & grandmother's for Thanksgiving.)

I don't know that I'll feel by the end the way I feel about this book now, (I hear the feminist in me really won't!) but for now, I recommend it. And for now, its textured world is just what I need.