Eavesdropping on obsession

Phin Foster listens to Enduring Love

Despite box office success and moderate critical acclaim, last year’s big-screen adaptation of Enduring Love never managed to fully realise the claustrophobia and terrible intensity underpinning Ian McEwan’s 1997 novel. Richard E. Grant's performance here, however, not only conveys that mood expertly but also cranks it up a notch or two.

A performance is what one must call it. McEwan’s first- person narrative lends itself to the audio format, casting Grant as protagonist rather than mere narrator. The listener follows Joe Rose as he is driven to despair by his stalker, the enamoured fundamentalist Christian Jed Parry — a man intent upon delivering Rose both to himself and to God through “the gift of love”. In Grant’s voice, Joe’s sense of helplessness and isolation, as well as an increasing degree of madness, is eerily tangible; while the Beckham-esque nasal drawl used for the character of Parry is both unnerving and grotesque. The terse, lucid prose is conveyed superbly through the actor’s measured interpretation.

The themes of obsession, guilt and delusion — central to many of McEwan’s novels — are brilliantly conveyed in the reading, as we eavesdrop on a man being pushed towards insanity, struggling to convince his partner — sometimes even his audience — that the danger he faces is anything other than imaginary.