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The Child in Time | 
 enlarge | Author: Ian Mcewan
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £3.05
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Rating:  33 reviews
Sales Rank: 8268
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.7
ISBN: 0099755017
EAN: 9780099755012
ASIN: 0099755017
Publication Date: June 5, 1997
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk Review
The Child in Time opens with a harrowing event. Stephen Lewis, a successful author of children's books, takes his 3-year-old daughter on a routine Saturday morning trip to the supermarket. While waiting in line, his attention is distracted and his daughter is kidnapped. Just like that. From there, Lewis spirals into bereavement that has effects on his relationship with his wife, his psyche and time itself: "It was a wonder there could be so much movement, so much purpose, all the time. He himself had none." This beautifully haunting book won a 1987 Whitbread Prize.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 28 more reviews...
 mcewan at his best November 20, 2008
R. Altman (Oxford, England)
the child in time is a good example of what mcewan is all about. not the place to go for a gripping page turner, but thoroughly absorbing in every stroke of the pen.
mcewan is aware of the complexities of life, and through a linear medium is able to present a layered, textured, 3-dimensional portrayal of the situations under his attentive gaze, characterised by his micro-vision.
the child in the title is at once a central character, the nature of children and child rearing, and the child in all of us, as it comes and goes. similarly, the rest of the title refers to times in life and lifetimes, the particular time in our history, pure time in existence. (perhaps at the time of writing, 20 years younger, mcewan was more interested than he might be today, in questions of coincidence, serendipity, synchronicity and the like, laced with the mystical possibilities of the then new physics.) so the title itself is already a paradigm for the entire work and the method of working.
the writing is delightful; incisive and insightful, sympathetic and at times poetic.
an excellent introduction for newcomers and a treat for fans.
At times a difficult read, but ultimately a rewarding one July 10, 2008
Jack Barnes (London)
Well, to all those that didn't like this novel, and feel the need to attack it - guess what, it's literature, not everyone's going to like it. Criticism is fair enough, but some of the reviews are just childish and boring.
I found this to be a truly disturbing read - the opening incident is truly harrowing, and the aftermath is what leads the ptotagonist, Stephen, into a story of touching sensitivity; an exploration of loss and what it is to need to be found.
What I found interesting is that there was always something at stake for the characters in this novel, always something to be gained or lost, which really heightens the drama. It had a beautifully constructed narrative arc, and the ending for me was spot-on.
Not my favourite McEwan by any means, but for fans of his work, a truly rewarding read.
Warning when reading these reviews March 28, 2008
Pearl Pugh
Please bear in mind that as this novel is or has been used (as so many reviewers mention) as an A Level text, many of the reviews are coloured by having been forced to read it as part of an academic qualification. While this doesn't mean that their opinions are invalid, I think it does mean that they tend to overanalyse the content and structure of `The Child in Time'.
Nothing wrong with English Lit students but it can be hard to distance yourself from essay head and put on your reviewer hat for a while.
Personally, I do prefer some of McEwan's other work.
 Is clever enough? January 15, 2007
Bryony Balmforth
12 out of 19 found this review helpful
Ian McEwan is like champagne. In fact not just any champagne, but the most expensive champagne on the menu. He is superior, he exudes class, and he is the preferred taste of the refined.
In simple terms A Child in Time is a novel about child abduction, and a parents response to that. At a deeper level the story is hinged upon the two key themes of childhood and time, and is laced with satirical observations of modern society. "In every child there is a hidden adult and in every adult there is a hidden child" is a pivotal observation placed early on in the novel and one which repeatedly returned to. There is Kate, the child that disappears one day in a supermarket and held forever more as a child in her parents minds as they are robbed of her future, Charles, the adult who regresses to childhood in a breakdown, the surreal experience that Stephen, the father, has of floating back in time watching his parents discuss whether or not to have him aborted. Time, McEwan is saying, is not a constant. Time is malleable.
The plot itself is by no means the defining reason for reading this book. Character development is not done by McEwan for its own sake and therefore you never feel particularly sympathetic towards any of his characters. In every character detail (and one thing that Ian McEwan is renowned for is his almost exhaustive attention to detail) there an agenda. Every action or experience of any character is related to a theme. Children. Time. Children. Time. Every sentence is cleverly carved for achieve maximum literary effect. Even the structure of the text has a purpose as the observant reader will notice clever shifts between conditional, perfect, and imperfect tenses to demonstrate passage or insurmountability of time.
Essentially then this novel is clever. The plot is middling, the characters are average. But the overall package is clever. My problem though with this book, and in fact with McEwan in general, I just don't always need clever. I don't need to be reading a book and pouncing on paragraphs spotting on literary devices. Sometimes I just want to be reading a book because quite simply I am desperate to know what happens at the end.
Which is the thing with champagne isn't it? You would almost never turn it down. You even feel a little bit special to be drinking it. It makes you feel worthy. Yet, just sometimes, maybe you don't want champagne, you just want half a lager.
For the head and heart November 22, 2006
J. D. C. Gingell (Gloucestershire, UK)
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
Like the previous reviewer I feel compelled to counter some of the criticism levelled at 'The Child In Time', a novel I believe to be one of Ian McEwan's finest.
The novel follows a narrative trajectory that is common to many of McEwan's works: one significant - and in this case highly tragic - event leads to a period of disintegration and an exploration of themes.
In 'The Child In Time' a virtuosity of interwoven storylines all centre on the protagonist Stephen Lewis, and offer a deep exploration of the nature of the personal and the private. These two worlds are juxtaposed brilliantly, and with great subtlety. Stephen is presented as father, children's author, member of a government committee on childcare and friend. As in 'Saturday' there are lengthy passages involved with the minutaie of professional life - in this case Whitehall - but perhaps some of the political machinations become more relevant to the reader when viewed as embodiments of the Government stance on childcare, and the more self-centred ideology of the time. It is wrong to criticise the book on account of these sections seeming 'dull' or 'irrelevant' as has been the case below, as they are all part of the common theme of the novel; whether political life is relevant to the reader or not should not matter when it is the nature of time and childhood that is in fact being discussed. This is relevant to us all.
Further weight is given to McEwan's premise in the contrast of the rural and the urban; the rural embodying the return to the private self, the public world of city life presented as a complacent treadmill of government reports, noise and people.
Whereas a novel like 'Enduring Love' cannot live up to its infamous opening passage, 'The Child In Time' has a sense of balance that is hard to find in many modern novels. Whilst certainly not a traditional closure, the unity and proportion of the novel is nigh-on perfect. Whilst it may be a novel of Ideas, and for the most part follows the protagonist's masculine emotional bluntness, it is also by the end profoundly moving. A spine-tingling climax to a genuinely brilliant novel.
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