Black Dogs is 1992 historical novel by the British author Ian McEwan. The story is fictional, but it’s presented as the non-fictional memoirs of two idealistic British communists who live through the aftermath of World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall. The novel has themes of love, faith, and political ideology, as viewed through the eyes of a married couple as they travel through the cities of Europe. The novel is narrated by the main characters’ son-in-law Jeremy. Jeremy was orphaned at the age of eight when his parents were killed in a car accident, and he has spent the time leading up to his early adulthood looking for a place to belong and way to feel cared for. He goes through life feeling lonely and aimless, until he marries a woman named Jenny and latches on to his new in-laws, Bernard and June Tremaine. To Jenny’s annoyance, Jeremy almost instantly develops a close bond with both her parents separately, as they are no longer married. He learns that Bernard and June were devoted members of the British Communist Party in the late-1940s. Once very much in love, the pair ultimately separated over ideological differences that they could not reconcile. Bernard was a skeptic and atheist, while June discovered a burgeoning religious faith and became a devout believer in God. Jeremy finds their story interesting and revealing, and decides to record it even though he knows it will cause Jenny embarrassment. He begins by telling how Bernard and June married just after the end of World War II. Both are cultured and educated members of the upper class, with little practical or material experience. However, they both firmly believe that communism can make the world better, and through devotion to the communist cause they can ultimately help shape society into a utopia. In 1946, the couple leaves on a honeymoon to Italy and France. While hiking through France, June begins to feel ill at ease with the entire journey. She cannot appreciate the beautiful sights, and a stop at the ancient sacred burial ground called Dolmen de la Prunarède leaves her feeling particularly uncomfortable. Rather than being able to embrace the adventure of traveling through Europe, she only wants to go back to England where she is comfortable. She begins to realize that adventure and political activism is not what she really wants, and that she would be much happier with a home and child. In addition, she resents Bernard’s inability to live in the moment and examine his life. For his part, Bernard harbors a secret resentment of June as well. He thinks that her work translating documents for the Communist Party is useless, and only notices her because he is attracted to her. They both feel like they do all the work in the relationship and are essentially supporting the other partner. When both of them are members of the Communist Party, they agree on everything, and their fundamentally different ways of looking at the world do not come into conflict until later on. When they reach Italy, Bernard and June volunteer with the Red Cross. It is then that they begin to see the horrible aftermath of World War II and all the suffering it has caused. In one town, every person they meet is mourning the death of a family member, and all the villagers are too shell-shocked to even notice when the Red Cross volunteers arrive and when they leave. This drives both of them to despair at their inability to enact real change in the world. Bernard retreats further into his political ideology, but he is short on new ideas and retreats into platitudes. While hiking in the mountains, June has a terrifying encounter with two black dogs. She manages to fight the dogs off, but she feels that it is only because God interceded on her behalf. The event has a profound effect on her, taking on outsized importance in her mind. To June, these dogs come to represent all the evil in the world, including the horrors of war. Since the dogs seem to her to be supernatural creatures, she thinks only supernatural religious powers can defeat them. Bernard and June return to England where they set up house and have three children. However, they are never as close as they were before their honeymoon, and June soon takes the three children and leaves Bernard to move to France. Though they continue to visit each other and both have a presence in their children’s lives, they never reconcile. The novel ends with Jeremy thinking about the black dogs. He accepts their symbolic importance to June, and believes that they are still around, waiting for the right moment to bring evil back to the world. Jeremy is left to sort out the conflict between reason and faith embodied by Bernard and June. He ultimately decides that dealing in absolutes not only led to the couple’s separation, but is ultimately an untenable way to live.

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Ian McEwan

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