The Cement Garden
first published version
The Cement Garden is a novel by british author Ian McEwan. The novel was pubished in 1978 and adapted into a movie in the year 1993 which I did not know until a second ago. The movie has the same title and features actress Charlotte Gainsbourg which by itself is a reason for me to check it out as soon as possible because I wanted to write anything about Gainsbourg anyway.
The novel basically tells the story of a not quite normal family. The father is obsessed with covering the whole garden with cement. He dies in the beginning of the novel. A short time after the mother dies, too. The children are then afraid of being taken into foster care so they bury the corpse of their mother in the basement.
What happens then is quite hard to explain because some things happen simultaneously and others can simply not really be grasped. It is probably enough to mention that some incest is happening and the yougnest brother goes through some phases including one where he dresses up like a girl and one where he acts like an infant to get more attention. It is quite scary how long the children live by themselves before anyone notices that something is going wrong.
This novel was recommended to me by my ex-girlfriend about two years ago and I completely fell in love with it. I was more than happy when I read the title on my literature list for University because that proved to me that I was not the only one who saw the greatness of this abstrusity. Anybody who is into classic literature or things that happen outside the frame of what society claims to be normal should definitely take a look at it.
The novel basically tells the story of a not quite normal family. The father is obsessed with covering the whole garden with cement. He dies in the beginning of the novel. A short time after the mother dies, too. The children are then afraid of being taken into foster care so they bury the corpse of their mother in the basement.
What happens then is quite hard to explain because some things happen simultaneously and others can simply not really be grasped. It is probably enough to mention that some incest is happening and the yougnest brother goes through some phases including one where he dresses up like a girl and one where he acts like an infant to get more attention. It is quite scary how long the children live by themselves before anyone notices that something is going wrong.
This novel was recommended to me by my ex-girlfriend about two years ago and I completely fell in love with it. I was more than happy when I read the title on my literature list for University because that proved to me that I was not the only one who saw the greatness of this abstrusity. Anybody who is into classic literature or things that happen outside the frame of what society claims to be normal should definitely take a look at it.