The Comfort of Strangers

Ian McEwan

This isn't a novel whose plot needs more than two or three sentences to outline. A couple on holiday in Venice fall into conversation one night with Robert, a local. They meet him again several times over the next few days although it's not clear whether these meetings are engineered by chance and the smallness of the city or by Robert himself. Ignoring (or perhaps drawn by, it's never clear) the warning signs that Robert is a dangerous companion, a sado-masochist and a stalker, the couple are eventually drawn into an elaborate trap laid by Robert.

There is much that is elegantly handled in the novel. The strained atmosphere between the couple, the languor that descends on us when we're only partly enjoying our holiday and the peculiar relationship that Venice has with its visitors, all are brilliantly observed. The only complaint I had was the slightly rushed ending and the vague feeling that the brief punchline wasn't worth the beautifully described build up.

The obvious comparison is with Death in Venice, another very short novel sharing the same location. In fact the strange and hypnotic Robert, a terrific fictional creation who is only given a few dozen pages by McEwan, reminded me more of the Conchis character from John Fowles' gigantic novel The Magus.