SOURCE: Reynolds, Oliver. “A Master of Accidents.” Times Literary Supplement, no. 4928 (12 September 1997): 12.

In the following review, Reynolds proposes that each of McEwan's novels follows a template of three parts revolving around a male-female relationship, an external threat to that relationship, and a definite focus on language. However, Reynolds faults Enduring Love for its asides on scientific theory and the vagaries of love, and its use of multiple narrative points of view.

Early in his second novel, The Comfort of Strangers (1981), Ian McEwan calls up Mozart to usher in the theme which virtually dominates all his work. Colin, who is on holiday with Mary, hears a man singing in the shower: “tra-la-ing the forgotten words, bellowing out the orchestral parts, ‘Mann und Weib, Und Weib und Mann, together make a godly span.’” If one were to produce a template for the McEwan novel, its three essential features would be...