The Cement Garden [Taschenbuch]

This novel is filled with rotting things: snacks discarded under beds like dirty socks; ancient leftovers which ferment into a truly mean cuisine; undumped rubbish which converts an otherwise pleasant backyard into an horrifically pungent landfill.The undisposed of body of Mommy, however, is at the heart of this shocking novel, and the stench of decay which eventually reeks from her cement coffin is suffocatingly descriptive of the ripe state of mind which gradually envelops these wild youngsters. In language both simple and explosive, Ian McEwan has created a story of hallucinatory proportions. What kinds of relationships would children develop among themselves if left entirely on their own? There are moments of rather eerie adolescent tenderness in these pages which provide fresh (ah!) food for thought. These kids seem bizarre. But are they? You may or may not care to live with (or like) them, but a few hours spent in their creative company might just make for a mighty sound investment. Read them!

"I did not kill my father," this slim novel begins, "but I sometimes felt I had helped him on his way." Soon the mother is dead as well, and four children are left to fend for themselves in a secluded house in a dying part of the city.

There's Julie, the eldest, a ripe & willful beauty who's almost a woman; there's Jack, the narrator, a boy bewildered by his growing body & appetites; there's Sue, bookish & ever-observant; and then there's Tom, the baby of the family, who actually seems to get younger, regressing as the days go by. These four form an uneasy family, slowly learning to be self-sufficient in this strangely apocalyptic setting.

But an intruder in the form of Julie's new boyfriend threatens their fragile stasis by asking too many questions. How long have the four of them been alone? And just what is buried under the crumbling pile of cement in the basement?

This book has been mistakenly marketed as a horror novel; it's horrific, sure, but not as horrible as the pulp that defines the genre. What makes it particularly good is its characters, the children who are both recognizably sympathetic and exotically extraordinary.

Ian McEwan has created a taut & provocative thriller written in pitch-perfect and stripped-down prose. Beyond being a macabre morality tale, The Cement Garden is a psychological-suspense yarn, a perceptive portrayal of adolescence that will keep you riveted up to the final, climactic scene in an upstairs bedroom.

McEwan, Ian, The Cement Garden, 1978

A fascinating book, some similarities to "Lord of the Flies" in that the author examines the behaviour of a group of children, here from one family, when their educators, the parents, are not there.
The parents die early and leave their children behind. The father is the first to go: He has a weak heart and is also a weak character who, nevertheless, assumes the role of somebody who has the say in the family and acts out his ideas, like laying out a garden according to his wishes, a small miniature world, well-ordered, well-planned, an artificial rockery with little paths (which the children tend to ignore and use as steps only - symbolism!), and as a kind of platform, a little lawn in the middle like a platform (on which later Julie, the oldest girl, uses to sunbathe - symbolism!). Well, this father plans to cement the space in front and behind the house and he drops dead over this work (symbolism!), while the narrator, 14-year-old Jack, who is supposed to help him, is masturbating in the bathroom (symbolism!). Where the father was weak and unimportant, the mother is weak and passive. Soon after her husband's death she fades away into the background, is mysteriously ill, doesn't leave the bed anymore, obviously too indifferent and disillusioned. The kids assemble in her room, little Tom just wants to be with her in the bed. The kids celebrate one last birthday in her dying-room, the oldest girl, Julie, stands on her hands, so her skirt drops down, the others do other tricks - grotesque symbolism! - and then the mother dies.
It's the time before the summer holidays, very hot (symbolic!), so they don't know what to do with their mother. They use the cement that had been delivered for their father's plans to put her in a case in the cellar and put the cement over her.
They live pretty anarchically from the beginning - the book starts with the three bigger children examing each other's genitals - as they always tended to ignore what their parents wanted them to do - once the parents had to go out and they didn't leave their children without giving them a lot of instructions and admonitions, but as soon as they had closed doors behind them, anarchy and chaos broke out. This anarchy is also set free after the death of the mother. Jack is heavily masturbating and neglecting hygiene. What comes to light is a rather primitive pattern of behaviour: They drift into a trance-like world of their own. The two girls Sue (about 12) and Julie (about 16) unite against Jack who at first rather fades into the background. Tom falls back into the state of babyhood and puts on a girl's dresses, which is encouraged by Julie, who more and more assumes the role of leader and mother. She takes up a relationship with Derek, a snooker player, who tries to find out about their secret.. Moreover, it begins to smell in the house, there is a crack in the cement tomb. From the beginning Julie did not have sex with Derek, and when she now finds out that he wants to lay open their secret, she turns away from him, but too late, he is already smashing the cement tomb with a sledge hammer while she is seducing Jack, the two are joined by Sue and little Tom is watching, in other words, the inherent anarchy in the children has welded them together. Ending: The children are in bed together as outside the police cars pull into the yard.
The book is full of a heavy symbolism: They live in a run-down area that is obviously supposed to be cleaned up. Their house is one of the last ones that are still standing before a background of some high rises and in an otherwise dilapitated environment. Like Graham Greene in his short story "The Destructors" McEwan is obviously interested in the anarchism and vitality of young people in a world of collapse and destruction.
Maybe the symbolism is a bit too heavy, but nevertheless thought-provoking. So is his style and point of view. As I said it is from Jack's point of view, and since Jack doesn't understand too much of what is going on around him, he gives us mostly descriptions and details, which are often quite grotesque, at least very strange, and invite the reader to form his own explanations and interpretatioins if he doesn not only want to be puzzled by what is going on.

17th March, 2007
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